Retired Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson criticized Hegseth's rhetoric, stating, 'That's a necessary end to achieve goals through military force - you have to kill people to achieve them. That's not the end. It's a weird obsession with death for the sake of it.'
Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia's security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.
The economics are hard to ignore. Shooting down a drone with AeroVironment's LOCUST laser system costs less than $10, using just two to five seconds of laser energy. Compare that to the interceptor missiles currently used against Iranian drone swarms, which cost orders of magnitude more and are in short supply across allied arsenals.
"As long as that aggressive investment continues by hyperscalers and service providers..., that will provide a certain level of resilience and will cushion some of the impact of any slowdown," Minton said.
CEO Chris Calio emphasized the urgency of delivering critical products for national security, stating, 'We understand that our products are critical to national security. And I can tell you across the organization, we absolutely feel the responsibility and urgency to deliver more and to deliver it faster.'
Giulio Douhet proposed a revolution in warfare, stating that victory would come from large-scale aerial bombardments targeting civilians and infrastructure rather than just combatants.
When civilian banks, logistics platforms, and payment processors share physical data center infrastructure with military AI systems, those facilities become legitimate military targets under international humanitarian law - and the civilian services housed inside lose their legal protection.
The U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials.
But logistical consistency, like coherence and gravitas, does not characterize the new NDS. It is a document that supposedly nests within the National Security Strategy, explaining at greater length the implications of overall policy for the armed forces. The 2026 version does not do that. Rather, it restates some of the basic priorities of the Trump administration but for the most part confines itself to flattery of the president, insults, and bombast.
