Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a new security investment plan on Monday that proposes an increase of more than $9 billion in military-related funding this fiscal year and would enable the nation to meet the NATO alliance’s 2% defense spending target five years ahead of schedule.

“I call on all parties in Parliament to support these critical investments in our security and sovereignty. Our plan will help ensure that Canada is strong at home and reliable abroad,” Carney said. “We should no longer send three-quarters of our defense capital spending to America. We will invest in new submarines, aircraft, ships, armed vehicles and artillery, as well as new radar drones and sensors to monitor the sea floor and the Arctic.”

These planned investments would directly support the Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence, and the Communications Security Establishment, among other aligned organizations. 

Senior Canadian government officials hosted a call with a group of international reporters after Carney’s announcement to shed light on this new vision and high-dollar funding boosts.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one senior official noted that “the total defense spend for Canada was projected to have been $53.4 billion this fiscal year [but] today, with this new investment, that number is poised to grow to $62.7 billion.”

The plan calls for investing $560 million this year to grow the Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command, modernize the nation’s digital resources and accelerate the military’s AI deployments.

“We will spend $1 billion this year on critical systems that will make Canada increasingly self-sufficient in defending our territory, our citizens — and especially in the Arctic. This includes the over-the-horizon radar, joint support ships, integrated underwater surveillance systems, logistics and light utility vehicles and domestic ammunition production, to mention a few,” they said.

New investments will additionally prioritize fleet maintenance, more weapons and aircraft and armored vehicles, infrastructure modernization and better pay for military and defense personnel. Further, Canada is also looking to build more capacity in the quantum and space sectors.

“With our Five Eyes [alliance] partners, we’re very excited about the defense industrial strategy, because I think it will create new opportunities to work in secure and classified spaces that we haven’t had before,” a senior government official said. The Five Eyes alliance includes Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop, they noted that the Trump administration’s new vision to build out the Golden Dome next-generation missile defense system to shield the American homeland is “certainly top of mind for a lot of Canadians.”

But the Canadian government’s aims, in their view, are more about establishing integrated air-and-missile defense to protect Canada, as well as the military’s commitment to North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

“In doing this investment, we’re going to protect our sovereignty and our country, but we’ll also be better partners in the NORAD enterprise, where we’ll be value-added to the gaps that NORAD has. So our focus is integrated air-and-missile defense — arguably a subset of the wider NORAD contribution that we’ve been doing for a long time — and we’ll watch and see how the wider U.S. approach to air-and-missile defense evolves,” the senior official told DefenseScoop.

Carney, who leads Canada’s Liberal party, was elected in April to serve as prime minister. He built his campaign around promises to push back on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and calls for annexation of America’s northern neighbor, and to strategically re-arm the nation’s military to meet contemporary threats.

“The brave women and men who are protecting our sovereignty do not have the resources they need for a riskier world. Our military infrastructure and equipment have aged, hindering our military preparedness. I’ll give an example or two. Only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Less than half our maritime fleet and land vehicles are operational. More broadly, we’re too reliant on the United States,” Carney said Monday.

Canada is set to host Trump and other world leaders at the G7 summit in Alberta early next week.

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On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich has been tapped by the commander-in-chief for appointment to the grade of general and assignment as commander of U.S. European Command. NATO has also agreed to appoint him as supreme allied commander Europe, according to the announcement.

Grynkewich is currently serving as director of operations, J-3, with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Prior to that, he led Air Forces Central and Combined Forces Air Component Commander under U.S. Central Command. As commander of AFCENT, he championed the work of Task Force 99, which was stood up to operationally evaluate new drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions.

If confirmed, Grynkewich would assume the top military leadership role in NATO as the alliance is pursuing AI and other new tech as well as new relationships with non-traditional industry. The Trump administration is also pushing other members of NATO to shoulder more of the burden for defense of Europe, stating that the U.S. military needs to focus more on the Pacific and homeland defense.

On Wednesday, Hegseth announced that Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper was nominated for appointment to the grade of admiral, with assignment as commander of Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East region. Cooper is currently serving as deputy commander.

