President Trump on Tuesday touted $25 billion in initial funding for the "Golden Dome" and put Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of realizing the hemispheric missile shield.

The big picture: Golden Dome — previously dubbed Iron Dome, but separate from Israel's missile defense program — is a mammoth undertaking with enthusiastic backing from the president but many doubters in the national security community.

• Trump said the project will cost around $175 billion and be built over the next three years, though those are both just estimates. The initial $25 billion will be included in the "big beautiful bill" working its way through Congress, Trump said.
• Planning, building, operating and maintaining the Golden Dome, as well as paying for it, will require intense coordination between the Pentagon, Congress, current and future presidents, defense contractors and troops. Trump said Canada also expressed interest in being covered by the shield but would have to "pay their fair share."
• Analysts have expressed doubts about the plausibility — and immense costs — of replicating Israel's air defense capabilities at a continental scale. Trump, however, remains bullish.

The latest: Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the envisioned countermeasures during a televised Oval Office meeting.

• They said the missile shield will be designed to block hypersonic missiles, ICBMs and other projectiles, including nuclear weapons, whether they are launched from the earth's surface or from space.
• Trump said President Reagan had wanted to build something similar during the Cold War "but they didn't have the technology." Now, he said, the U.S. has "super technology."
• "This is very important for the success and even survival of our country. It's a pretty evil world out there," Trump said.

How it works: At the heart of Golden Dome is a mesh of sensors and spotters and space-based interceptors.

Zoom out: Defense companies have been jockeying for position since Trump signed an executive order in January to pursue it.

• Lockheed Martin pitched its F-35 stealth fighter, Sentinel A4 radars, command-and-control networks and more as components. Chief operating officer Frank St. John told Axios the project will "require the best of every technology company."
• Booz Allen Hamilton unveiled Brilliant Swarms, a nod to the Reagan-era Brilliant Pebbles. It envisions masses of satellites capable of detecting and smashing into missiles. "The longer you wait to kill an enemy ballistic missile, the harder your problem gets," executive vice president Chris Bogdan told Axios.
• Meanwhile, Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies and SpaceX were collaborating on dome-related plans, according to Reuters.

Go deeper: U.S. to spend $1 trillion on nuclear weapons over next decade

President Trump on Thursday revealed his wishes for bleeding-edge warplanes he dubbed F-22 Super and F-55.

Why it matters: Trump's comments during a stop in Qatar were the first time either potential aircraft has been publicly mentioned. Such major, multibillion-dollar endeavors are not pulled from thin air, suggesting some legwork may already be underway.

• It's a boost for Lockheed Martin, which makes both the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II, which the president suggested would be upgraded.

The latest: Trump made the comments in Doha, Qatar, while flanked by Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp.

• The F-22 Super will be "a very modern version" of the existing fighter, he said, and the F-55 will have twin engines.

What they're saying: A Lockheed spokesperson told Axios the company will "continue to work closely" with the Trump administration "to realize its vision for air dominance."

• The same spokesperson referred questions about warplane specs to the White House.

Zoom out: The Pentagon is already overhauling its air warfare arsenal.

• Boeing won the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance fighter contract and is now building the F-47. (The name is a nod to Trump, the 47th president, and the P-47.)
• Anduril Industries and General Atomics are going head to head on robo-wingmen known as collaborative combat aircraft. Ground tests for the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A are underway.
• And Boeing and Northrop Grumman are reportedly in competition for the Navy's F/A-XX.

Flashback: Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet last month teased "fifth-generation plus" aircraft, likening them to Ferraris.

Go deeper: What's influencing the Air Force's F-47 and Navy's F/A-XX

It's going to cost nearly $1 trillion to operate, maintain and upgrade America's nuclear arsenal over the next decade — more per year ($95 billion) than what's spent on many federal agencies.

Why it matters: That eye-popping estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is catnip for critics, who argue Washington is spending blindly or that portions of the triad are vestigial.

Driving the news: The combined 2025-34 nuke plans of the Defense and Energy departments amount to $946 billion.

• In what have been a few wild days for the nuke-watching world — including India-Pakistan clashes and the U.S. Air Force saying it needs new silos for its already delayed and over-budget Sentinel missiles — the dollar figures jump out.

What they're saying: "The huge expenses tallied in this report were not anticipated at the outset of the nuclear modernization program," said Greg Mello, the director of Los Alamos Study Group, which monitors National Nuclear Security Administration sites and activities.

• "There will be no return to the 'heroic mode of production' for nuclear weapons," he added.
• "Even if Congress dumped $100 or $200 billion more on nuclear weapons, the system that produces them would not 'jump to the task' for years, if at all."

Our thought bubble: There's a lot on the table, even if you ignore requisite infrastructure upgrades at places like the Savannah River Site. Sentinel. B-21 Raider. Long-Range Standoff Weapon. Columbia-class submarines.

What we're watching: Where today's obsession with cheap mass (drones and artillery shells, for example) clashes with revered and rarely used stockpiles.

• Nuclear acquisition programs represent almost 12% of the Defense Department's planned buying costs over the next decade, according to the CBO. That means DOD will have to make "difficult choices about which programs to pursue."
• Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball in a piece this month said "skyrocketing" prices siphon resources from "other more pressing human needs and national security priorities."

Yes, but: There are businesspeople who think it can be done more effectively.

