Lockheed Martin will upgrade the operating systems running the F-35 Lightning II reprogramming laboratories, which build the threat data the fighter needs for combat missions, under a $43.7 million contract modification the U.S. Navy announced on Oct. 28. Eighty percent of the work will take place in Eglin, Florida, and the remaining 20% in Fort […]Norway’s Kongsberg ended the third quarter of 2026 with a record order backlog of NOK 174.2 billion (about $18.8 billion), after taking in NOK 23.3 billion (about $2.5 billion) in new orders, more than double the NOK 9.5 billion it booked in the same quarter last year. The defense group reported on Oct. 29 that […]The U.S. Navy has added $13.3 million and 50,000 labor hours to a Lockheed Martin order covering integration of the F-35’s upgraded F135 engine core and the move of a new power and cooling system for the fighter into preliminary design. Naval Air Systems Command announced the cost-plus-fixed-fee, level-of-effort modification on Oct. 27, definitizing an […]The U.S. Marine Corps has tested kamikaze drones in Japan, flying Neros Archer one-way attack drones armed with live explosive warheads at Combined Arms Training Center Camp Fuji, at the foot of Mount Fuji, on Oct. 20, 2026, the first time the drone has been used in its live kinetic form at the range. Marines […]U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps teams have shown Marine air-defense operators a prototype dashboard that brings threat and resource data into one screen. It is meant to help a regional commander see what is in the air and what defenses are available to respond, and it was first demonstrated on Oct. 5 during the […]Lockheed Martin has received a $114.6 million order to redesign two key navigation systems on the F-35 Lightning II, the GPS electronic unit and the NAV100 inertial navigation system, replacing electronic parts that are going out of production so the stealth fighter can keep rolling off the line. The cost-plus-fixed-fee order, announced on Oct. 23, […]A Typhoon uncrewed surface vessel built by California-based Splash Industries demonstrated naval interception during a drone demonstration at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, on Oct. 21, 2026, as part of the Keen Sword 27 exercise between U.S. forces and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The demonstration put the small, fast drone boat through an intercept […]The U.S. Department of War and Lockheed Martin have agreed on a framework for a 10-year F-35 production and sustainment deal that covers 850 aircraft for the United States, along with spare parts, modification kits and international orders across production Lots 21 through 30. The framework keeps F-35 production at 156 aircraft a year and […]The U.S. Navy has awarded the Bell Boeing joint venture $90.8 million to continue redesigning the V-22 Osprey’s flight control system, including new flight control computers and cockpit interface units for the tiltrotor aircraft flown by the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and a foreign customer. The order, signed on Oct. 15 […]The U.S. Marine Corps has turned a 2nd Marine Division artillery battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, into its first medium-range missile battalion, built around a launcher that fires Naval Strike Missiles at enemy ships from land. 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment was formally re-designated on Oct. 9, 2026, under the service’s Force Design 2030 […]Despite the expansion of Starlink and other communications satellite services, most of the world’s Internet traffic still travels through subsea cables crisscrossing the ocean floors. Those fiber-optic cables coexist with a network of oil and gas pipelines and submarine power cables—and all these crucial links connecting countries and continents now face growing sabotage risks as gray-zone warfare and open conflicts have become widespread.
The rising risks to the world’s invisible infrastructure beneath the waves are the main subject of a new book by Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who leads the Threats to the Global Maritime Order Initiative. Her book, titled Undersea War, explores the modern rise in suspicious incidents in which ships dragging their anchors for unusually long periods have cut or damaged undersea cables and pipelines, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
Braw acknowledges that about 60 percent of undersea cable damage is primarily due to human error during fishing and shipping activities, when weighted nets or anchors drag across the seabed. Natural hazards like storms and undersea landslides also account for a smaller proportion of such incidents. In total, between 150 and 200 cables are damaged each year and usually repaired quickly.
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