Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the recent US-Iran conflict, militaries around the world have rushed to build up their drone fleets, and Taiwan is no exception. Taiwan's Army has been pushing both homegrown development and direct purchases from the United States, buying Switchblade 300 loitering munitions and ALTIUS-600M attack drones through a program known as the Hunting Owl Project. Every ALTIUS-600M ordered has now been delivered, an event marked by Anduril founder Palmer Luckey personally flying to Taiwan for the handover and receiving a high-profile reception from Defense Minister Wellington Koo, a clear signal of how seriously the military is committing to unmanned systems. At the same time, Taiwan's government e-procurement platform posted a much larger contract at the end of August 2026, worth roughly NT$26.9 billion, again with Anduril, this time for more than 2,000 ALTIUS-700M anti-armor attack drones and ALTIUS-600 ISR reconnaissance drones. The US military flies the same ALTIUS family. But a Storm Media investigation has found that Taiwan's own rollout of the ALTIUS-600M has run into problems serious enough to raise questions about combat readiness.

Hunting Owl Project's Price Gap Tops NT$6 Billion, Drawing Questions Even From Ruling Party Lawmakers

According to the Ministry of National Defense's latest five-year force-buildup report submitted to the Legislature, the ministry plans to keep taking delivery of attack drones such as the ALTIUS-600M and Switchblade 300, while adding ALTIUS-600 ISR and ALTIUS-700M drones to sharply expand its ability to strike in depth and hit targets as soon as they are spotted. The ALTIUS-600M and Switchblade 300 were acquired by the Army in 2024 under the Hunting Owl Project. When the annual budget was first drawn up, it was based on an initial US quote of NT$11.5 billion, but the final price the United States charged came in at just over NT$5.5 billion, leaving a gap of more than NT$6 billion. Once lawmakers spotted the discrepancy, they questioned whether the military had padded its budget request, and even legislators from the ruling party pressed the Army for an explanation.

First Live Fire Test Saw Three Of Five Drones Crash, Military Later Claimed A Perfect Hit Rate

Every ALTIUS-600M ordered has now been delivered, though the Switchblade 300 has yet to arrive in Taiwan. The ALTIUS-600M has become the military's showcase attack drone, appearing at nearly every public event, but its actual performance has been a point of contention. Media reports in February 2026 revealed that during its first live-fire test, three of five drones crashed, well short of expectations. By June, the military released footage of its own showing more than ten launches with a claimed hit rate of 100 percent. How well the ALTIUS-600M actually performs remains a subject of debate. Sources familiar with the matter say the choice of Anduril's drone over other options was driven from the top levels of government. The military had originally wanted to buy the combat-proven Switchblade 300 and Switchblade 600 from AeroVironment, a manufacturer with an established battlefield track record, but after intervention and negotiation at senior government levels, the deal was changed to a combination of the Switchblade 300 and the ALTIUS-600M instead.

"intervention and negotiation at senior government levels"

Chargers Made In China Leave Drones Waiting On American Technicians To Power Up

Beyond the price discrepancy, Storm Media has learned that the ALTIUS-600M purchase carries a problem that could directly affect combat readiness. When the Army placed its order, chargers for the drones were not included in the procurement plan, and the omission only came to light after the equipment had already been delivered. When the Army asked Washington about it, American officials revealed an awkward truth: the manufacturer's chargers were made in China, which is why they had never been included in the price quote in the first place. In other words, the Army had simply followed the US quote sheet without realizing chargers had been left out from the start, let alone that the reason was their Chinese origin. Because Taiwan's military has committed to avoiding Chinese-made components in its supply chain, the Army has since asked Washington to source chargers made outside China.

As of April 2026, no alternative supplier had been found, meaning American technical representatives still have to travel to Taiwan to help charge the ALTIUS-600M.

holy fucking shit lmao

Since the drone is a single-use weapon that is consumed the moment it is fired, having to wait for American personnel to charge units that run low on power before they can even be launched raises real concerns about whether the fleet can respond quickly in a crisis.