• "What we see here is the really strong need for the U.S. government, specifically on the topic of nuclear deterrence, to look at opportunities to work with" the private sector, JC Btaiche, the founder of Fuse, told Axios.
• Fuse seeks to be the "new nuclear-security prime," as Btaiche put it. Its advisers include Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the former NNSA boss, and retired Adm. Charles Richard, once the head of Strategic Command.

The bottom line: "The current trend is only going to continue to increase costs and delay timelines," Btaiche said, "and we just cannot afford to do that as a country."

Go deeper: A new nuke wave washes over the world

President Trump on Tuesday said he would stop bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen because the group, armed by Iran, no longer wants to fight.

Why it matters: This tenuous deal follows a beefed-up U.S. presence in the greater Middle East and months of missile-and-drone exchanges that chewed through coveted stateside stockpiles.

Here are some key stats:

• More than 1,000 targets have been hit since mid-March, when Operation Rough Rider kicked off, according to the Pentagon.
• Central Command said it's killed "hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders," including drone experts. Al Jazeera reported at least 250 dead.
• The initial weeks of the operation cost nearly $1 billion, according to CNN.
• The Houthis downed several MQ-9 Reaper drones, costing millions of dollars each.
• One F/A-18E Super Hornet being towed on the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier fell overboard. One sailor was injured.
• There has been only a single public Pentagon briefing on the campaign. That happened more than a month ago.

The bottom line: "Getting to this contentious truce did not come cheap," Behnam Ben Taleblu, an expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Axios.

• "By forcing the other side to expend more resources, and even political capital, on defense, Tehran has proved that the Houthis were a low-cost but high-return-on-investment terror option for them starting a decade ago."

Go deeper: U.S. slashing military presence in Syria

The White House said Friday that President Trump is seeking $1.01 trillion in defense spending for fiscal year 2026 — a whopping amount meant to sustain his national security blueprint, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Pentagon overhaul.

The big picture: It's an aggressive number to match aggressive goals. It's also a 13% increase at a time when Trump is calling for domestic spending to be slashed. Trump in April said nobody "has seen anything like it."

• In his first 100 days, the president pledged to revitalize American shipbuilding, which atrophied amid Chinese ascendence, and rolled out plans for a hemispheric missile shield, Golden Dome, reminiscent of Reagan-era plans.
• There is also the question of nuclear weapons modernization, which will alone cost $946 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
• Trump's stated priorities for the extra cash are strengthening homeland security, deterring China in the Indo-Pacific, and revitalizing the U.S. defense industrial base.

Yes, but: Budget requests are wishlists. Congress ultimately cuts the check.

Between the lines: The White House plan calls for the additional $119 billion in defense spending to be included in the reconciliation bill currently being debated in Congress, while otherwise keeping the Pentagon budget at the same level as last year ($893 billion).

• A senior White House official told reporters that would be a "historic" overall spending figure, on par with Reagan-era highs as a proportion of GDP, and said including the plus-up in the reconciliation bill would allow it to be targeted for specific national security priorities.
• But Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has already raised concerns about that strategy, arguing the top line number for the Pentagon budget is insufficient.
• Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also raised concerns that the $893 billion number was not high enough.

Flashback: The numbers come a day after Hegseth ordered a rework of the Army. His memo included instructions to:

1. Consolidate Futures and Training and Doctrine commands.
2. Restructure manned attack helicopter formations and augment them with cheap, killer drones.
3. Deploy by 2027 long-range missiles that can hit moving targets on land and at sea.
4. Boost presence in the Indo-Pacific, where Washington and its friends butt heads with China.

What we're watching: More Hill reaction.

• Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican and former naval aviator, at an Axios event last month described $1 trillion as "a lot."
• "I applaud the prioritizing of the defense budget," she said at the time. "I think that is necessary again, because it's expensive to build things like submarines and aircraft carriers and ships. But there's a lot of pushback, even on my side of the aisle."

This story was updated with comments from Wicker and a senior White House official.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon will no longer "do climate change crap" — but the changing climate has a lot in store for the U.S. military.

The big picture: Every competition and conflict is influenced by weather. (Consider the forecasts ahead of D-Day in 1944, or Napoleon's ill-fated jaunt into Russia in 1812.)

• Climate change is already shifting geopolitics. President Trump has mused about 40 "big" icebreakers and taking control of Greenland as melting Arctic ice aggravates competition with Russia and China.
• Rising sea levels and deeper flooding jeopardize existing bases and limit where new ones can be built. See: Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia and Parris Island in South Carolina.
• Drought and extreme heat kills. It also spurs economic and political unrest, as evidenced by the extremism spike in the Sahel. Separately, keeping cool requires planning and resources, complicating logistics in far-flung theaters.
• Changing ocean properties also affect how submarines, often touted as America's ace in the hole, play hide and seek.

Driving the news: Navy Secretary John Phelan nixed the service's Climate Action 2030 program, instituted by the Biden administration.

Zoom out: It's but one point in a larger Trump 2.0 locus, exemplified by Hegseth's comments.

• Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell applauded Phelan's move. Trump and Hegseth, he said in a video shared April 25, "have been very clear: less woke, more warfighting."
• John Ullyot, who handled messaging during both of Trump's terms before his dramatic departure this month, told CNN climate "zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part" of the Defense Department's mission.

The latest: The Trump administration this week dismissed researchers who were compiling the federal government's flagship global warming report, according to the New York Times.

Context: There's broad consensus in the national security community that the threats from climate change are real, and dismissing them is dangerous. A Pentagon study published in 2019 found dozens of installations were vulnerable to current or future flooding, drought and wildfire.