Centcom’s area of responsibility has long been a hotspot for U.S. military actions against militant groups and nation-state actors, including recently battling the Houthis and trying to thwart their drone and missile attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.

Prior to his current job, Cooper led Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, where he was a big proponent of Task Force 59, which was established to help the Navy better integrate uncrewed systems and AI into its operations to strengthen the service’s maritime domain awareness.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson has been tapped to become a four-star and command U.S. Africa Command. Africom earlier this year was given expanded authority by Trump to attack terrorist targets in its area of responsibility and is adjusting its posture as it tries to deal with growing threats.

Anderson has held a number of positions in the special operations community during his career, including as commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, among other assignments. He’s currently serving as director of joint force development, J-7, with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

On Tuesday, Hegseth announced that Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, who comes from the Navy SEAL community, was selected for appointment to the grade of admiral and to lead U.S. Special Operations Command. He’s currently serving as commander of Joint Special Operations Command.

SOCOM has been a leader within the Defense Department in adopting cutting-edge tech such as AI and other digital tools, including via its SOF Digital Applications program executive office. The command recently released an updated strategy dubbed SOF Renaissance, which laid out SOCOM’s vision for how the force needs to transform to meet future challenges by adopting new technologies and other reforms, including modernization efforts geared toward surface and subsurface maritime platforms; next-generation ISR; mission command systems; and collaborative and autonomous unmanned systems.

In other SOF-related personnel news this week, Trump on Monday nominated former congressional candidate and Green Beret Derrick Anderson to serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

The nominees must be confirmed by the Senate to take on those new roles.

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Through the contract, which was finalized March 25, the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) plans to use a version of the AI system — Maven Smart System NATO — to support the transatlantic military organization’s Allied Command Operations strategic command.

NATO plans to use the system to provide “a common data-enabled warfighting capability to the Alliance, through a wide range of AI applications — from large language models (LLMs) to generative and machine learning,” it said in a release, ultimately enhancing “intelligence fusion and targeting, battlespace awareness and planning, and accelerated decision-making.”

Neither party commented on the terms of the deal, but it was enough to drum up market confidence in Palantir, whose stock rose about 8% Monday morning. NATO, however, said the contract “was one of the most expeditious in [its] history, taking only six months from outlining the requirement to acquiring the system.”

Ludwig Decamps, NCIA general manager, said in a statement that the deal with Palantir is focused on “providing customized state-of-the-art AI capabilities to the Alliance, and empowering our forces with the tools required on the modern battlefield to operate effectively and decisively.”

Palantir’s commercialized Maven Smart System plays into the growing need for an interconnected digital battlespace in modern conflict powered by AI. The data-fusion platform served as a core element of the Pentagon’s infamous Project Maven. However, NATO warned in its release that it shouldn’t be confused with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven program, though the company’s AI is a component of the greater NGA program’s infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command Control (CJADC2) attempts to do this by connecting disparate systems operated by the U.S. military and international partners under a single network to enable rapid data transfer between all warfighting domains. Palantir has already inked a $480 million deal with the Pentagon to support those efforts with Maven. Last September, the company also scored a nearly $100 million contract with the Army Research Lab to support each of the U.S. military services with Maven Smart System.

Meanwhile, the contract with the U.S.-based Palantir comes as NATO has become one of the recent targets of President Donald Trump’s ire because he believes other members of the alliance aren’t committing enough of their spending to the organization’s collective defense, saying in March: “If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.”

NATO’s Allied Command Operations will begin using Maven within the next 30 days, the organization said Monday, adding that it hopes that using it will accelerate further adoption of emerging AI capabilities.

“ACO is at the forefront of adopting technologies that make NATO more agile, adaptable, and responsive to emerging threats. Innovation is core to our warfighting ability,” said German Army Gen. Markus Laubenthal, chief of staff of NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, the military headquarters of ACO. “Maven Smart System NATO enables the Alliance to leverage complex data, accelerate decision-making, and by doing so, adds a true operational value.”

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When it unfolds between March 31 and April 11, the event will span 12 allied operational air bases and incorporate more than 90 fighter jets and support aircraft from across NATO’s arsenal. 

