Frank Kendall, the Air Force’s 26th secretary who served under former President Joe Biden, said in a Thursday roundtable hosted by Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that gathering experience in the field and through simulations help operators establish trust with autonomous systems, like the Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

“You have to accumulate a basis for trust over time, and so I think we just need to think carefully about how we structure things in order to make that opportunity,” Kendall said during the roundtable.

Earlier this week, the Air Force announced that it conducted the first-ever live-fire test of an inert AIM-120 from an Anduril-made YFQ-44A. The CCA recently completed an end-to-end, beyond-line-of-sight strike against a simulated target, the service announced, but did not specify when the exercise occurred.

The Air Force is scheduled to continue live-fire testing with General Atomics’ YFQ-42A this fall.

Kendall said that using the aircraft in Red Flag, the service’s leading large-force aerial combat training simulation held at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, will be “fascinating,” but he worries about the force using initial setbacks as an excuse to “retreat” instead of pushing ahead.

The former secretary was optimistic that institutional support will be enough to overcome those setbacks, saying that enthusiastic operators want to see the aircraft’s full potential realized.

Kendall recalled when he once asked an Air Combat Command crew who were developing CCA tactics why there wasn’t more resistance.

“[A young fighter pilot’s] answer was, ‘Sir, these things are going to save our lives.’” Kendall recalled.

The simulations define the exercises, he added, saying that it showcases how the aircraft protects crew fighters effectively right now even as the force needs to develop more sophisticated tactics.

“The guys with the CCAs are beating the crap out of the guys without them, and not losing any manned fighters,” he said.

Kendall said that computerized, man-in-the-loop simulations are the best tool to assist operators in learning how to use the aircraft effectively since more trials can be completed. Integrated simulations have been used by the Air Force for roughly 30 years.

“In simulators with cockpits their sensors are showing them simulated threats as well as their friends, and then they basically fight a battle together,” he explained.

Kendall referred to a time when he took a flight in an F-16 modified by artificial intelligence. In flight, the aircraft’s testers would collect data points, he said, and run a million simulations to adjust the software overnight to complete the flight again the following day.

The first increment CCA aircraft in the program are “all the same” as weapons carriers, but in Increment II, Kendall stipulates that the force can begin equipping them with sensors and possibly distributed electronic warfare capabilities.

China is working on this autonomous system capability as well, he added, stating that air battles could soon be CCA versus CCA. Intelligence is going to play a significant role in how well the U.S. understands their systems, tactics and vulnerabilities, he said, noting that it’s a “hard game” to play.

In Increment I, the Air Force showed interest in obtaining 100 to 150 aircraft, the first phase of a longer-term goal of eventually fielding 1,000 CCAs.

The Cyber Mastery Incentive Pay, or C-MIP, initiative is meant to modernize how the department encourages the Cyberspace Operations Forces, the military and civilian units responsible for cyberspace operations, according to a June 10 release.

“To incentivize our cyber forces and meet both Department of War and Defense Industrial Base needs, we need to shed legacy incentive models and invest directly in our people serving on the digital front lines. C-MIP does this,” Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata said in the release.

The C-MIP program drops the previous incentive models to a more flexible system that aligns pay with skillset mastery and performance of demanding tasks, the announcement says. The program was developed in 60 days by the CYBERCOM 2.0 unit.

The program will feature two layers: skill incentive pay and special duty pay.

Skill incentive pay, or SIP, is considered the foundational layer that rewards an individual for skill level, whether it’s basic, senior or master.

Special duty assignment pay, or SDAP, is a monthly incentive for members who perform duties CYBERCOM deems “exceptionally demanding” and scale their skills by serving in roles such as trainers or more advanced cyber positions.

“By breaking down the bureaucratic norms of government incentives, this framework enables increased lethality by driving the skills, roles and duties most vital to mission success,” Katie Sutton, assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, who will lead the execution of the program, said in the statement.

The pay incentive program is slated to begin Oct. 1, per the release. The announcement did not specify the pay incentive amount for either program level.

This initiative follows a recent push from some lawmakers to advance the creation of an independent Cyber Force military service.

A report from two D.C. think tanks examined how a proposed Cyber Force could take over the “service-like” responsibilities that CYBERCOM is currently expected to perform.

However, it would take at least one year and $10 billion to stand up the new force.

Kuwait requested the c-UAS platforms, built by Anduril, in an effort to improve the country’s ability to counter current and future threats, according to a Friday release. The request followed attacks last week carried out by Iran on Kuwait infrastructure.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally that has been an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” a statement from the State Department reads.