Spare Batteries Ordered At Nearly Eight Times What The Fleet Actually Needs

The charger oversight was not the only procurement misstep. Sources say the Army's order for spare ALTIUS-600M batteries came to nearly eight times the number of airframes purchased, even though the drone is a single-use weapon that is expended with every launch or exercise. Under normal practice, each airframe would need only two or three spare batteries, making the actual order a significant overbuy. Since the drones cannot be reused, the surplus batteries risk becoming a waste of public funds. The military has reportedly asked Washington to reduce the quantity, but the United States has yet to decide whether it will agree. Separately, the roughly NT$26.9 billion contract posted on the government e-procurement platform at the end of August 2026 covers 1,554 ALTIUS-700M anti-armor attack drones and 478 ALTIUS-600 ISR reconnaissance drones, all of which are slated to go to Army frontline units, according to the Ministry of National Defense's own procurement list. Deliveries are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026 and continue through 2033. The US military itself recently carried out a first-of-its-kind live exercise launching Anduril's ALTIUS-700 series drones from UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters in flight, a shift that could reshape how the drones are used and potentially upend existing approaches to asymmetric warfare. Taiwan's acquisition of the same family of drones could meaningfully strengthen its battlefield capabilities. But the recurring theme in this story is that when the United States drives the terms of Taiwan's own procurement, problems like these tend to follow, and that dynamic appears to be the military's biggest source of frustration.

damn, sucks to be a vassal I guess!

Three years ago, the Defense Department led an ambitious international effort to better protect civilians during combat, a movement built on the bloody lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon created a network with European partners, driving the creation of shared standards. Civilian harm experts described the moment as a “unique opportunity” for American leadership by example. Today, those efforts continue — without the United States, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismantled the civilian protection mission. And Thursday, no U.S. delegation will be in the room when the international forum the U.S. cofounded meets at NATO headquarters in Belgium. The country’s absence from the International Contact Group on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response summit reinforces the abandonment of a mission the Pentagon had encouraged partners to embrace, said current and former officials. Most spoke to ProPublica on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from President Donald Trump’s administration. They called the step back “humiliating” and “dangerous,” pointing to reports of rising civilian casualties in Iran following strikes on schools and homes. “There will be a day when people who care about mitigating civilian harm can come back and say, ‘OK, are we ready to solve this problem?’” said Jenny McAvoy, a former Defense Department official who helped shape the U.S. civilian protection program. “But there are already enormous consequences of abandoning this work.”

The Pentagon declined to comment about the lack of U.S. participation in the Brussels talks. A spokesperson previously told ProPublica that the Defense Department factors civilian protections into all phases of operational planning and “remains committed to fulfilling its civilian harm mitigation and response responsibilities.” The Pentagon adopted the civilian harm mitigation and response mission in 2022 after years of bloodshed in the post-9/11 “forever wars.” Known as CHMR and pronounced “chimmer,” the framework called for a specialized center to collect strike data and for advisers embedded with regional commands to help mitigate the risk to noncombatants. Not long after, the U.S. teamed up with the Netherlands to coordinate efforts internationally. The two countries had been frequent partners in recent military campaigns, including the fight against the Islamic State group, and were both coming to terms with high-profile civilian casualty incidents. For the United States, years of harm in Iraq and Afghanistan had drawn international outrage and pledges from commanders to better collect data and learn from deadly mistakes. The Dutch were still addressing the fallout from a 2015 operation in Iraq in which air strikes targeting a car-bomb factory ignited a nearby munitions depot, setting off an enormous explosion that killed at least 70 civilians and wounded hundreds. Dutch responsibility wasn’t revealed until 2019, causing a national scandal and accusations of a cover-up.

sweet. I love learning of new man-made horrors every day!