Unlike similar exercises that pre-dated it, Ramstein Flag 2025 will be run out of Royal Air Force Netherlands’ Leeuwarden Air Base. And this year, the militaries involved are primarily practicing activities associated with counter anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), integrated air and missile defense, and agile combat employment. 

“Participants — operators, air crew, engineers — will all hone their skills in achieving success in those missions. And importantly, [they’ll be] learning a lot of lessons,” U.K. Air Marshal Johnny Stringer, deputy commander of NATO Allied Air Command, said Monday.

Stringer and Royal Netherlands Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. André Steur hosted a virtual media roundtable with a small group of reporters to preview the alliance’s vision and key objectives for the exercise. 

“We sometimes underestimate that value of actually knowing the folks you’re going to possibly go to war with — and [to] train together with them to be able to fight as one team,” Steur said.

The partners involved aim to bolster the survivability of the alliance’s troops and equipment, and ultimately reduce their enemies’ ability to target and take them out.

Stringer declined to share certain details about the event for security reasons, but pointed to cross-servicing aircraft as one aspect they’ll be training on. NATO has been improving in this regard over the last three years, but it was more commonplace during the Cold War, he told reporters.

Cross-servicing encompasses “one nation’s engineers or maintainers doing the turnaround between missions of another nation’s aircraft type,” he explained. 

The alliance has already succeeded with cross-servicing certain aircraft in real-world operations to date, but Stringer said in this exercise officials are taking it further and operating out of 12 different bases to “deliberately stress” themselves. He noted that Ramstein Flag 2025 takes its “provenance from” the famed Red Flag exercise series that’s run out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

“There’s a very good reason to do that, which is, if you get everybody at the same location, it makes briefing, debriefing, etc., a whole lot easier. But we won’t have that luxury for real in wartime, and we need to be able to practice it dispersed across multiple locations. So, that’s one of the things we’re getting at during Ramstein Flag. But we’re using a raft of other exercises. And this is another area where, to use a great phrase, ‘better never stops’ — and we’ll always be continuing and iterating what we do,” Stringer told reporters.

He said “high-end” exercises like this enable military leaders to dig into fundamental, tactical questions to prepare for future fights, like was “our side being shot down in numbers that are unacceptable?” The events also highlight existing challenges regarding technology and connectivity that could impact the alliance’s capacity to execute joint operations globally if members have to go to war.

“When we were trying to pass some critical data, whether it be at the planning stage or even during the execution stage, were we able to get it through? Did the sort of networks which we had configured — did they actually work? Did we put too much onto some people’s shoulders? Was that particular sort of two aircraft, four aircraft formation getting very task-saturated at the time, because what was being asked of them was so challenging?” Stringer said, referring to further questions Ramstein Flag 2025 will help answer.

“And I think this exercise is not just about interoperability and training towards a target set or a certain opponent, but it’s also providing exposure at all levels,” Steur added.

The first iteration of Ramstein Flag was held in October 2024. The two officials said the intent is to hit a regular cadence moving forward.

The commanders also briefly discussed how NATO is integrating lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war — particularly with regard to technology adoption and adaptation — into their training.

“I think there’s also an old lesson to be learned, if we look at Ukraine, that when none of the parties are able to establish air superiority, then warfighting becomes extremely difficult. And I think if our deterrent in the alliance would fail, a lot of folks are going to be looking at the allied air forces to set the preconditions for conflict and make sure we can facilitate freedom of maneuver on the surface and be able to defend our forces on the ground as well. And I think that is exactly what we are training towards with Ramstein Flag and our flag exercises,” Steur said.

This event will notably occur at a time when the new Trump administration is reportedly exploring a major shift in how the U.S. participates in NATO. American President Donald Trump has also repeatedly bashed other alliance members for not meeting the goal of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

“All relationships, all alliances probably have their ups and downs. But what you’re seeing in Ramstein Flag is some of the highest-end training we’re able to conduct in Europe across a raft of nations, supported by all 32 nations in the alliance, to generate the essential skills that we’ll need — all of us will need — to keep Europe safe. And that ability to integrate, to be interoperable across nations, is essential to it. And that is underpinning the exercise,” Stringer told reporters.