The approval comes days after Iran launched a drone and missile attack on June 3 that damaged the Kuwait International Airport, killing one and injuring more than 60 people.

Three days later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in response to U.S. strikes. There were no casualties, but the Saturday attack did cause some material damage, according to Kuwait’s army.

Gulf nations have been the target of strikes throughout the ceasefire and during negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, showcasing the frustration among the countries and a need for more defense capabilities, like this deal.

“The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region,” the announcement says.

The estimated $1.98 billion sale will include “non-major defense equipment,” such as lattice command and control, personnel training and software development, and it will supply Kuwait with electronic and kinetic “defeat capabilities” against unmanned aerial systems.

U.S. industry became complacent and got “ambushed by the future,” said Christian Brose, who was on hand last week at the Washington Post’s inaugural Building America Summit to discuss defense industry developments.

“There was just no way of thinking that this formidable capability institution could be disrupted, and I think that there was a failure of imagination,” Brose said.

Brose added that the nation has been “systematically failing” at making necessary changes to project a stronger footing in the U.S.-China competition. He pointed to lessons from the Ukraine war and Operation Epic Fury, adding that Tehran has been evolving technologically and ramping up asymmetric capabilities.

“We’re struggling right now with a regional power of Iran that isn’t even close to what China would present to us,” Brose said. “And we’re struggling to some extent because we haven’t necessarily learned our own lessons of Ukraine and other recent events.”

Anduril recently opened a new 5-million-square-foot facility in Columbus, Ohio, where the company produces a range of munitions destined for the U.S. military.

Brose pointed to the new facility as evidence of Anduril meeting the military’s demands — under one roof — for mass produced, quickly built weapons that cost a fraction of a munition like a PAC-3 interceptor or Tomahawk missile.

“The point is not that the government should stop buying the exquisite weapons and instead just buy ours,” Brose said. “It’s that if all you have in a fight is a Tomahawk, that’s all you’re going to use, which is why in the first opening weeks of Epic Fury, we shot eight to 10 years of Tomahawk production in a few weeks.”

Brose added that once the military puts significant dents in stockpiles of munitions that are “artisanally built and incredibly expensive,” it can take years to replenish that production capacity.

He said that Anduril is instead building systems that can be completed by workers with minimal training and simple tools, much like how the country built weapons during World War II.

“It was Rosie the Riveter, not like Martha, the master welder, who took 14 years to become proficient at every craft,” Brose said, noting that to quickly build at scale, the nation has to take advantage of the country’s industrial workforce.

“It’s a whole different approach to the manufacturing philosophy, and it enables you to scale 10x [or] 20x to get to that order of magnitude … that I think we’re going to need to be able to be relevant in these protracted conflicts,” Brose said.

America, Brose added, has been too concerned with creating perfect technology, making the process long and failures unacceptable.

He highlighted the belief of how certain older systems, like the Tomahawk and Patriot, have given the country military advantage for a generation, but the nation needs to be constantly producing, testing and learning from mistakes.

With the Ukraine war, Brose said that there’s no piece of technology that jumps out at him. Instead, it is the cycle of innovation and rebuilding at scale.

“When you look at the opening days of Epic Fury, obviously the United States and Israel have inflicted an enormous amount of damage on Iranian leadership, government, military, industrial base, but Iran’s still in the fight,” Brose said.

“They’re still in the fight because they’re using a lot of these asymmetric capabilities, low-cost drones, different types of systems.”

On the heels of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on AI innovation, Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said that he’s concerned about the category of “cyber weapons” that companies are releasing, such as Anthropic’s Mythos.

“These companies have a responsibility to ensure that their weapons, what they call weaponization potential of these models, to be careful and thoughtful about what they’re doing,” Michael said Thursday at The Washington Post’s inaugural Building America Summit.

Lawmakers have increasingly warned against the weaponization of AI models by U.S. adversaries against citizens, businesses and government agencies, calling for their crafting to include resilient security measures to safeguard against hacks.

On Tuesday, the White House released an executive order that establishes an “AI cybersecurity clearinghouse,” through which AI industry partners can volunteer to have the Defense Department scan their systems for software vulnerabilities before their release.

Michael said that companies that have models with a “weaponization capability” could allow the federal government to spend 30 days examining their systems. The government could potentially identify vulnerabilities across the country in systems with IP that could be susceptible to hacks, such as electricity grids or public hospitals.

