The Taiwan Strait and East China Sea are regions of high geopolitical tension. In these areas, the United States faces a significant challenge: monitoring China’s mobile Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems. Such systems are designed to prevent or deter an adversary from entering or operating in a specific area. These systems include missiles, sensors, and anti-satellite technologies. They are designed to restrict U.S. military access to strategically critical areas, threatening American interests and regional stability in the Indo-Pacific (Air & Space Forces Magazine, 2022). The U.S. relies on space-based Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to track these threats. However, a key limitation, the periodicity predicament, reduces their effectiveness. Gaps between satellite passes, ranging from hours to days, allow China’s mobile assets, such as Transporter-Erector-Launchers (TELs), to relocate undetected (Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder, 2023). These persistent gaps could undermine U.S. strategic interests in this vital region, which is home to Taiwan and major trade routes. This article explores innovative strategies to enhance surveillance and ensure continuous monitoring.

High above Earth, A constellation of satellites continuously surveils the planet, providing critical intelligence to the United States. These systems mark a significant shift from airborne ISR, introducing new capabilities and challenges in global security. The U.S. Department of Defense is leading this transition, moving from airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms like aircraft and drones to advanced space-based platforms such as the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) and commercial satellite constellations. This shift offers unmatched surveillance and strategic benefits but also introduces complexities, costs, and risks that could alter U.S.-China power dynamics.

This article explores the multifaceted nature of this transformation, examining the technological innovations, strategic imperatives, economic burdens, legal dilemmas, operational hurdles, and geopolitical risks that define the move to space-based ISR. At the heart of this debate lies a critical question: how will this orbital ascendance impact U.S.-China relations? Two perspectives frame this discussion. Proponents, including the Department of Defense and its allies, argue that space-based ISR is essential for maintaining U.S. military superiority, particularly in light of China's growing space capabilities. Critics, ranging from arms control advocates to international relations scholars, caution against the vulnerabilities, high costs, and potential for escalating tensions that this shift entails.

Through a narrative that intertwines technological progress, strategic necessity, economic realities, legal and ethical considerations, operational challenges, and geopolitical dynamics, this article aims to illuminate the complexities of this revolution. It is a story of ambition and caution, of opportunity and peril, set against the backdrop of a rivalry that could shape the future of international security.

A conversation featuring investor Kyle Bass, posted in February 2025 on The Fort – An Entrepreneurship Podcast, offered a stark reminder of the shifting power balance between the United States and China (The Fort – An Entrepreneurship Podcast, 2025). Bass described how Beijing’s rapid rise in advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, and aerospace technology has heightened concerns about intellectual property theft and coerced technology transfers. He warned that America’s continued reliance on critical imports from a chief competitor jeopardizes national security and strains the country’s industrial base. Recent calls for a more confrontational approach toward China underscore the urgency of addressing these risks, particularly in areas where technological innovations can yield both economic progress and military advantages.

Many analysts agree that the United States cannot afford to cede leadership in semiconductors, AI, and other dual-use technologies without putting its broader security at risk (Biden, 2022; Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security, 2022). Proponents of a tougher stance argue that robust export controls, targeted sanctions, and the reshoring of critical manufacturing are necessary measures to shield the country from vulnerabilities. The ensuing debate centers on whether these measures should focus narrowly on high-risk areas or extend more broadly, and on how the United States might reorganize its supply chains without jeopardizing economic prosperity. This article explores China’s emergence as the principal strategic challenger to American technological leadership and explains why more decisive action, particularly in states like Texas, can help preserve U.S. national security, sustain economic innovation, and ensure a healthy industrial base for years to come.

This report investigates emerging human-enhancement technologies for military use, focusing on exoskeletons and neural interfaces. Recent public conversations, such as the forward-looking YouTube discussion featuring Shawn Ryan (2025), underscore growing enthusiasm about the performance gains these innovations might offer to soldiers, along with parallel anxieties about ethical, legal, and geopolitical consequences (Shawn Ryan Clips, 2025). Drawing on prior research that examines prototype hardware, power limitations, global policy debates, and the shifting nature of warfare, this report offers a reasoned appraisal of how these technologies may become integral to defense strategy. It aims to clarify their feasibility, ethical ramifications, and possible influence on military readiness, while suggesting prudent measures for navigating adoption in complex operational environments.

There's many different options, and none are "wrong", but many are different enough to make certain options "better" for specific uses. Knowing and understanding those uses and their associative advantages and disadvantages is very important to making the most of your utilization of the innovation hubs. I have direct links to many innovation hub web portals on my website. You can go to "the library" on my webpage, and click the "External References" button to see the massive listing to help start exploring all the innovation hubs that might be right for you.