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The new Pentagon chief, who is in the middle of his first overseas trip in that capacity, laid out his vision for a “division of labor” for security on the continent during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium.

During the Biden administration, the United States provided more than $65 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including a variety of drones, counter-drone systems and other tools, according to the Pentagon. The European Union and its member states have provided Kyiv more than $48 billion in military assistance, according to a Congressional Research Service report that was updated last month.

“Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine. Members of this contact group must meet the moment. This means donating more ammunition and equipment, leveraging comparative advantages, expanding your defense industrial base, and importantly, leveling with your citizens about the threat facing Europe,” Hegseth said, reiterating President Donald Trump’s call for other NATO members to spend at least 5 percent of their GDP on defense.

He noted that many European countries are already co-leading “capability coalitions” to assist Kyiv, with groups focusing on eight technology buckets including drones, air-and-missile defense, information technology, air force, maritime security, artillery, armor and de-mining.

“These groups are doing great work to coordinate Europe’s contributions of … assistance across eight key capability areas. These are first steps. More must still be done. We ask each of your countries to step up on fulfilling the commitments that you have made, and we challenge your countries and your citizens to double down and recommit yourselves, not only to Ukraine’s immediate security needs, but to Europe’s long-term defense and deterrence goals,” Hegseth said.

The Trump administration wants to see a quick end to the war and the preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty, but it doesn’t intend to send American troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force or security guarantor following a diplomatic settlement to the Ukraine-Russia war, he noted, adding that NATO membership for Ukraine and a return to pre-2014 borders are “unrealistic” objectives for a negotiated deal to end the conflict.

“Our transatlantic alliance has endured for decades, and we fully expect that it will be sustained for generations to come. But … it will require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on the continent. The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe — full stop — but the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship … which encourages dependency, rather our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security,” he added.

According to Hegseth, “stark strategic realities” will compel the U.S. to focus more on other areas of the world.

“The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must and we are focusing on security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail,” he said. “As the United States prioritizes its attention to the threats, European allies must lead from the front. Together, we can establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and Pacific, respectively.”

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Whitaker was acting attorney general from November 2018 to February 2019 during Trump’s first term. He also previously served as chief of staff in the Justice Department and as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. Additionally, he’s been co-chair for the Center of Law & Justice at the America First Policy Institute and of counsel at Graves Garrett Greim, among other positions. He also ran for political office as a Republican candidate and appeared at rallies for Trump’s presidential campaign.

“Matt is a strong warrior and loyal Patriot, who will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended. Matt will strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability – He will put AMERICA FIRST,” Trump said in a statement. “I have full confidence in Matt’s ability to represent the United States with Strength, Integrity, and unwavering Dedication. I look forward to working closely with him as we continue to promote PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, Freedom, and Prosperity around the World.”

Trump has been a critic of NATO and pressured other member nations to spend more on defense.

If confirmed by the Senate, Whitaker would play a key role in the alliance as it pursues a wide range of modernization efforts to counter advanced threats — including from Russia and elsewhere — such as the adoption of artificial intelligence capabilities and other digital tools and emerging technologies for military applications.

NATO officials are ramping up the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) initiative, which aims to boost cooperation on emerging tech and foster a far-reaching innovation network, with a particular focus on supporting startups.

The military pact is also looking to bolster data security and plans to publish its first commercial space strategy next year, among other efforts.

For most of the Biden administration, Julianne Smith served as U.S. ambassador to NATO. She left that post last month.

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The recently completed Ramstein Flag 2024 and the ongoing and more secretive Neptune Eagle, among a variety of other related exercises and activities, are paving new means to combat anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities that could affect who can enter critical real-world operating environments. They’re also enabling deeper interoperability, according to service members steering and participating in these future-focused events.

On Wednesday, a defense official who spoke to DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity said that participation in such counter-A2/AD exercises ensures that “NATO can gain air superiority in future contested scenarios, alongside allies and partners.”

“That’s what it’s all designed to do,” the official said.