• Carlos Del Toro, Phelan's predecessor, in 2022 described climate change as "one of the most destabilizing forces of our time, exacerbating other national security concerns and posing serious readiness challenges."
• The Navy that same year held its first climate tabletop exercise, examining how a typhoon, mudslides and more in 2030 affect troops in the Indo-Pacific.
• Mark Milley, a Trump-era chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 2021 said climate change has a "significant impact on military operations" and exacerbates migration.
• David Berger, the former Marine Corps commandant, also that year said the U.S. "must not ignore" the potential adverse effects of climate change on Guam, a key island foothold.
• James Mattis, Trump's former defense secretary, in 2019 said climate change is "a reality." The U.S., he said, is "dealing with open waters where it used to be ice fields."
• Joseph Dunford, another former Joint Chiefs chairman, in 2018 described climate change as among the "sources of conflict around the world and things we'd have to respond to."

Our thought bubble: This isn't ideological. This is tactical and strategic.

The bottom line: "You can't stick your head in the sand and ignore a problem and then expect to have ports ready to use, planes ready to fly, troops ready to deploy when the crisis hits. There's a reason that we exercise and plan and do contingency work every day," Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, told Axios.

• "I'm taking a lot of the bumper-sticker screeds from Hegseth and others with a grain of salt," he added. "The operating military knows how critical these things are."

Go deeper: Ending USAID climate programs could increase security risks

The U.S. military has been bombing Yemen for weeks on end, executing hundreds of strikes this month alone.

Why it matters: The standoff between American forces and Houthi rebels backed by Iran risks something President Trump promised to stamp out: endless war. In this case, though, it's being waged almost entirely from the air and often with the help of drones.

State of play: A renewed campaign kicked off mid-March and hasn't stopped since. U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations across the greater Middle East, has been boasting "24/7" coverage.

• At least 680 strikes were conducted in March and April, according to data from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
• Ras Isa oil port, on Yemen's western coast, was among the most recent targets. The attack killed 74 people and injured many more, the Associated Press reported. Satellite imagery showed razed infrastructure and blast marks.

Yes, but: The Houthis survived years of attacks from a Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S. and U.K.

• The Yemen Data Project logged more than 25,000 air raids in seven years, beginning in 2015.

What they're saying: The Houthis continue "to amplify reports of civilian casualties, using them as a rallying cry to boost recruitment and bolster domestic support," Mohammad Al-Basha of the advisory Basha Report told Axios.

• Without "sustained ground operations to reclaim territory from Houthi control," he added, the militant group "will eventually be able to recover from their current losses — replenishing their ranks, regrouping, and rebuilding their capabilities."

Zoom in: There are now two U.S. aircraft carriers, the Harry S. Truman and the Carl Vinson, in the CENTCOM region.

• Footage shared on social media shows Super Hornet, Growler and Hawkeye warplanes in action.
• Stealthy B-2 bombers were also spotted at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.

Threat level: The Houthis have shot down a handful of MQ-9 Reaper drones since early March, according to Fox News and The War Zone. Each costs tens of millions of dollars.

• The rebels have also choked the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with missiles and explosive unmanned vehicles.
• Bill LaPlante, then the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, in November told Axios the Houthi arsenal was growing increasingly sophisticated.

What we're watching: Whether the Pentagon provides another public briefing to offer more details about the operation. The last time officials took to the podium was March 17.

Go deeper: U.S. slashing military presence in Syria

The U.S. will shrink its military footprint in Syria over the coming months, bringing troop levels below 1,000.

Why it matters: President Trump tried to pull all American forces from the war-ravaged country during his first term.

• Along with Turkey, Iran and Russia, the U.S. is one of several foreign powers with a foothold in Syria as the country rebuilds after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The latest: Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the reduction Friday afternoon, citing "the significant steps we have made toward degrading ISIS' appeal and operational capability regionally and globally."

Zoom in: Three small operating bases in northeast Syria will be shuttered, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Yes, but: There's significant buildup elsewhere in Central Command, which oversees military operations across the greater Middle East.

• Aircraft carriers Carl Vinson and Harry S. Truman are launching warplanes to combat Houthi rebels in Yemen.
• Patriot air defenses were shifted to the region, away from the Indo-Pacific.
• And B-2 bombers were dispatched to Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.

By the numbers: The Pentagon in December disclosed there were roughly 2,000 troops in Syria — far more than the widely known 900.

Go deeper: Trump and Biden on Syria: Maybe not so different

A critical avenue of U.S.-China competition has slipped under the public's radar despite its potential outsize impacts on economies, militaries and weaponry: biotechnology.

Why it matters: Better body armor, dynamic camouflage, foods synthesized in trenches, super soldiers, landmine-detecting bacteria and sabotaged materials shipped to the enemy are all promises of this field.

• And a new report concludes that Beijing is ascending to biotech dominance, at great risk to Washington.

Driving the news: The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology filed that report to Congress this month after two years of research and debate.

• Commissioners include Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), also a member of the intelligence committee; Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO; and Michelle Rozo, a vice president at In-Q-Tel and former principal director for biotechnology at the Pentagon.

Here's a taste of the report's many findings, recommendations and warnings:

1. China is sprinting ahead after prioritizing biotech 20 years ago. The U.S. must course correct in three years.
2. Washington should dedicate $15 billion minimum over the next five years to supercharge the sector.
3. Beijing's advancements are fueled by military-civil fusion. But the U.S. "should not try to out-China China; that is a losing strategy."
4. There is "every reason to believe" the Chinese Communist Party will "weaponize biotechnology." Drone warfare "will seem quaint" the day the People's Liberation Army debuts genetically enhanced troops.
5. Opportunities for greater collaboration already exist, namely through NATO's innovation accelerator, DIANA.
6. Congress should require the Defense Department to incorporate military-relevant biotech into wargaming and exercises.

