Maritime domain awareness, the ability to know what is happening at sea and to understand what it means, has been redefined over the past three decades. The concept itself has not changed much on paper: the International Maritime Organization still defines it as the effective understanding of anything associated with…
By Robbin Laird I published an overview piece, “Street to Fleet: How CNATRA Is Working Naval Aviation Training,“ ahead of this interview deliberately. That article was built entirely from public sources: CNATRA’s own releases, Proceedings essays going back to 2002, the “Warrior Ethos” letter to incoming students, DVIDS features on…
By Gleb Tsipursky Defense organizations already understand that authority should track mission, role, and risk. An intelligence analyst, a weapons officer, a contractor, and a system administrator do not receive the same access simply because each can perform useful work. Artificial intelligence agents need the same discipline before they become…
By Kenneth Maxwell Piddington is a small village and civil parish in Oxfordshire. Its population is 358. The British government proposed to house 1,250 male asylum seekers at a disused Ministry of Defence base nearby. The village voted yesterday (15 September 2026) in a referendum, with 89% participation, to leave…
Remarks to the Nevada National Guard Pre-Command Course, September 15, 2026 By Robbin F. Laird On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in the waiting area outside the Secretary of Defense’s office at the Pentagon, watching a small television, when the first plane hit the World Trade…
By Robbin Laird A photograph taken on July 14, 2026 at Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center in Camp Douglas, Wisconsin, shows a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K King Stallion helicopter hoisting a recovered F-15 Eagle into the air. The image, credited to Paul Gorman of the Wisconsin National Guard Public…
By George Galdorisi In September 1776 an enormous British armada lay anchored in New York Harbor. A month earlier, British forces under General William Howe had defeated the Continental Army and gained control of New York City and Long Island. Now this fleet of 400 ships, including 10 ships-of-the-line, 20…
By Robbin Laird In August 2026, off Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia, a Navy-industry team quietly solved a problem that has constrained every discussion of unmanned maritime systems I have written about for the past several years: how do you keep an autonomous vessel on station without a…