For instance, they pointed to the first-ever Ramstein Flag exercise, which unfolded in Greece earlier this month. Upwards of 130 military aircraft from 12 nations flew in the large-scale training and capability showcase.

Roots of Ramstein Flag trace back to a first-ever NATO weapons and tactics forum that Gen. James Hecker, who leads U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and Allied Air Command, hosted a year-and-a-half ago. A major aim was to develop new and timely concepts and approaches with tactical experts from across the alliance.

“We do this on the U.S. side of the house all the time. But [Hecker] did this for the first time with NATO allies. And then that kind of drove smaller exercises — command post exercises and part task training with smaller groups, which evolved into a larger Ramstein Flag 2024 live-flying exercise with more than 100 NATO aircraft operating from eleven different locations,” the official told DefenseScoop.

Those involved are planning for the next Ramstein Flag iteration to take place in the Netherlands sometime around spring 2025.

During a virtual media roundtable held on the sidelines of the annual AUSA conference last week, senior Army officials leading the force’s hubs across Europe and Africa spotlighted different exercises and events their teams engaged in so far this year that are broadly helping NATO rapidly experiment and modernize for the “future fight.” Notably, the events are informed by real-world warfare between Russia and Ukraine, and elsewhere. 

The Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment is the “rapid response force that’s nested and partnered with NATO, allies and partners across the European theater,” Command Sgt. Maj. Dennis Doyle told reporters — therefore operating “with the enemy at the doorstep.”

He spotlighted how the unit is adopting new “mission partner kits.”

“It’s like the big talking point for us on the NATO alliance, because what this has done is a piece of equipment that allows our partners and allies to quickly integrate en route to any conflict,” Doyle explained.

The kits enable users to transmit voice communication that he said is secure with translation capabilities. Among other features, the tools also help the international militaries tapping into them synchronize on-the-ground efforts and share a bird’s eye view of the battlefield. 

“And, we can all do that en route. An example of that just recently,” Doyle said, “is Saber Strike from back in April.”

That multilateral NATO exercise spanned nearly that entire month and concentrated a bit on enabling distributed command and control between the countries involved. 

“[We] conducted one of the largest tactical road marches in Europe since World War II,” Doyle told reporters.

With the mission partner kits, he added, the team was able to successfully expand the NATO battle group to a brigade-size element for the second time in a row. They were also able to “synchronize live-fire operations while executing command and control over three areas — from Lithuania, the Suwałki Gap with the Territorial Defense Forces, and then [the Bemowo Piskie Training Area in Poland] — all simultaneous on the same timeframe, while under one command,” according to Doyle. 

“And what that did at the end of the day, it gave us the capacity to demonstrate to our partners and allies that [U.S. Army Europe and Africa, or USAREUR-AF], V Corps and the NATO alliance are primed and ready to fight now and win as a joint force against anything if we’re called to action,” he added.

During the media roundtable, commanding general of the Army’s V Corps Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza and commanding general of 56th Artillery Command Maj. Gen. John Rafferty additionally pointed to the Avenger Triad 24 exercise that was held for two weeks in September.  

The event — led by USAREUR-AF — connected thousands of military personnel from more than 10 participating nations, including some that border Russia.

“Avenger Triad was an opportunity for us — really, for the first time — to take these effects from different domains and converge them against multiple sets of targets. Our mission during that was kind of multifaceted. In one case, part of the reason for our existence is because of the anti-access/area-denial threat that exists in Europe. So, that’s a big responsibility for us is to open up windows of opportunity for the joint force,” Rafferty said. 

He also referenced the recent U.S.-led Arcane Thunder exercise that was designed to demonstrate theater-wide synchronization and multi-domain operations in Germany and Morocco. 

“The Moroccans are great partners. They’re so easy to train with, and important and valuable partners in the region, but also provided a really unique and permissive training environment that allowed us to really get after some deep-sensing experimentation from high-altitude sensors, and then really work … on our targeting and long-haul comms,” Rafferty told reporters. 

He noted that his command’s “training continues.” Without naming it, Rafferty mentioned an in-progress exercise the Army is conducting with the Air Force, which he said is “focused primarily on A2/AD.”