What they're saying: U.S. leadership should consider biotech a distinct domain of warfare, according to Young, a Marine Corps veteran.

• "Imagine if we could, in theater, biomanufacture shelf-stable blood, thereby seizing on that golden hour in which we need to provide emergency medical attention to warfighters who are under duress," he told Axios.
• "Imagine a world in which we are able to develop new energetics through biological means, with far more thrust — power — to extend the range of our existing missile systems."
• "That would, obviously, change all sorts of calculations of warfare."

Reality check: There's a lack of stateside industrial capacity. And moving from lab to market is an expensive ordeal, a red flag for increasingly risk-averse investors.

What we're watching: What makes it into the National Defense Authorization Act, a logical home for this report's suggestions.

The bottom line: "Just like the Industrial Age, just like the Information Age, this is the Biotechnology Age. Most people do not know that," Paul Arcangeli, a commissioner and former House Armed Services Committee staff director, said in an interview.

• "In 10 years, people will be surprised what biotechnology will be doing for them."

Officials from the Trump, Biden, Obama and Bush administrations, defense and intelligence experts, lawmakers, scientists, and investors are huddling in Texas this week to plot American primacy amid a global realignment.

Why it matters: Michael Kratsios, Trump's chief science-and-technology policy adviser, in an interview said U.S. national and economic security is contingent on "technological dominance." He delivered his first public address at the Endless Frontiers summit Monday — its only on-the-record segment.

• "This isn't some movie where we sit back and watch the future happen," Kratsios told Axios. "It's something that we have to actively be participants in."
• Trump in a letter last month called on Kratsios to "blaze a trail to the next frontiers of science." It mentioned artificial intelligence, quantum and nuclear tech.

Zoom out: The 200-plus attendees of Endless Frontiers (invite only) will leave with a game plan addressing:

1. A tech-savvy U.S. arsenal.
2. Reindustrialization, secure supply chains and critical infrastructure.
3. Government competitiveness and mobilization of national talent.

What we're hearing: The get-together comes at a precarious time, both at home and abroad.

• "We're facing geopolitical and technological shifts that are going to determine the place of the country in the future, especially vis-a-vis China," Rush Doshi, an Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Axios. "We thought that this decade was decisive. That's a bipartisan judgement, by the way."
• "There are parts of America's ecosystem that just never talk to each other," Jordan Blashek, a managing partner at America's Frontier Fund, told Axios. "As a result, we are operating in silos at a moment when we need a unified kind of American response, an American strategy."

Between the lines: Note that this is happening in Texas. Not New York. Not California.

Follow the money: Endless Frontiers planning began about one year ago. It's cohosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, University of Texas at Austin, Rice University, Texas A&M and Baylor University.

• Sponsors include 8VC, America's Frontier Fund and Overmatch Ventures, financiers of the defense-tech boom.

What's next: Another initiative, the Endless Frontiers Institute, is being stood up to maintain momentum.

• The summit is also not one and done. In fact, there's a yearslong commitment, according to the organizers.

It's not just the Situation Room or Signal — senior Trump administration officials bypassed a range of secure government systems when they decided to discuss plans for an upcoming attack in Yemen on a commercially available app.

• Axios spoke to one current senior U.S. official and five former senior U.S. officials — all of whom have taken part in communications around similarly sensitive overseas operations — about the secure channels through which these conversations are supposed to happen, why turning to Signal could seem appealingly expedient, and why doing so is potentially dangerous.

What they're saying: "It's shocking. It's shocking negligence," a former senior defense official said. "We've got the best secure communication systems in the world — of any country — so why are we using a rickety, commercially available system?"

• The former official said Signal is "not even in the same universe" as the Pentagon's JWICS intranet, through which some of the country's most delicate intelligence is shared.
• Set aside the fact that a prominent journalist was privy to the group chat. Sending a minute-by-minute timeline of impending strikes over a network you can't be sure is fully secure endangers pilots and could compromise the success of an operation, the former official contended.

The other side: The White House insists there was nothing wrong with officials using Signal, which is end-to-end encrypted and is widely used by private citizens (such as journalists) to share sensitive information and gossip.

• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the app "the most secure and efficient way to communicate."
• But security experts consider communicating via Signal, particularly from a personal device, far less secure than using a classified government channel.
• The White House and National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Friction point: A current senior U.S. official told Axios that while many of the participants in the Signal chat have encrypted government-issued phones on which they can discuss classified information, poor reception and other technical problems can make using a personal device easier. "You can drop from the line in the middle of a call," the official said.

• A former State Department official noted that various government agencies use different brands of secure devices — State's is nicknamed a "Puma phone" — which can create problems when communicating across departments.
• A former senior Pentagon official said that rather than communicating via text, officials typically got a notification to switch to their classified devices in order to join a conference call. While a chat feature was added to the secure devices toward the end of the Biden administration, it was not widely used, the official said.
• Jamil Jaffer, who held intelligence-related roles in the White House and Congress, said the fact that officials were using Signal was a sign that onerous security protocols "make it impossible to do your job" — or at least to do it efficiently.