Anxiety comes from lack of preparation. If you were going to play in a championship sporting event, you would prepare beyond the requirement of the event itself. You would workout, eat right, and train for the specific event over a sufficient period of time. Treat your pitches in military acquisition with the same level of commitment as you would for gameday. When you are adequately prepared you are excited to get out on the field to show what you can do. Anyone can see and sense that type of energy, and that's the type of person that garners confidence and trust, which ultimately builds belief and approval of the request.

I have number of defense industry friends who have called me up recently asking for solutions to the same hard problem. This was super useful for them, and since the DoD needs a better way to integrate capabilities holistically, I want to share this concept more broadly for applicable utilization. My friends were all looking for ways to rapidly integrate commercial capabilities with military customers, and the answer is surprising simple…plain text outputs.

Can you use the vision capabilities of multimodal LLMs to detect uniform wear errors? Anyone who’s been through some form of professional military education knows the “joys” of uniform inspection. The only thing worse than having an issue found, is having one found after you, your friend, and someone else already checked your uniform. As there’s a written standard for all uniform wear, the uniforms themselves are all standardized in production, and only personal mobile devices would be required, this all provides an opportunity to test GPT4o and other vision capable LLMs with an interesting challenge.

The Photomolecular effect can unlock major gains in accuracy and efficiency of weather prediction, water purification, and even home appliances. It’s been decades since we’ve had a physics breakthrough that can translate quickly and directly into new consumer products and capabilities. Everything from gains in more energy efficient alternative mechanical designs of existing products, to improved performance of capabilities in existing systems are all on the table. The best part being the diversity of applications benefits small to large businesses just as much as the consumer when it comes to opportunity.

DIU and U.S. Army To Prototype Advanced Nuclear Power for Military Installations

This is the one of those practical hardware engineering applications that really gets me excited. We have seen much higher end exoskeleton systems being tested by SOCOM previously, but the trickle down of technology into the commercial market is still nonetheless exciting.

Figured I’d share some interesting points from recent conversations I have had with friends, clients, and partners. Some of these things you might agree with, but I have absolute confidence someone or many will disagree.

This is not a shameless plug, but rather just an obvious statement that hopefully is redundant to most defense businesses. All services have at least one, and often multiple directly sponsored and contractually integrated innovation hubs that service them. There are big-name brands that many people know such as: AFWERX, AAL, SOFWERX, NAVELX, etc. There are many more focused or smaller hubs like ERDXWERX, FLEETWERX, ARCWERX, etc. There is a very expansive list of all of these and the direct links to each on my website (https://lnkd.in/gWdUUGCi). What all the innovation hubs share in common, is that they all serve a military organization of some size directly. This means they have direct access and knowledge of customer needs and priorities to varying levels…but all to a greater degree than any external business (short of major defense contractors).

Just like the great points offered from the YC Partners, here’s five simple things to also not do (or stop doing) in Defense Innovation for new businesses. In no particular offensive order:

Success is a team sport, and you need to play the game to be able to win. There are rules, loopholes, skills, and experience that all go into compiling a winning game. Unsportsmanlike conduct is not a winning strategy for any game.

Too many great capabilities die the slow death of patient starvation waiting for government facilitation. The video clip below is a masterclass in the results of that reality. Don’t let this be your fate in the Defense Sector! Get ahead and equip your team well for the trip through the valley of death.

Allow me to introduce to you a few of the best people I know doing Generative AI work in the Air Force today. As a Chief, we have all the stripes on our rank for a reason. It gives us a shield to protect our people, but also a platform to lift others up. Allow me to do just that by spotlighting MSgt Jared Rice, Capt Richard Smith, and Mr Brad Aldridge, MDE. All three shining examples of the great folks across the department doing the hard work to transform Generative AI use cases into capabilities.

A defense innovator is someone who facilitates change from within the military system. This takes on a myriad number of forms, but the common thread is the facilitation of change through and within the military system. It’s not a mutiny of the willing against the tyranny of the complacent. It is an evolutionary process that takes work, coordination, and the will power of trained professionals to execute everyday.

Too many great capabilities die the slow death of patient starvation waiting for government facilitation. The video clip below is a masterclass in the results of that reality. Don’t let this be your fate in the Defense Sector! Get ahead and equip your team well for the trip through the valley of death.

The secret to military sales is understanding the audience and their environment. Contractor states, “I'm struggling to know what's a great product for the mission or not.” Who is the market and what to sell them are the two single most important questions in defense contracting. The answer to each is also not obvious, and often learned the hard way. Let me help you deal with that pain.