In response to multiple inquiries from DefenseScoop, Army spokespersons confirmed that Rafferty was referring to the Neptune Eagle exercise, but they declined to provide any more information.

Besides that it seeks to advance kill-chains and battle management tasks and is planned for Oct. 16-24, the majority of details about Neptune Eagle are classified or protected from wide dissemination for what the Pentagon considers security purposes.

In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson from U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa told DefenseScoop: “The Neptune series of events are joint air interoperability exercises designed to maintain readiness and evaluate employment capabilities in a realistic training environment. The exercises consist of U.S. personnel from across the services.”

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While the strategy’s development is still in nascent stages, it’s intended to provide guidance as to how member nations can take advantage of a range of commercial space technologies to increase resiliency in the domain, Maj. Gen. Devin Pepper, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and policy at NATO, said Thursday.

“There’s a lot of commercial capability out there that we can leverage to increase our own resiliency at NATO. We want to be able to capture that,” he said during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute. “Right now we have contractors with several commercial companies today. We want to be able to expand that and make sure that we can rely upon that in a conflict if we need it.”

Having previously served as deputy commanding general for operations at U.S. Space Operations Command (SpOC), Pepper was recently promoted to serve within NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) where he will work to advance the alliance’s multi-domain operations, including in space. Since it officially recognized space as an operational domain in 2019, NATO has worked broadly to bolster its presence and capabilities in that realm.

“We need to be able to have that data and that information available in a fight, whether it comes from the military or not,” Pepper said. “But if that gets shut down, we have got to be able to ensure that we can still prosecute a fight leveraging commercial capability.”

On Oct. 2, NATO hosted representatives from the space industry at its headquarters in Brussels for a Commercial Space Forum, where attendees discussed emerging threats — from cyber attacks on ground stations to GPS jamming and spoofing — as well as investment opportunities and information-sharing on threats, according to officials.

The meeting followed the alliance’s decision this summer during the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, to develop its own commercial space strategy.

Pepper added that NATO’s commercial space strategy will be closely aligned with those published by the U.S. Defense Department and the U.S. Space Force earlier this year. The Pentagon-wide strategy outlines the policy guidelines for the entire department, while the Space Force document focuses on the service’s use cases for commercial technology integration and desired end states.

A NATO press release stated that its strategy will include guidance on protection for industry partners. However, there will likely be alliance-specific bureaucratic processes and mission opportunities included in the organization’s commercial strategy, as well as a different pool of commercial vendors able to participate, Pepper noted. 

“Not every nation in NATO is a space-aring nation [or] has space capability,” he said. “That’s why we have asked all of our nations to please tell us what you have, and then what industries may be available in your particular country that has a capability that we can certainly leverage.”

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The DIANA initiative, which was launched in 2022 and has its main office in London, aims to boost alliance cooperation on emerging tech and foster a far-reaching innovation network. It’s particularly focused on supporting startups. Its board of directors is chaired by Barbara McQuiston, a former senior Pentagon science and technology official.

The initial cohort for DIANA included 44 vendors, and now 10 of those have been tapped to move into phase two based on their ability to “demonstrate progress in their commercial and defence market potential, the technical viability and novelty of their solutions, and their investment readiness,” according to a NATO release.

A senior NATO communications official previously told DefenseScoop that phase two will be focused on “scaling up.”

One of the companies chosen for the next phase, Dolphin Labs, is headquartered in the U.S. and has developed an xNode wave energy converter. The technology “generates persistent, renewable electricity to enable remote ocean sensing networks, subsea microgrids and communications. This new class of expeditionary technology enables enhanced maritime domain awareness to improve the safety and security for our offshore natural resources and critical infrastructure,” according to a description included in a NATO release.

“To respond to a changing world, DIANA is identifying, developing and deploying dual-use, emerging and disruptive technologies with the power to reduce the risk of conflict, and mitigate its impacts,” the company said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. “Dolphin Labs looks forward to working with the DIANA team over the next six months to boost the commercialization and adoption of our innovation.”

Four U.K.-based vendors were also tapped: Aquark Technologies, which focuses on improving the size, weight, power and cost of quantum devices; cybersecurity firm Goldilock; IONATE, which builds tech for smart grids; and semiconductor company SECQAI.