Despite the headaches, the former officials who spoke to Axios were in agreement that sharing detailed attack plans in a Signal group chat was highly unusual and irresponsible.

• While both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz have contended that they didn't share "war plans," only attack plans, the former defense official argued that the specificity of those messages was "far more damaging" than discussing war plans, which can be broader and more flexible.
• Texts Hegseth sent about two hours before key aspects of the operation commenced specifically mentioned manned and unmanned aircraft, F-18s and MQ-9s, as well as sea-launched Tomahawk missiles, which travel relatively slowly.
• Price Floyd, a former head of public affairs at the Pentagon, raised particular alarm over a text from Waltz about a top Houthi target entering his girlfriend's apartment building. "That will put all of the people she spoke with, met with, etc. at risk of being [identified as] a possible source of the intel."

Flashback: Coordination around previous strikes on the Houthis in January 2024 were done mainly over classified emails, either on a "secret" or "top secret" system, a former senior defense official who was involved in planning those strikes said.

• A detailed plan of attack like the one Hegseth texted would normally remain internal to the Pentagon and not be shared with Cabinet-level policymakers, even in a secure setting.

Behind the scenes: The planning didn't all take place on Signal. The current senior U.S. official told Axios the key meeting President Trump held on the Yemen operation — including with some of the officials on the Signal chat — took place in the Situation Room a day after the messaging app group was established.

• Last Saturday, Trump gave the final order and followed the strike from a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in Mar-a-Lago, the official said.
• In the meantime, though, officials including Waltz, Hegseth and Vice President Vance were debating the merits of the operation and discussing its details over Signal, with Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg following along.
• Those conversations didn't need to happen on Signal, or on personal mobile devices. The current official noted that many of the officials on the Signal chat have SCIF's in their homes, making moving to a classified setting relatively straightforward.

Go deeper: Fact-checking the explanations over Houthi group chat.

Boeing will spearhead development of the U.S. Air Force's futuristic fighter and drone coordinator, the F-47, following a secretive competition and fits and starts within the service.

Why it matters: The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) effort is meant to succeed the F-22 and be a linchpin for collaborative combat aircraft (CCA). President Trump, the 47th president, claimed "the generals" picked the F-47 designation, calling it "a beautiful number."

Zoom in: NGAD envisions sixth-generation fighters supported by sophisticated robotic wingmen, currently designed by Anduril Industries and General Atomics.

• The work is worth billions and billions of dollars.
• The win is a major reversal for Boeing, which suffered setbacks in the defense and commercial markets. It is also a blow to Lockheed Martin, the other competitor and maker of the high-profile F-35.

The latest: The selection was announced Friday in an Oval Office address made by Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended.

• Trump was flanked by an NGAD rendering.

Context: The Air Force recently briefed the president on the program, asking that it proceed, according to Air and Space Forces Magazine.

• "I'm convinced from the analysis that NGAD is necessary," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a Defense One interview published Thursday. "I have an opinion, and I'll offer that to the senior leadership. I can see the difference that it makes."

Catch up quick: Friday's rollout comes months after Frank Kendall, the former Air Force secretary, publicly punted on a decision.

• The NGAD endeavor was also paused last summer amid questions of design and affordability.
• Cost projections per aircraft at one point sat around $300 million. That was too rich, according to Kendall, who expressed interest in an $80-100 million price tag.

What they're saying: "This, plus CCA, plus whatever becomes of Replicator, I think, all need to be part of the same conversation," Jerry McGinn, the executive director of the George Mason University Baroni Center for Government Contracting, told Axios.

Threat level: China at the end of last year unveiled three novel aircraft, including a fighter and an airborne early-warning and control plane with hallmark radome.

• The Pentagon in its annual report on Chinese firepower warned the People's Liberation Army was beefing up "with the delivery of domestically built aircraft and a wide range" of drones.
• A U.S. war effort in the Indo-Pacific would require mass amounts airpower, both manned and unmanned.

What we're watching: How the Navy now proceeds with its advanced fighter, dubbed F/A-XX.

• John Phelan, Trump's pick for Navy secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee the in-development warplane offers "significant advancements in operational reach and capacity."

Go deeper: Today's wars show "air superiority matters," says GE Aerospace's Amy Gowder

President Trump is ship obsessed.

• He's texting about rust into the wee hours of the morning, according to John Phelan, his pick to be Navy secretary.
• And he's sprung the idea of a White House shipbuilding office, spanning both commercial and military sectors.

Why it matters: Amid years of American atrophy — shuttered shipyards, workforce woes accelerated by the pandemic, abandoned guns and schedule overruns — China has cornered the market.

• Beijing's capacity is hundreds of times larger than Washington's by some estimates.
• That spells trouble in the Indo-Pacific, a watery region where military leaders and Beltway diviners believe a war over Taiwan could erupt as soon as 2027.

Driving the news: Trump in a combative nationwide address said he would "resurrect the American shipbuilding industry."

• "We used it to make so many ships," he said. "We don't make them anymore very much, but we're going to make them very fast, very soon."
• But details on the office — exactly how it would work and how far it would reach — are scarce. The president did mention tax incentives.

By the numbers: The Navy would need to spend tens of billions of dollars a year for three decades to satisfy its expansion goals, according to a roundup from the Congressional Budget Office.

• The service tallied 296 battle force ships (aircraft carriers, submarines, surface combatants, amphibious ships, and logistics and support ships) in December.
• It's eyeing 381.
• That doesn't include the many unmanned assets key to the hybrid fleet envisioned by former chiefs of naval operations Adms. Lisa Franchetti and Michael Gilday.

