Cogs of War

Biodefense Blind Spot: Why Washington Confuses Pandemics with Bioweapons The next great biological threat may not begin in a wet market, a jungle, or a laboratory accident. It may begin on a laptop with a commercially available

The current U.S. biodefense model assumes threats shaped by biology’s constraints. AI-driven tools allow those constraints to be engineered away.
warontherocks.com/2026/02/biod...

Cogs of War Newsletter Sign-Up

Want to be an insider on defense technology, industry, and policy?

The Cogs of War newsletter delivers biweekly expert analysis on defense innovation and the defense industrial base.
warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war-...

Beyond the Missile: A Cost-Per-Effect Blueprint for the Future Force Should the United States buy more destroyers, or would the money be better spent developing bases, munitions, or software? These are the kinds of

Each budget cycle raises the same underlying question about how the force should judge its investments. Force design demands judging weapons by value in war, and the Pentagon isn’t there yet.
warontherocks.com/2026/02/beyo...

A major drone bill from Capitol Hill aims to build the capacity to manufacture drones at scale. Rep. Pat Harrigan joins the show to discuss how it will work and how it squares with the way America fights.

Listen here: pod.link/1818133762?v...

Defending Against the Next Bioweapon: the mRNA Imperative Modern synthetic biology and AI represent both medicine’s greatest breakthrough and warfare’s most terrifying evolution. In this new landscape, where

As biological threats get faster and cheaper, the United States is dismantling its fastest countermeasure.
warontherocks.com/2026/01/defe...

The defense industrial base is typically defined by its prime contractors, but its real vulnerabilities lie below the surface.
warontherocks.com/2026/01/at-a...

The Primes Aren’t the Real Bottleneck in U.S. Weapons Production In 2021, a single explosion in Minden, Louisiana, sent shockwaves across the U.S. defense industrial base. For nearly two years, the nation’s only

When lower-tier suppliers lack money or spare capacity, pushing the primes won’t make weapons arrive faster.
warontherocks.com/2026/01/the-...

The Organic Industrial Base and the Risks of Competing Against Ourselves When I was in middle school, I ate lunch every day with the same group of boys. Most of us brought the same brown-bagged peanut butter and jelly

The U.S. military still owns the depots that sustain its force. Increasingly, it is designing a system that sidelines them.
warontherocks.com/2026/01/the-...

Ships or Munitions? Clarifying the Discussion on Unmanned Surface Vessels Many strategists, myself included, believe that unmanned surface vessels could be part of an approach to help the U.S. Navy maintain an edge over its

When strategists argue about unmanned surface vessels, the most important question often goes unasked. Are these ships, or are they munitions?
warontherocks.com/2026/01/ship...

No one owns the full journey from problem definition to procurement in commercial space engagement — and startups pay the price.
https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/the-front-door-problem-in-national-security-space/

The Triage Trap: When AI Speed Replaces Command Judgment A targeting screen fills with structures, heat signatures, and a rapidly closing window. Aircraft have only minutes of fuel left when an AI highlights a

In future conflicts, a human will likely still approve a military action. But if an AI system decides which options appear, what remains of command judgment?
warontherocks.com/2026/01/the-...

What Thucydides Really Thought About Technology and War This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Bret C. Devereaux, an ancient military historian and Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of World

For generations, historians have framed the Peloponnesian War as a story of battlefield innovation. Thucydides emphasized something else.
warontherocks.com/2026/01/what...

The politics were complicated, and the costs and tradeoffs were real. Roosevelt opened the new year in 1941 on familiar terrain.
https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/fdrs-message-on-the-defense-industry-for-the-new-year/

Defense innovation and industry sparked no shortage of ideas this year. These were the arguments readers returned to most.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/most-read-cogs-of-war-articles-of-2025/

The Case for Caution: Why the U.S. Military Shouldn't Organize Around AI… Yet Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series exploring key AI policy choices faced by the Department of Defense and Congress. Please also read the first,

The AI debate inside the Pentagon is often framed as evolution or revolution. Is the military focused on being ready, or just on being early?
warontherocks.com/2025/12/the-...

In space competition with China and Russia, how much the United States can lift and where it can put it still shapes power on Earth.
warontherocks.com/2025/12/at-a...