“I think they’ve all agreed and think it’s a good idea to do that. That’s been a good constructive process,” Michael said. “I give all the companies, Open AI, even Anthropic, and Google credit for sort of agreeing that was a smart thing to do.”

Anthropic has been left out of deals with the Pentagon after the firm refused to allow unrestricted access to its Claude models for fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

The company sued the Trump administration over the federal government labeling the firm as a supply chain risk over its decision to restrict the military’s use of its technology.

Mythos, Anthropic’s new model, has drawn criticism as skeptics of the program point out that it could pose a danger with its hacking and cybersecurity capabilities. Anthropic previewed the model and announced that it was capable of finding ways to exploit vulnerabilities in software.

Meanwhile, the DoD has integrated AI throughout the department.

When posed a question at the summit about the government’s usage of AI, Michael said that six months ago, only about 80,000 federal employees were AI users each month. But now, there are 1.5 million, he stated, saying that the government has “raced” to ramp up usage among workers for efficiency, intelligence and warfighting.

“I think by the end of this year, I’d be shocked if three quarters of the department isn’t using AI in some way,” Michael said. “We’ve integrated all the biggest AI companies over the last few months, so, we’re, in one year, going to make progress more than the five years before it.”

If lawmakers decided to move forward with the development of a U.S. Cyber Force, there would be challenges to its implementation because current responsibilities are shared between the various services and U.S. Cyber Command, per the Wednesday report written by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Many observers contend that the challenge of generating military capability and capacity necessary to deter, compete, fight and win in the cyber domain can be directly attributed to the lack of a single organization responsible and accountable for force generation in cyberspace — or organizing, training and equipping the military forces operating in this domain,” the report states.

Lawmakers have contemplated the necessity of a Cyber Force for over a decade since the 2010 establishment of U.S. Cyber Command, or CYBERCOM, one of the Department of Defense’s 11 unified combatant commands.

Current efforts to create a standalone Cyber Force are spearheaded by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, as an amendment to the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

The report showcases how CYBERCOM is expected to perform the functions of both a combatant command and a military service, but a proposed Cyber Force would take over most of its “service-like” responsibilities, and thus organizing, training and equipping forces for the cyber domain.

The think tanks examined ways Congress and the Defense Department could stand up and implement a Cyber Force as a new military service with a cyber-specific mission that centers around assisting forces in conducting offensive and defense cyberspace operations.

The initial budget for standing up a Cyber Force is an estimated $10 billion to $11 billion, the report says, although that budget is already currently allocated into other services and cyber capabilities.

In the fiscal 2027 defense budget request, the Pentagon distributed $7.7 billion to cyberspace operations, according to budget documents, with $4.1 billion designated to CYBERCOM and the remaining $4.6 billion set aside for other defense organizations, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The budget request also emphasized the need for $20.5 billion for cyberspace activities and $12.1 billion for cybersecurity.

At least 20,000 active-duty personnel, 3,500 to 5,000 National Guard members and a civilian workforce of 6,000 would be needed to staff a Cyber Force if established, the report reads, highlighting that the commission envisions the force as a relatively small military organization.

“By grouping personnel into broad occupational categories within which they can specialize or generalize, the Cyber Force will preserve distinct competencies, support future changes in how cyber missions are conducted and create a professional identity strong enough to anchor training, career development and long-term readiness,” the report says.

Instead of following the precedent of other military branches, the commission recommended that a Cyber Force follows in the footsteps of the U.S. Public Health Service by employing commissioned and warrant officers for uniformed personnel without an “enlisted cadre.”

The think tanks weighed two options for institutional alignment: placing the Cyber Force within the Department of the Army, like the Space Force is attached to the Department of the Air Force, or making the Cyber Force its own military department.

If included in the Army, the force could have increased speed and efficiency since it would belong to an already existing DoD bureaucracy, but it could be then considered a lower priority.

By having its own military department, the Cyber Force could ensure prioritization of cyber issues within the Pentagon, but standing up a new DoD bureaucracy would require substantial time and resources.

Regardless of organizational structure, it would take between 12 to 18 months to reach initial operating capacity, the report states.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna’s Instagram was compromised as the hackers posted multiple artworks and stories depicting anti-American messaging.

By 1 a.m. EST on Monday, the stories and posts were removed, according to Task & Purpose, which first reported on the hack.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed to Military Times on Tuesday that Bentivegna’s account was compromised but denied to comment about how long the hackers had access to the account or who was responsible. All unauthorized content was removed with assistance from Meta, the owner of Instagram, the spokesperson said.