Flashback: The U.S. built thousands of cargo ships during World Wars I and II, according to a 2023 congressional report.

• "In the 1970s, U.S. shipyards were building about 5% of the world's tonnage, equating to 15-25 new ships per year."
• "In the 1980s, this fell to around five ships per year, which is the current rate of U.S. shipbuilding."

What they're saying: The shipbuilding office "can only help," Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday at a Ronald Reagan Institute event. "How it will work, I do not know."

• "We are producing 1.2 attack submarines a year. We need to produce 2.7, or we need to produce almost three, a year," he added. "The way to get started doing it is to say we're going to get started."

Support also rolled in from industry.

• Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, said companies are "ready to answer the call to design and build America's commercial and military fleets."
• Fincantieri in a statement to Axios said it welcomed the creation of the office, "which will empower us to further expand the U.S. industrial base by creating hundreds of additional jobs in the" immediate term.

What's next: Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, both Utah Republicans, want the option to build warships and major components overseas, in NATO countries and friendly Indo-Pacific areas (think Japan or South Korea).

Go deeper: Saronic, now valued at $4 billion, wants its own futuristic shipyard

There's a new, combative air at one of the world's largest office buildings, as accomplished military leaders are axed, thousands of average Joes face layoffs and press access is muddied.

Why it matters: The Pentagon, so often roasted for its sedateness, is being blitzed by change. And the long-term tea leaves are hard to read.

Here are some of the latest developments:

1. A "DOD Rapid Response" account sprang to life on X. One of its stated goals there is "fighting against fake news!" Posts have so far amplified clips of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and singled out lawmakers and journalists.
2. Defense Department personnel were instructed not to respond to the "What did you do last week" email, which Elon Musk has championed. The far-flung message posed information-security concerns, according to critics.
3. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, chief of naval operations and vice chief of staff of the Air Force were fired. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, who in January joined venture capital firm Shield Capital, will be nominated as the next chairman.
4. The Pentagon briefing room was shuttered, except for when public briefings are underway. This move came after CNN, NPR, the New York Times and other outlets were told to vacate their workspaces.
5. Up to 8% of the civilian workforce is on the chopping block, and a hiring freeze is on the horizon. Hegseth meanwhile ordered a $50 billion rework for fiscal year 2026.

Zoom out: Trump administration cuts are hitting veterans particularly hard, Axios previously reported.

• "This is the largest attack on veteran employment in our lifetime," William Attig, executive director at the Union Veterans Council, said.
• Veterans comprised 28% of the federal workforce last year. (That's a lot higher than 5% of the private sector workforce.)

Go deeper: Musk's "move fast, break things" ethos threatens U.S. security

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered military officials to find $50 billion in budget cuts for fiscal year 2026 to be redirected to align with President Trump's priorities for the department, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Why it matters: The review to identify offsets from the Biden administration's FY26 budget is set to overhaul Defense Department priorities, with a Pentagon official noting its mandate is border security, ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and building Trump's planned Iron Dome missile defense shield.

By the numbers: Robert Salesses, performing the duties of the deputy defense secretary, said these offsets are targeted at 8% (about $50 billion) of the Biden administration's budget, "which will then be spent on programs aligned" with Trump's priorities.

What they're saying: "The Department of Defense is conducting this review to ensure we are making the best use of the taxpayers' dollars in a way that delivers on the President Trump's defense priorities efficiently and effectively," Salesses said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

• "Through our budgets, the Department of Defense will once again resource warfighting and cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called 'climate change' and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy," he added.
• Salesses' comments echo those of Hegseth at a conference in Germany last week. "The Defense Department is not in the business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We're in the business of deterring and winning wars," Hegseth said.
• "So, things like that we want to look for to find efficiencies and many others — the way we acquire weapons, system procurement."

Zoom out: The Defense Department, which has 128 coastal military installations in the U.S. alone, had previously identified climate change as a key threat and the Navy has held exercises to help be better prepared for extreme weather.

• The Navy in its Climate Action 2030 report described it as "one of the most destabilizing forces of our time, exacerbating other national security concerns and posing serious readiness challenges."
• A 2023 Congressional Research Service report citing Pentagon officials warned climate change "has growing implications for the costs of operating U.S. military installations and associated equipment," noting recent hurricanes and storms had caused billions of dollars in damage to bases.

Go deeper: Climate change poses growing threat to NATO

So you want to build an Iron Dome. But much bigger, more complex and pricier than the one protecting Israel, right?

Why it matters: President Trump's fiat for a hemispheric shield raised more questions than it initially answered, spurring debate among lawmakers, military officials, defense contractors, analysts and hobbyists.

• Much like Trump riffed on Ronald Reagan with MAGA, here, too, does he invoke the former president and his Star Wars ideals.

• This is a campaign promise made manifest and also a return to 2019, when Trump pledged to "detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States, anytime, anywhere and any place."

To figure out what's needed to make the vision a reality, Axios consulted defense experts, tuned into timely congressional testimony and did the reading. Here's some of the consensus:

Sensors galore. U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command have for years yearned for additional monitoring capabilities.

• Their jobs are getting no easier, with a steady drumbeat of foreign activity off the coast of Alaska.
• Gen. Gregory Guillot told lawmakers last week: "You can't defeat what you can't see, and the adversaries have an increasing capability of reaching us and threatening us from ranges beyond what some of our current systems can detect and track."
• The possibilities stretch from seabed to space, including the E-7 Wedgetail and the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer.

