Pentagon Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael says a “golden age of private capital” is driving the development and production of the small unmanned systems key to the Drone Dominance Initiative, the U.S. military’s formal plan to buy hundreds of thousands of small attack drones by next year.

“It’s never been this big before, so our responsibility as a department is to make sure the ones who should win [Pentagon contracts] do win,” Mr. Michael said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Special Operations Forces (SOF Week) convention in Tampa, Florida. National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang is reporting from the convention.

Private capital from Silicon Valley and other tech and industrial hubs across the country is bankrolling a growing number of companies aiming to be a part of the DDI. The money is key to the race to keep the U.S. military and its private-industry partners at the cutting edge of the drone sector — ahead of China, Russia, Iran and others that are pouring huge amounts of money into their own drone programs.

Business has been booming for Israel’s advanced-tech weapons sector, despite widespread criticism of the country’s conduct in its wars in Gaza, with Hezbollah and with Iran. Defense industry officials say countries that had vowed to shun Israeli weapons makers are now quietly placing orders.

The Associated Press reports that manufacturers, including some such as the 3D printer company Massivit, which had little to no military know-how several years ago, have been able to show that their innovations are now being continually combat-tested and improved.

Israel has surpassed Britain in its share of global arms exports, making it the world’s seventh-biggest supplier, according to a March report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. More than half of the Israeli arms industry’s sales are for missiles, rockets and air-defense systems.

Polish Deputy Minister of Defense Pawel Zalewski told Mr. Seward in an exclusive interview in Warsaw this week that his country unequivocally possesses the most powerful land army in Europe and is gearing up for a drastic increase in defense manufacturing capacity, only a generation after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Poland is eager to deepen ties with U.S. defense manufacturing companies as Warsaw becomes the new European center of gravity for military power, said Mr. Zalewski, who is slated to meet Thursday at the Pentagon with Mr. Colby. The meeting comes as concerns over the strength of U.S.-Poland military ties have risen in the wake of the Pentagon’s abrupt decision last week to delay and potentially cancel the deployment of some 4,000 U.S. Army soldiers to Poland.

Polish officials have downplayed the idea of any rift with Washington, and there are signs of growing collaboration between the American and Polish defense industries. Most notably, U.S. industry giant Honeywell signed an agreement this week to create a major center for servicing U.S.-made Abrams tank engines — the first facility of its kind in Europe.

America’s AI revolution may determine the balance of power in the 21st century, and it’s “being built with chips manufactured just 100 miles off the coast of Communist China,” writes Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, who asserts that “Chinese President Xi Jinping understands this reality, which is a central reason he is determined to take control of Taiwan.”

Taiwan is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which produces “roughly 90% of the world’s most advanced chips — the sophisticated hardware required for cloud computing, fifth-generation warfare and cutting-edge smartphones,” writes Mr. Shapiro, a former senior U.S. official who serves on the editorial board of The Washington Times.

“Semiconductors and advanced microchips are to the AI age what oil was to the industrial age, and Taiwan sits at the center of that equation,” he writes in an op-ed for The Times, adding that defense of the island democracy is “increasingly tied to the preservation of Western technological leadership, economic security and the future balance of democratic power worldwide.”

There is a “national consensus that we must revive the nation’s strategically important maritime industry,” and it is being driven by “an understanding that the nation’s economy operates at the whim of those who have the ships — in a word, China,” writes Brent D. Sadler, a senior research fellow specializing in naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation.

“China dominates the sector with its state-controlled shipping and shipbuilding, backed by a global network of strategically placed ports,” Mr. Sadler writes in an op-ed for The Times. “The U.S. let this state of affairs continue far too long, but fortunately, President Trump has begun the steps necessary to change it.

“The president has led the effort with executive orders and his personal political capital, notably calling for a maritime revival,” he writes. “Given the stalled legislative efforts to memorialize this generational effort, the time is now for the president to propose legislation, using the authority given to him in the Constitution.”

• May 21 — Special Operations Forces Week 2026, Global SOF Foundation

• May 22 — The Western Hemisphere’s Energy Moment, Hudson Institute

• May 22 — What Are the Biggest Space Threats in 2026? Center for Strategic & International Studies

• May 22 — Beneath the Surface: Addressing Information Challenges in Africa’s Critical Mineral Sector, Stimson Center

• May 26 — Security Challenges and Paths to Stability in the Sahel, Atlantic Council

• May 26 — High Wire: The Sheinbaum Administration and the Future of U.S.-Mexico Relations, Brookings Institution 

• June 18 — Deterring Russia and China: Securing America’s Nuclear Future, Hudson Institute

• June 24 — IndoPac 2026 | Naval Dominance: Shipbuilding, Autonomy & C2, Threat Status Events