Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
The U.S. Air Force’s choice of Anduril and General Atomics to develop unmanned “loyal wingman” fighter jets is seen as a major shift toward newer defense tech firms and autonomous combat systems. Commenters debate whether these high-end drones are an effective, innovative response to lessons from Ukraine’s drone-heavy war, or over‑marketed, fragile systems that lag behind cheap FPV swarms and adversary electronic warfare. The contract also reignites ethical and political disputes around the military‑industrial complex, AI‑driven weapons, and even whether open-source communities like NixOS should accept sponsorship from defense contractors.
Defense procurement, incumbents, and competition
- Many welcome contracts going to non-traditional primes like Anduril instead of only Lockheed/Boeing/Northrop, seeing this as overdue competition after decades of consolidation.
- Others argue DoD’s core mission is “win wars,” not diversify suppliers, but counterpoints note that DoD itself explicitly cultivates multiple competitors to avoid stagnation and ensure options.
- Comparisons are made to NASA’s Commercial Crew (SpaceX vs Boeing) and Navy ship programs (LCS, Constellation), with recurring themes of feature creep, political meddling, and cost‑plus contracts driving overruns.
Anduril: capabilities, hype, and skepticism
- Supporters see Anduril as a fast-moving “budget defense contractor” that executes and prices better than legacy primes.
- Skeptical ex-employees and partners describe unreliable, over‑marketed systems, unscheduled demo failures that still won contracts, and poor interoperability with tools actually used in Ukraine.
- Some expect iteration plus long contracts will eventually yield good products; others think Chinese or traditional US contractors remain technically superior.
- Tech stack notes: reported Haskell usage and migration of some on‑robot code from C++ to Rust.
Drones, autonomy, and changing warfare
- Heavy discussion of drone warfare in Ukraine: FPV “suicide” drones, EW jamming, cheap quadcopters vs expensive armor, and evolving countermeasures (cages, “turtle tanks,” EW “microwave” jammers).
- Disagreement on effectiveness: some point to dramatic videos and tank kills; others cite estimates that only a small fraction of FPV strikes achieve mission kills, with large support teams and logistics per attack.
- Historical analogies: torpedo boats vs battleships; man‑portable ATGMs vs tanks; shared battlespace systems since the 1960s; conclusion that cheap swarms and “exquisite” platforms will likely coexist.
- Debate over whether dogfighting is “dead”; some caution this was said before (e.g., F‑4 era) and proved wrong.
Autonomy, ethics, and politics
- Strong ethical concerns about lethal autonomous systems and “Skynet” scenarios versus arguments that adversaries will build them anyway (prisoner’s dilemma).
- Some argue AI could, in theory, reduce collateral damage with precision targeting; others cite current practices (e.g., AI-assisted targeting like “Lavender”) as evidence of broad, abusive definitions of “target.”
- Long subthreads on Ukraine and Israel–Palestine: causes of the Ukraine war (NATO vs Russian imperialism), legitimacy of US/NATO defense sector, and whether western publics should support defense tech.
- Anduril’s sponsorship of NixOS events sparked ongoing community conflict over accepting defense money; proponents stress open-source neutrality, opponents stress community norms about sponsorship.
Broader reflections
- Several comments see Ukraine as a live lab for US and Russia to test drones, EW, and hypersonics; others note the conflict’s specifics (no US-style air superiority, Soviet stockpiles) limit direct applicability.
- Some worry the military‑industrial complex drives endless war; others counter that recent Russian aggression shows hard power remains necessary.