The Genesis Mission and Quantum Technologies Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article in a four-part series exploring quantum technologies and industrial policy. Please also read the first,

Manhattan and Apollo worked because America chose to build, not just discover. Quantum will fail if it is treated differently.
warontherocks.com/2025/12/the-...

Hybrid Manufacturing: The Case for Agile Factories Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series exploring the modernization of defense manufacturing. Please also read the first: “The Additive

The defense sector has tested the limits of additive manufacturing. Now it has to confront what actually drives production at scale.
warontherocks.com/2025/12/hybr...

The Additive Manufacturing Mirage in Defense Editor's note: This is the first article in a two-part series exploring additive manufacturing. The Pentagon has poured unprecedented funds into additive

Defense's vision for additive manufacturing is bold. Does reality match the hype?
warontherocks.com/2025/12/the-...

America’s edge depends on talent, ideas, and long bets, many of which originate in the university system. What does that ecosystem look like today?

Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...

After the Constellation-Class: Lessons of the Navy’s Latest Shipbuilding Debacle At a moment where many Navy shipbuilding programs are stalling, the Constellation-class guided missile frigate stands out as the most behind schedule, the

Another ship program ends the same way: overspent, overdue, and unfinished. Will the Navy take its lessons seriously this time?
warontherocks.com/2025/12/afte...

Acquisition Reform vs. Congress: Who Will Win? No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law -Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, U.S. Constitution Weeks ago,

The policy world may be lining up behind more agile portfolio management, but the committees that hold the purse haven’t moved an inch.
warontherocks.com/2025/12/acqu...

Decades of Lost Potential in Defense Research and Development America's greatest national security threat is an enemy born from and nurtured by the Pentagon: crippling bureaucracy. It starves the oxygen from good

The Small Business Innovation Research program is in limbo. The data points to a system that rewards insiders, while the innovators it was built for struggle to get a foothold.
warontherocks.com/2025/12/deca...

Operating AI in the Gray Zone: Drawing Clear Lines Before They Blur Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series exploring key AI policy choices faced by the Department of Defense & Congress. Please also read the first

An AI model that’s ethical on the battlefield may be corrosive across the other instruments of power. What happens to gray-zone competition when those boundaries start to erode?
warontherocks.com/2025/12/oper...

How Washington Is Losing the AI Race No One Is Tracking Spain — a NATO ally and founding member of the European Union — chose a Chinese company to manage its law enforcement wiretap systems. The €12.3 million

Washington is betting on innovation while competitors are betting on compliance. Right now, compliance is winning.
warontherocks.com/2025/11/how-...

The White House Risks Squandering Its Own AI Leadership The White House is reportedly lobbying Congress to kill the GAIN AI Act. If accurate, this represents one of the more baffling policy reversals of the

Congress designed a bill to keep advanced chips from China. Why is the Trump administration trying to bury it?
warontherocks.com/2025/11/the-...

Stove-Piped Systems Will Strangle Advanced AI in the Cradle Imagine deploying groundbreaking AI technologies — like machine learning and large language models — within defense organizations, only to confine them in

Future AI agents can fuse sensor data, predict adversary tactics, and cue fires. What they can’t do is break out of stovepipes on their own.
warontherocks.com/2025/11/stov...

Replicator 3 Should Be the Sustainment Revolution Under the Arizona sun, mothballed aircraft glisten in perfect rows at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. In the brackish calm of the James River, reserve ships

Modernization isn’t just about fielding more systems. It’s about making sure they’re actually ready when it counts.
warontherocks.com/2025/11/repl...

Are New Defense Companies Giving Away Sensitive Info Through Marketing? “Loose lips sink ships.” It was catchy, memorable, and above all, true. That wisdom feels incompatible with Silicon Valley’s culture and business model,

Slick marketing helps defense startups find investors and partners. It also helps America's adversaries map future capabilities.
warontherocks.com/2025/11/are-...

Acquisition Transformation: How to Make it Last There are plenty of elements to praise in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s acquisition transformation announcement last week. The emphasis on speed and

The secretary’s speech made the case for speed and reform. The system will only deliver it if budget law, training, and congressional trust evolve with it.
warontherocks.com/2025/11/acqu...