“This incident serves as a good reminder that online threats are constantly evolving, and users must remain alert to suspicious activity while exercising strong cybersecurity practices,” the spokesperson concluded.

Before they were taken down, the images and stories posted to Bentivegna’s account circulated unofficial U.S. military social media accounts, including the Reddit page r/AirForce and the Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco.

One post depicted a figure known as Imam Ali holding the Sword of Zulfiqar, which was given to Ali by the Prophet Muhammad and is a symbol of justice and knowledge in Islamic tradition. The hackers also posted a depiction of Husayn ibn Ali, a political and religious figure in Islam.

A story posted by the hackers included audio of Trịnh Thị Ngọ, also known as “Hanoi Hannah,” a Vietnamese radio personality known for releasing English-language broadcasts during the Vietnam War. Ngọ delivered three broadcasts a day during the war, written by the North Vietnamese Defense Ministry’s propaganda department and aimed at American troops to demoralize and frighten them.

The audio was posted with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “This is your fate if you get close to the Middle East.”

Another story, which appeared to be directly after the “Hanoi Hannah” audio, was an edit of Ali Larijani, a prominent Iranian national security official, with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “I set foot in America.” Larijani died in mid-March 2026 in an Israeli military airstrike during the Iran war.

As well as the other two stories, the hackers posted a photo of Game of Thrones character Jon Snow during an episode titled Battle of the Bastards, with a graphic that included Arabic text reading “Abu Al-Ahmar Army,” or “Army of the Red One,” and text underneath that roughly translates to “ban the accounts of the haters.”

Bentivegna did not address the hack on Instagram but did post on his Facebook on Sunday around 8:30 p.m. EST, saying that “appropriate teams” were working to regain access to the account and resolve the issue.

“If you receive any direct messages, requests, links or unusual posts from that account, please do not engage with them,” Bentivegna wrote in the Facebook post.

“Experiences like this are a good reminder that cybersecurity isn’t just an issue for organizations, it’s something we all deal with in our daily lives,” Bentivegna added.

The hackers also targeted former President Barack Obama’s White House Instagram account, posting the same image of Imam Ali holding the Zulfiqar sword, as well as stories, with one being a photo of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer killed in January 2020 in a U.S. drone strike, with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “The White House is under Shiites’ control.”

The hacks follow the recent reports received by military officials of service members’ commercial location data being used by adversaries to target personnel deployed to war zones. U.S. lawmakers said in a letter to the Pentagon that the location data can be used to identify where troops are congregated and their patterns, which then can be used to target the troops for various attacks.

Both abroad and domestically, U.S. service members have also been receiving threats through email, social media and text messages that appear to have originated from individuals connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The force’s Experimental Operations Unit conducted hands-on testing with Anduril’s YFQ-44A aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in an effort to utilize “principles of the new Warfighting Acquisition System,” according to a Thursday Air Force release.

Previously, the concept employed by the force was fully human-piloted drones, and now, “there is no operator with a stick and throttle flying the aircraft behind the scenes,” Jason Levin, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering for air dominance and strike, said in an October 2025 company release.

The testing took place sometime last week, according to a Thursday Anduril social media post written by vice president of autonomous airpower Mark Shushnar.

Shushnar said in the post that the EOU gained experience launching, recovering and turning the aircraft during the exercise, and it conducted the pre- and post-flight checks and clearances, weapons loading and unloading and direct tasking of the air vehicle during taxi and flight.

The EOU operators used a ruggedized laptop to upload mission plans, initiate autonomous taxi and takeoff, task the in-flight aircraft and manage post-flight data, Shushnar said, taking out the previous need for fixed infrastructure of a large, established base.

Shushnar highlighted how the YFQ-44A is designed to be easy to maintain with a small crew compared to traditional unmanned aerial vehicles. The exercise demonstrated that, he said. With only a couple days of training, a handful of EOU maintainers were able to turn the aircraft between sorties.

The exercise showcases a move toward “operator-driver experimentation” to find ways to speed up the capability process, per the Air Force’s release.

“By embedding the operators from the EOU with our acquisition professionals, we create a tight feedback loop that lets us trade operational risk with acquisition risk in real-time,” Col. Timothy Helfrich, portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft, said in the release.

From beginning to end, the exercise was executed by EOU airmen, working alongside Air Force Material Command’s 412th Test Wing, to polish procedures for deploying and sustaining CCA, a trailblazer for the Warfighting Acquisition System, in contested environments, the announcement says.