Networks and handoffs. One of the biggest hurdles here — exemplified by Northeast drone mania — is information sharing and interdiction responsibilities.

• The Global Information Dominance Experiments are chipping away at this. The exercises were resuscitated by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and feed the beast that is Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
• "We have a network of ground-based sensors that is very exquisite and very effective, but we need to be thinking about out-of-the-box solutions to get that coverage of hypersonic threats, to get that coverage of drone threats," Masao Dahlgren, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview.
• "The sensing piece and the software needed to stitch it all together, I think, is going to be the No. 1 priority for any Iron Dome, before we even get into the conversation of what we're going to defend."

A stomach for debate. Missile defense can be cast as provocative. It's partly chicken-and-egg thinking: If country A has better defense, country B wants better offense.

• "The United States has been restrained in its development and deployment of strategic defenses with the hope that Russia and China would follow suit," Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Axios. "But that restraint really hasn't bought us anything."
• "Both adversaries," she said, "are developing and deploying serious air and missile defenses of their homelands."
• Space-based weapons are polarizing. There are widely expressed concerns about the exploitation of space and potential arms races there.

Money, money, money. The executive order included no price tag or plainly stated funding source. But if the past is any indication of the future, Iron Dome for America will compete for and chew through cash.

• "This will cost tens of billions of dollars and require a sustained commitment over at least a decade," Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Axios. (His spending breakdown can be found here.)
• "It will be interesting to see how the administration proposes paying for this," he added, "and whether they can advance the program enough in the next four years to make it stick when a future administration takes over."
• Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) filed legislation, the Iron Dome Act, that would inject billions into missile defense. During a congressional hearing, Sullivan shared a poster highlighting Long Range Discrimination Radar, Aegis Ashore and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

Humility. Perfect, impenetrable defense isn't realistic. Certain sites demand priority, and something will eventually get through.

• There were 350 drone detections across 100 installations last year.
• Both Israel and Ukraine — smaller than the U.S. and frequently tested by neighbors — miss. Saturation is deadly.
• There's also defense-tech graveyards littered with such grand plans.

My thought bubble: Defense of Guam will be a good barometer.

• The Missile Defense Agency for the first time in testing intercepted a ballistic missile target from Guam. It happened last year.

Catch up quick: The Space Development Agency and MDA pinged industry to see what's possible.

• RTX, L3Harris Technologies and General Atomics have all said they're well-positioned to win work.

What's next: Government officials have less than 60 days to complete homework assigned to them by the executive order.

An American Airlines regional passenger jet carrying 64 people collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in midair near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday night, officials said, citing preliminary reports.

The latest: Emergency respondents were now "switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation," D.C. Fire and EMS Department chief John Donnelly said at a press briefing Thursday morning.

• "At this point, we don't believe there are any survivors from this accident, and we have recovered 27 people from the plane and one from the helicopter," Donnelly added.
• Remnants of the two aircrafts have been discovered, including the fuselage of the American Airlines plane, which was found in three sections, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said at a press briefing Thursday morning.

State of play: Duffy added that the U.S. still "absolutely" had the safest airspace in the world.

• The cause of the crash is still under investigation. "Something went wrong here," Duffy acknowledged, though he stressed that both aircrafts' flight paths in the lead up to the collision were standard for the D.C. airspace and that there hadn't been a communication breakdown.
• A little over 14 hours after the collision, the airport can "safely" reopen at 11am, said Jack Potter, head of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

The big picture: The American Eagle Flight 5342 was en route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., with 60 passengers and four crew members on board, per a statement on American Airlines' website about the incident involving its subsidiary airline.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared a statement on X just after midnight Thursday from a Defense Department spokesperson saying the U.S. Army UH-60 helicopter was on a training exercise out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, when the incident happened.

Zoom in: The collision prompted a ground stop and Reagan Washington National Airport said on X all takeoffs and landings had been "halted at DCA."

• A figure skating group said on X that skaters, coaches and their families were on the flight following the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Telegram that Russian figure skaters and other citizens were on board.

What they're saying: President Trump thanked first responders in an emailed statement late Wednesday and said that he'd been "fully briefed on the terrible accident," adding: "May God Bless their souls."

• Trump made clear on Truth Social early Thursday that he's seeking answers on how the collision happened, saying: "This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented."

What we're watching: Donnelly said at an early Thursday morning briefing some 300 responders were at the scene, where temperatures were expected to be below freezing overnight.

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X her department was "deploying every available" U.S. Coast Guard resource for search and rescue efforts.
• The Federal Aviation Administration said it would investigate the incident alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, with the latter leading the probe.

Background: Reagan Washington National Airport is owned by the federal government and operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which serves the D.C. metropolitan area.

• It's an American Airlines hub that provides nonstop flights to 102 domestic destinations and six international destinations, per the airport's website.

Flashback: Wednesday's collision is the worst air tragedy in the D.C. area since the Air Florida Flight 90 crash on Jan. 13, 1982.

• The plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge after take off from Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 70 passengers, four crew members and four people in vehicles on the bridge over the Potomac River.

Go deeper: In photos: Crews search Potomac River after air crash near Reagan airport

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

For a man who's courted so much controversy, whose first name became a conservative chorus on X and whose nomination prompted questions of "Who?!" at happy hours, Pete Hegseth's public views on China, Russia and defense tech are pretty standard.