Other selectees include Lithuania-based Astrolight, an innovator in high-bandwidth laser communication; Italy-based Ephos, which designs and manufactures glass-based integrated photonic circuits to power computing, communications and sensing devices; Netherlands-based Lobster Robotics, a maker of underwater drones that can do high-resolution mapping of sea beds; Canada-based Phantom Photonics, which develops quantum sensing solutions for 3D imaging; and Poland-based REVOBEAM, which specializes in production of “intelligent” antennas that can be used to enable unmanned systems, according to the NATO release.

The 10 companies will each receive an additional 300,000 euros for phase two – significantly more than the 100,000 euros each of the 44 vendors initially chosen for the first cohort received to work on their technologies.

“To solve complex security and resilience problems, we need an ecosystem of creative, collaborative innovators willing to bring their talent and expertise to bear. These ten innovators, and indeed all of our first cohort, are paving the way for a strong pipeline of innovation for Allied nations to adopt,” Deeph Chana, DIANA’s managing director, said in a statement.

Adrian Dan, chief commercial officer for the initiative, said the vendors tapped for the next phase have emerging tech with “high adoption potential.”

“With increased exposure to investors, end users and partners, we are excited to see how far our innovators will go,” Dan said in a statement.

The DIANA initiative is highly selective. For the first cohort chosen last year, only 44 organizations made the cut out of more than 1,300 applicants after an evaluation of their proposals that focused on three key “challenge areas” — energy resilience, sensing and surveillance, and secure information sharing. Less than 25 percent of those firms have been tapped to move into phase two.

In December 2023, a senior alliance official told reporters that DIANA is “a really interesting example of how you can use an organization like NATO to reach out beyond the traditional defense sector.”

Companies chosen for each cohort work with mentors to develop their projects, the official noted during a Defense Writers Group meeting in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The whole system is set up in a way that is very dynamic. And so it’s going to be learning from this first cohort of innovators and refining every year … The system is built in a way that we will adjust and upgrade and innovate with every single cohort,” they said.

In July, officials kicked off their search for the second DIANA cohort, which will join the accelerator in early 2025. According to NATO, the alliance received more than 2,600 submissions from vendors that were asked to focus on five challenge areas: energy and power; data and information security; sensing and surveillance; human health and performance; and critical infrastructure and logistics.

“We’re looking to select roughly about 15 companies per challenge area, which is about 75 and is proportionately the same as we did last year,” Tien Pham, DIANA’s chief scientist, told reporters in June.

Meanwhile, the alliance is moving to expand DIANA’s footprint. Earlier this year, it announced that the number of related tech accelerator sites across the multinational network will jump from 11 to 23, and the number of test centers will increase from 90 to 182. After the expansion — which is intended to enhance the alliance’s capacity to support companies and other participants as they develop their tech — there will be DIANA locations in 28 nations, officials said.

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During their open meeting on Wednesday, members of the panel agreed upon those and other recommendations, based on a study they were tasked with delivering, called Optimizing Innovation Cooperation with Allies and Partners.

“Today, the DoD does not have a central standing mechanism for interfacing with allies, partners, and international organizations, resulting in a state of considerable fragmentation, duplication, and lack of coordination across workstreams. Moreover, we observed that DoD senior leaders are stretched thin by the many duties pressed upon them, and that international defense industrial cooperation is often relegated in the face of competing priorities. The Department’s principals responsible for international cooperation accordingly struggle to devote an adequate level of attention, care, and focus to addressing the barriers and risks facing the international industrial base,” the report stated.

At Wednesday’s meeting, board member Charles Phillips said: “We talked to a lot of different organizations to get a sense of how it’s working today. Other countries [like] Norway, the U.K., Ukraine, even our allies, and … some startups trying to work with the DOD from outside of the U.S. and want to find out how to work with us. So, the number one issue we found is that there’s no pathway for working with the DOD if you’re coming from another country. No one knows how it works. It’s too fragmented and there’s a lot of different certifications and requirements.”