The release recognized that the EOU’s main objective is to place operators at the center of this process to ensure that the CCA is workable for future conflict by “embedding the warfighter’s voice as the driving force from the beginning.”

The Air Force announced in April 2024 that Anduril and General Atomics were selected to design and create this first batch of drone wingmen. Anduril began flight testing in October 2025 and announced the production for the YFQ-44A Fury CCA in March 2026.

General Atomics announced that their ground testing began May 2025.

Although it is not yet clear how many YFQ-44As the Air Force has ordered from the defense companies, the service has noted they want a fleet of at least 1,000 CCAs for tasks, such as conducting strike missions, carrying out operations and flying alongside manned aircraft, like the F-22, F-35 and F-47 fighter jets.

Despite Anduril and General Atomics both developing aircraft for the Air Force’s CCA program, the service may choose to move forward into the production phase with only one. The Air Force is expected to make that decision sometime this year.

The department premiered WarMatrix for its inaugural use at the March 27 GE 26 Benchmark Wargame, marking the system’s move from development into operational capacity, according to a Tuesday Air Force release.

WarMatrix, described by the force as an “active wargaming environment,” is an AI-powered system that integrates existing models, data and workflows while expediting analysis.

The Air Force at the end of 2025 said it was looking for technology capable of producing simulations 10,000 times faster than real time.

WarMatrix is a “human-machine teaming system” meant to keep human judgment integral to planning and decision making, according to the release.

The use of WarMatrix during the event served as the system’s initial operating concept evaluation, signaling a change in how the Air Force conducts operational analysis and wargaming.

“Designed by wargamers for wargamers, WarMatrix provides transparency, auditability and speed, enabling decision-makers to better understand assumptions, outcomes and tradeoffs,” the statement reads.

Air Force leaders portray WarMatrix as an evolution in wargaming rather than a replacement, and the release says that the use of WarMatrix provided a more “connected and traceable wargaming process.”

It also said that the system’s design allowed for faster scenario development, repeat findings and increased collaboration with joint and coalition partners.

The two-weekslong event, hosted at Systems Planning and Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia, was attended by more than 150 people, including technical experts, Air Force leadership and allied planners.

Attendees during the event fulfilled more than six 24-hour “game-time moves” that balanced physics- and simulation-based models to ensure outcomes were realistic.

In a dress and appearance policy update, the service banned the use of smart glasses with photo, video or artificial intelligence capabilities while in uniform.

The Jan. 9 memo did not specifically list the reasoning behind the move, but an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times Friday that the change is being made for operational security purposes.

Other statements from Air Force leaders signal the concern for operational security requirements in military environments.

Dana Thayer, 104th Fighter Wing information chief, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that smart glasses, like Meta AIs, bring convenience but also security concerns.

Meta AI glasses, which feature cameras, microphones and cloud-connected artificial intelligence, present risks to OPSEC requirements on military installations, according to Thayer.

Thayer wrote that constant audio and video capture is included in AI-enabled glasses, which can record and store sensitive information without the user knowing.

“Such information, if stored or transmitted in unauthorized environments, could be exploited by adversaries,” Thayer said in the release.

The smart glasses ban comes after the Air Force and other services in recent years barred the use of other smart electronics and devices, such as Fitbits and fitness-trackers, which rely on geolocation.

“The rapidly evolving market of devices, applications and services with geolocation capabilities presents a significant risk to the Department of Defense personnel on and off duty, and to our military operations globally,” the Pentagon said at the time.

The force also clarified in the new policy that, while in uniform, phones and other personal electronic media devices are only allowed for emergencies or for necessary official notifications.

This limitation extends to earpieces, speaker phones or text messages while walking in uniform, the memo says.

Across the military, services have been experimenting with smart electronics usage. The U.S. Army, for example, is testing usage of Meta’s glasses for Infantry Squad Vehicle repairs.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have not explicitly banned the use of smart glasses but have recorded concerns about other smart devices in their policies.

The Corps has listed that any device with the ability to store, record or transmit text, images, video or audio data is prohibited as identified by commanders as “creating unacceptable risks to mission or good order and discipline,” according to their 2024 electronic policy.

Per the Navy’s policy, sailors are allowed to use communication devices, such as cell phones or pagers, but the use of Bluetooth technology while in uniform indoors or outdoors is prohibited unless specifically authorized for official duties.