Cogs of War

China and Russia are churning out millions of drones while the United States has little capacity to build them at scale. Rep. Pat Harrigan of North Carolina introduced the SkyFoundry Act to change this, and it got rolled into the latest National Defense Authorization Act.  This law authorizes a government-run facility capable of producing one million small drones annually, cutting China out of our supply chains and ending years of procurement delays. It's a truly new way for the government to work with multiple industry partners. Harrigan joined Ryan to discuss how SkyFoundry is supposed to work, the tradeoffs of a government-run production facility, how vendors would plug into the system, and the failures in military strategy and production that brought us here.

Since World War II, America's universities have been part of the nation's arsenal, forging the ideas, technology, and talent that underpin national defense. That engine of innovation never stopped running. John Beieler and John Paul Sawyer of the University of Maryland join Ryan to talk about the power of public–private partnerships in defense tech, quantum science, and AI, and how that work keeps American innovation humming just outside Washington.

Open-source intelligence has matured into a complex blend of technology, access, and tradecraft. Ryan is joined by Ryan Curran of ZeroFox, Tucker Moore of Booz Allen Hamilton, and Scott Petry of Authentic8 to explore how today's practitioners manage attribution, collect at scale, preserve provenance, and ensure human judgment remains at the center of the process.

When it comes to missiles, America lacks the magazine depth for a long fight, especially against a peer competitor like China. A major part of the problem: Traditional U.S. missiles are simply too costly to produce at scale. Ryan sits down with three industry leaders working to change that. Listen to Ethan Thornton (Mach Industries), Sean Pitt (Castelion), and Steve Milano (Anduril) as they explain how they aim to produce different kinds of missiles at scale at costs orders of magnitude lower than the primes. Can they deliver?

Sherman Williams, the co-founder of AIN Ventures, joins Ryan at the bar to discuss the hard realities of dual-use investing. They dig into inflated valuations, the dangers of easy capital, and the risks of betting on defense budgets that may not endure. They also examine the outlook for space companies, the role of private equity, and what it really takes for startups to survive in this sector.