To help tackle these problems, the DIB recommends that the Pentagon create an Undersecretary of Defense for International Industrial Cooperation, or USD(IIC), and designate a senior political executive to serve as the department’s primary point of contact and report as the principal staff assistant to defense leadership for all matters pertaining to international defense industrial cooperation.

Two assistant secretaries of defense for combined requirements development and international integration and interoperability should serve under the new undersecretary’s purview, the study suggests.

In early 2018, Congress mandated that the department reshuffle the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) into undersecretary-level positions focused on acquisition and sustainment (A&S) and research and engineering (R&E). That move was controversial at the time — and in their study, DIB experts said it “left the international defense industrial cooperation portfolio disjointed.”

As part of their proposed reshuffle, board members recommend that the new ICC office “incorporate and elevate the international defense industrial base portfolio” from A&S. Oversight of all domestic defense industrial base policy would remain under the acquisition and sustainment directorate.

Similarly, under the new structure IIC would adopt the research and engineering directorate’s international outreach and policy portfolio “with primary oversight of implementation of the DOD’s international science and technology engagement efforts.”

The panelists also recommend that other DOD components that engage in international industrial cooperation activities — and in particular the Defense Innovation Unit and Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office — “should be nested with the priorities dictated by the USD(IIC).”

Presenting an alternative option, the researchers wrote that “in place of a new undersecretary, Congress may consider reconsolidating the USD(A&S) and USD(R&E) into an Undersecretary for the Industrial Base focusing on innovation research and development, supply chains, production capacity, and access to technologies both domestically and globally.”

Ultimately, the Pentagon won’t be able to shift its structure based on these recommendations without new directions from congressional lawmakers, which likely wouldn’t come without some debate.

“I participated in that decision [regarding the 2018 restructure] and I’ve got qualms on going back — because I know the arguments back and forth and [we] came to a different conclusion. Having said that, I think the study is absolutely on the right track [and] in all other areas should be supported. And again, it highlights a very important issue that not a lot of other studies have,” DIB member and former congressman William “Mac” Thornberry said during Wednesday’s meeting.

The panelists who conducted the study reflected on why they recommended the reorganization within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Based on his experiences in the Marines and now as a technology investment executive, Phillips said the U.S. military’s allies and partners need one single point of contact within DOD, as well as integrated designs and manufacturing capacity. 

“This is all in the report as well — in 37 of the 44 critical technologies identified by a third-party research organization, China is leading. If you look at high-end systems adoption, they’re moving 6x faster. They’re now coordinating with Russia, North Korea, and the three of them, collectively, [are] at 1.6 billion citizens. So, the rate and scale of their investment has just changed. And so one way to respond to that is we could collectively work with our partners. We can recreate that scale in a different way. So what does that mean? It means shared systems and equipment, but also shared data,” Phillips explained.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Navy Capt. Colin Kane also discussed his team’s ongoing work in DOD’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell.

The cell’s responsibilities include the department’s joint urgent operational needs, which are essentially critical requirements identified by combatant commanders.

“I think one of the challenges there is that innovation is also slow, and so we’re supposed to field solutions within two years to those environments, but it’s an extremely challenging thing to achieve there,” Kane said.

In his own experiences as a DOD acquisition professional, Kane said he’s also seeing challenges around industry cooperation with the research and engineering directorate “to be able to field urgent needs for the counter-uncrewed system threat.” 

“In that environment, we’re seeing extremely quick innovation and in partnership with the research and engineering directorate, there isn’t the — since we separated A&S from R&E, we aren’t seeing the ability to or effective means of communication to move in that effort,” Kane said. “In combining those two organizations, there would be benefits.”

At the meeting, NATO’s Acting Assistant Secretary General, Innovation, Hybrid, and Cyber James Appathurai also spotlighted the need for the U.S. and its allies to collectively speed up the adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies.

He noted that there’s now “a two-week innovation cycle for software in Ukraine.” 

“They’re putting a certain amount of software into drones. It’s being neutralized by the Russians in two weeks, and then they have to come up with a new innovation and new technology. So that’s the speed of the war, and we certainly need to accelerate that at NATO. So, we are now turning our attention to that,” Appathurai said.

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