The big picture: President Trump is disruptor in chief. His picks for key posts are unorthodox; his flurry of fiats, some targeting U.S. troops, are catching backlash.

• But Hegseth — a combat veteran, former Fox News personality and now defense secretary — toes the line on the "pacing challenge," the "acute threat" and other governmentese.

Here's what written testimony, submitted to Congress ahead of the historic 51-50 vote, reveals about his geopolitics and weapons thinking.

China: The potential seizure of Taiwan, a "fait accompli," should motivate U.S. military modernization. Guam is a linchpin for Indo-Pacific success. Collaborating with Japan will pay deterrence dividends.

Russia: Despite sanctions and other constraints, its war machine still packs a punch. Moscow's digital subterfuge and Arctic ambitions "are particularly acute." The invasion of Ukraine is "settling into a war of attrition."

Iran: The regime, which props up violent proxies, creeps closer to nuclear weapons. Its missile and drone arsenal demands countermeasures. The U.S. should help Israel defend itself.

North Korea: An "intense focus" on missile development, hacking gains and nuclear arms is concerning. Its "space capabilities" must be monitored. Missile defense needs beefing up closer to home.

Nukes: A triad is a necessity. Full stop. And full steam ahead on the Sentinel nuclear missile, B-21 Raider and the Columbia-class submarine. Partnering with the National Nuclear Security Administration is of highest priority. NNSA labs, plants and sites want for dramatic renovations.

Doing business: The Pentagon is thinking too narrowly; it should look beyond Cold War suppliers. Places like the Office of Strategic Capital and Defense Innovation Unit are oases. Delayed, over-budget projects require a "thorough review."

Army upgrades: Wars abroad underline the value of cyber, autonomy and precision fires.

Next Generation Air Dominance: A careful review will come. (Punt.)

Shipbuilding: The U.S. must up its game. Navy leadership should develop a "shipbuilding road map to increase our capacity" and remove supply chain chokepoints.

Yes, but: His takes on women's role in combat, ousting "woke" generals and takedown of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have been cast inside and outside Congress as far more radical.

• One of Hegseth's first posts on X as defense secretary included a photo with a handwritten note: "DOD =/= DEI."

What's next: Hegseth promised to delegate day-to-day matters to his yet-to-be-confirmed deputy. Trump picked billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg for that post.

• Meantime, the potential Army, Navy and Air Force secretaries (Dan Driscoll, John Phelan and Troy Meink) await their hearings and votes.

Go deeper: Trump's Pentagon pick wants to "Make America Lethal Again"

Anduril Industries will build Arsenal-1 in Columbus, Ohio, propelling its plans to pump out tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles, sensors and weapons.

• The production lines could go hot as soon as July 2026, according to the company.

Why it matters: This is a make-or-break moment for the $14 billion neo-prime, as it's promised the Pentagon and investors alike an overhaul of defense manufacturing.

• Speculation ran wild after it hinted at an initial stateside megafactory and future copycats abroad in August.

The latest: The 5 million-square-foot Arsenal-1 will be erected near Rickenbacker International Airport, which has ties to the Ohio Air National Guard.

• A 700,000-square-foot facility already on the plot will be renovated.
• Barracuda cruise missiles and Roadrunner interceptors are early contenders for production. Energetics — materials found in ammo, warheads and more — aren't on the menu, period.
• The location grants Anduril access to a pair of 12,000-foot runways. Testing nearby is an option.

What we're watching: How Anduril taps a Rust Belt workforce amid louder and louder chatter of American reindustrialization.

• Chief executive Brian Schimpf told Axios in November available labor and state government enthusiasm were big factors.
• Intel is building a semiconducter shop miles down the road.

Context: Ohio is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

• Anduril is working closely with the service on collaborative combat aircraft. General Atomics is also on the drone wingmen project.

Catch up quick: Anduril secured $1.5 billion in funding over the summer. The money will be used in part for the facility.

• The company has other footprints in Rhode Island (focused on robo-subs), Mississippi (focused on solid rocket motors), Texas (where jammers and air autonomy are assessed) and Australia.
• No existing plants will be shuttered, Chief Strategy Officer Chris Brose told reporters.

The bottom line: "This is a massive milestone for Anduril on its journey as a company," Brose said.

• "We will be creating, with our partners in Ohio, something that does not currently exist in the American defense industrial base."

Go deeper: Central Ohio is an industrial development "sweet spot"

Footage showing a previously unseen Chinese warplane scrambled aviation geeks Thursday, with some joking the clips were the perfect Christmas present.

Why it matters: The aircraft emerges amid fiery debates about the future of airpower — manned versus unmanned, mainly — in the U.S. and abroad.

• Competition between Washington and Beijing is also boiling.

Zoom in: Videos and photos flooding social media show a large, delta-wing-style aircraft with a cockpit chased by a J-20S fighter.

• Its design suggests stealth.
• Russian state media quickly amplified the visuals, dubbing it the "White Emperor."
• Aviation Week reported that the main landing gear has the "hallmark of heavy fighter-bombers, such as the Sukhoi Su-34."

Yes, but: Much remains unknown about the aircraft. Neither the Chinese government nor industry immediately took credit for the daytime flight.

What we're watching: The fate of the U.S. Air Force's futuristic fighter is in the hands of the incoming Trump administration, following Secretary Frank Kendall's punt.

• "I don't want to make a decision that's going to be disrupted and reversed, potentially, by the new team," Kendall said Dec. 19 at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.
• "I don't want us to start industry down a specific course and then have to abruptly reverse that a few months from now."