In 2023, the U.S. and the Netherlands formed the loose coalition on CHMR. Participants described a small, informal group that has met half a dozen times since 2023 to share best practices and hear briefings on civilian casualty trends. Advocacy groups said it had taken years to get the U.S. military to think of civilian casualties as more than “collateral damage,” showing commanders how the deaths of innocents were anathema to their morals and strategically harmful to their missions.

Machiavelli wrote about this you know

The eventual adoption of CHMR guidelines by American defense officials helped their counterparts abroad make the case for programs in their own countries. “By the U.S. putting itself out there and saying, ‘We learned, we can do better,’ it gives permission and makes it OK for other governments to similarly acknowledge, ‘Yeah, we can do better too,’” said McAvoy. As participants gather this week in Brussels to discuss how to continue strengthening CHMR, however, the early momentum from the U.S. side has evaporated. Hegseth, who derides rules of engagement as “woke,” gutted the CHMR program over the objections of the nation’s top commanders, ProPublica reported last month. Staff plunged from nearly 200 to about two dozen. Days before the latest summit in Brussels, the United States wasn’t listed as a participant and there was no sign anyone from the Defense Department would attend. Current and former officials predicted either a no-show or, at most, a single delegate from one of the commands showing up. To experts, the message was clear: The era of U.S. leadership on civilian protection was over. “The U.S. stopped participating in this group last year and people assumed that meant the group would die,” said McAvoy. “But the group continued to exist and to meet — without the U.S. — under the leadership of the U.K. and the Netherlands.”

ah, esteemed defenders of human rights and civilians, the British and the Dutch!

The two-day summit opens with a broad discussion of CHMR, such as how it applies in coalitions or in operations at sea, that includes advocacy groups and academics, a draft agenda reviewed by ProPublica shows. Day 2 is a closed-door session for more intimate talks among senior representatives of member states. The meeting wraps with a “looking ahead” panel. Past attendees included Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Norway. The nations represent a wide variation in approaches and needs when it comes to CHMR, participants said. The U.K., for example, doesn’t have a formal framework for civilian harm mitigation and response, and advocates have spent years pushing the British Ministry of Defense to adopt policies similar to those of the United States. Though humanitarian groups generally regarded the American CHMR enterprise as nascent and imperfect, the overall framework provided a worthy standard, said Mae Thompson of the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, a London-based advocacy group. Advocates have framed the Pentagon’s rollback as an opportunity for the U.K. to step into a leadership role, Thompson said,

man, the Brits really are desperate for some. any form of relevancy on the international stage

and they’ve been encouraged by a recent internal report by the defense ministry that calls for formalization of a program in Britain, including systems to track civilian harm, investigate, and make amends and offer post-harm response. NATO boasts a civilian protection policy that predates the American model, but the organization is now incorporating elements of the U.S. approach, said Andrew Hyde, who studies U.S.-European relations at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank. Hyde said international talks are important for sorting out how CHMR applies in joint operations when the United States, NATO and European nations all have different interpretations of harm mitigation. The diminished U.S. role, he said, means NATO and other partners must step up on coordination. The shift in leadership could end up shielding civilian protection work from the whims of whichever U.S. administration is in power and leading to more enduring reforms, Hyde said. “NATO has continued to push forward without U.S. support or participation, keeping up the momentum and ready for U.S. re-engagement,” Hyde said.

Researchers at the University of California (UC) San Diego are advancing “smart” red blood cells that could reduce the effects of intense physical activity, improve endurance, and support overall health. The three-year project brings UC San Diego together with Northeastern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team will use gene-editing techniques to create red blood cells that can detect physical exertion and respond by producing proteins that improve oxygen delivery to tissues. Researchers will then use a specialized bioreactor known as a hollow fiber reactor to test and optimize the engineered cells. The project will not involve human testing, but the team will explore the technology’s potential to improve the performance of military personnel operating in harsh environments. “This project has the potential to revolutionize the field of red blood cell engineering,” said Hojun Li, a co-investigator and member of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. “While our focus in this current project is improving performance, if we achieve these goals, I’m excited to explore… where both early detection and treatment of microscopic levels of disease could potentially be achieved by future iterations of ‘smart’ red blood cells.”

well, I guess at least something actually useful might come out of this...

