I write this week’s newsletter from the Reveille conference in Australia. It’s a country that has always punched above its weight in defence and security, and is now witnessing a proliferation of high-quality founders in the sector.

One of the benefits of taking some time off the newsletter is that when I sit down again I get to digest all that has happened in one go. It’s a wood-for-the-trees moment.

A year ago I wrote about Ukraine’s remote drone capabilities, following the success of Operation Spiderweb, a covert drone attack carried out deep inside Russia.

Last week I had coffee with Ben Moores, recently Procurement Advisor to the Defence Secretary. During a wide-ranging discussion we touched on Anduril’s valuation and how the public markets might eventually react to it. It is currently $60B and could soon be $100B.

The hot topic in Silicon Valley at the moment is Kimi K3, the new Chinese open-source model from the lab Moonshot AI, which apparently performed close to the top American models. It isn’t quite at the frontier, but it’s pretty close - perhaps only a few months behind.

There were a few headlines from last week’s NATO summit in Ankara - Trump promising Patriot missile production in Ukraines (without apparently consulting Lockheed Martin), lifting CAATSA sanctions on Turkey and a pledge from Allies of €70B for Ukraine in 2026.

Quantum Systems is the OG of drone companies. Founded in 2015, it was flying drones before Russia invaded Ukraine. What is perhaps more impressive is that it has stayed relevant over the course of the last 4 years, maintaining a continuous presence on the Ukrainian battlefield as one of the reference systems for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).

I spent the weekend at Reykjavik Security Forum. Halfway between the US and Europe, it was a fitting location to contemplate the future of global security. Against the backdrop of a decoupling between America and its North Atlantic allies, one of the truths accepted by all attendees was that we are entering uncertain times. Security matters more now than it has in the last few decades.

Europeans are dependent on the US for the best AI, at least in the near term. But that is not necessarily true for defence and intelligence software. France’s spy service, DGSI, is replacing Palantir. It will instead use technology provided by French company ChapsVision.

John Healey, until recently the UK’s Defence Secretary, resigned after being presented with a Defence Investment Plan that he couldn’t put his name to. He was right to go.

I was speaking with an American government official on Friday who has spent decades in national security. We talked about the situation in Cuba and what an American invasion might look like. He mused that the American enthusiasm to invade Cuba seems dampened by its experience in Iran. But it will need to act before elections in November if an invasion is to provide a political boost.

I was invited to Bletchley Park last Wednesday for GCHQ’s inaugural annual lecture given by GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler.

I spent last week at SOF Week in Tampa. The conference draws around 20,000 attendees each year, but this year felt different. The exhibition floor had spilled out of the Convention Center entirely, with live drone demonstrations at the local airport to accommodate the demand for hardware showcases. The mood reflected a defence industry that has found its moment.

I don’t tend to write about the awarding of defence contracts, but I felt compelled to mention this one. Since J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich 15 months ago, there has been much talk of sovereign European defence capability. Even more so since ‘the whole Greenland thing’ earlier this year.

Ukraine's 412th Brigade has shot down a Russian Shahed drone using an interceptor launched from a USV, marking the first recorded instance of a sea-launched drone intercept in this war.

Saildrone announced a new class of uncrewed surface vessel (USV), Spectre, designed for anti-submarine warfare and vertical rocket launch. It has dispensed with the sail for ‘Stealth Strike’ variant, in order to minimise the radar signature.

Anthropic released a powerful new version of its Claude AI model, called Mythos. Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO, said it is too powerful to be made generally available. Instead he will allow only a few trusted companies to use it.

In the latest episode of Musk vs Bezos, Amazon is reportedly in talks to buy Globalstar, an American low orbit satellite constellation, in a continuation of its bid to compete with Starlink. It is mulling a valuation of $9B. That seems quite cheap.

SpaceXis apparently set to file for an IPO as soon as this week to raise $75B at a $1.75T valuation. That would make it the largest IPO in history, beating that of Saudi Aramco (~$29.4B) in 2019.

The UK confirmed that Iran fired two missiles at a British-American base in Diego Garcia. The missiles appeared to be two-stage intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).