DARPA’s $11.3M Bet

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is supporting the project through a contract valued at up to $11.3 million. The effort aligns with the agency’s “moonshot”, a research funding model for high-risk, high-reward research aimed at achieving ambitious technological breakthroughs. “We are thrilled to receive this award from DARPA and to bring together a world-class team to work on this groundbreaking project,” said Alejandro Chavez, principal investigator and associate professor of pediatrics. “Blood cell engineering is still an emerging field, but our team is committed to exploring this technology and maximizing its potential for transforming human performance.”

Companies that do business with the U.S. government are largely failing to meet federal targets for hiring military veterans, a new analysis finds. Among federal contractors in the S&P 500, 2.4% of new hires were veterans in 2025, less than half of the 5.1% target set by the federal government, according to a report released Wednesday by the Rand Corp., a research organization that frequently focuses on military and national security policy. Nudged by successive U.S. administrations, employers rushed to create hiring and retention programs for former military personnel after the Sept. 11 attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of the government effort has been focused on federal contractors, which are required to show they are taking steps to hire a certain share of veterans each year. “Hiring is well below what companies are claiming they’re aspiring to and what the actual government is setting as a benchmark. Both of those are red flags,” said George Zuo, an economist at Rand and author of the report. Among other contractors, veteran hiring is higher, at 4.1%, though still below the target.

Most big American companies plus thousands of small ones sell goods and services, such as toilet paper, jet fighters and website design, to the U.S. government. The government uses its clout to mandate policies on everything from worker pay to workforce diversity practices. Every year, the federal government also sets a target—not a quota—for veteran hiring by contractors, who must design plans to show how they intend to recruit ex-service members. Rand analyzed corporate disclosures, foundation tax records and federal contractor filings. It found that grants to veteran-related programs by corporate foundations fell from roughly 1% of annual giving in 2014 to around 0.3% in 2023. Companies are doing little to track and report progress on hiring and retaining veterans, the report found. That is creating a disconnect between public statements of support for men and women who served in the military and the concrete programs and outcomes for veterans once they transition to the private sector, Zuo said.

I got a sector for them to transition to

Overall, veteran unemployment has fallen from near double-digit levels in 2011 to below 4% today. But employers face challenges recruiting ex-service members, said Eric Eversole, president of Hiring Our Heroes, a veteran-focused program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Corporate support for servicemembers remains strong, he said. “Companies have invested heavily and I think a lot of that has to do with what we see—servicemembers are trainable, very resilient, and they can solve problems,” he said.

what if I don't need a bunch of civilians vaporized with missiles from a thousand miles away? what problems can they solve for me then?

The Rand report concluded that companies are disclosing less information about programs for veterans, suggesting that the programs themselves have likely shrunk. It ties that retreat to the broader decline in diversity, equity and inclusion programs since President Trump took office. One of his first acts was an executive order that took aim at what the president called “illegal discrimination” in the workplace, referring to initiatives that incorporated preferences for workers from particular groups, such as mentorship programs for women. The order specifically exempted programs with preferences for U.S. military veterans. Meanwhile, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the government agency tasked with overseeing federal contractors, has been shrunk significantly in the last two years and the White House has proposed eliminating it entirely. It isn’t conducting audits or reviews of veteran hiring, a change from the first Trump administration, said David Cohen, co-founder of the Institute for Workplace Equality, a trade association for federal contractors.

The Rand report was sponsored by American Corporate Partners, an organization that matches military veterans working at large employers with mentors inside those companies. It was founded by former investment banker Sid Goodfriend, whose office was a block away from the World Trade Center. On the morning of Sept. 11, he saw the second airplane hit the South Tower. “Every multinational corporation with assets and people around the globe should be supportive of the military community,” he said.