The two planned to bring their respective companies’ strengths to the venture. Lamm would apply Colossal’s gene-editing technology to improve the dogs’ physical capabilities, while Luckey would equip them with advanced military equipment. The unusual mission, combined with the founders’ track records, left plenty of questions about what Warhound had planned.

Some speculated that the company intended to create cybernetic superdogs, while others accused its founders of trying to expand an industry that should instead be replaced with robots. But in a news release shared in response to the initial reporting, Warhound described a more grounded goal: rebuilding the domestic supply of dogs for the military, law enforcement and first responders.

In an interview with Military Times, Lamm and Warhound’s co-founder and chief executive David Spirk, who left a senior position at Palantir for the startup, expanded on that statement, discussing the conversations that sparked the mission, the problems they want to address and the product they hope to sell.

Together, they said they want to do more than bring the supply chain to the United States. Their plan includes cloning top-performing dogs, editing genes associated with health problems and introducing standardized training to puppies as young as two weeks old.

A meeting of minds

The idea for Warhound was born out of conversations Lamm had with Luckey beginning around April 2025. They had met at the Moonshots Summit, where they appeared as guest speakers.

“Palmer’s really excited about animals, and he knows I run both the extinction and species conservation company. So, we’re talking about all kinds of stuff, like can you communicate with animals, all these things leveraging technology, and then he started talking to me about the working dog program,” Lamm said. 

According to the Defense Department, only about 13% of the dogs trained to become military working dogs come from domestic breeders. Conversely, Warhound estimates that around 80% of the dogs are sourced from overseas, mostly Europe. Lamm described those breeding programs as “a little bit puppy millish.”

Because of supply issues and the time it takes to train a working dog, Warhound estimates that it takes roughly three years before a dog becomes operational. The company said more than half the dogs procured are ultimately deemed unfit for service, meaning the government has to “train roughly 200 dogs today to field 100 working animals tomorrow.” 

To address the problem, Lamm said his conversations with Luckey over the past 18 months have evolved from identifying the problem to figuring out how technology could help solve it.

“[Luckey] thought that Anduril could provide a lot of the tech and enabled hardware around this,” Lamm said. “And we could provide the cloning and the genetic engineering.”

The science behind Warhound

Since launching in 2021, Colossal has raised more than $435 million to fund its efforts to revive extinct animals and conserve the genetic material of endangered species. The company’s current valuation is approximately $10.2 billion.

To expand its capabilities, Colossal acquired Texas-based Viagen Pets and Equine last year. Lamm said Viagen has “very high cloning efficiencies … and Warhound will be leveraging Viagen as it relates to dog cloning, which is their core business.”

In 2025, Colossal demonstrated its capabilities by cloning former NFL quarterback Tom Brady’s dog. But cloning and gene editing are distinct processes. 

According to the National Institutes of Health, cloning produces a genetically identical copy of an existing animal, whereas gene editing involves directly altering an organism’s DNA to change specific characteristics. 

With gene editing, “you’re taking the random chance out of nature,” Lamm said, adding, “Genetic engineering is looking at the genome, finding things that are broken in the genome, wrong in the genome, or could lead to health consequences, and fixing and removing that.”

Gene editing has been used to create specific characteristics in several animal species. Scientists, for example, have used the technique to make pigs more resistant to certain diseases; cattle better suited for hotter environments; and fish grow faster. But its application in dogs remains limited.

In August, the company Kindred Companion Sciences unveiled what it described as the first genetically edited dogs. The biotech company created two hypoallergenic beagles using gene editing to remove a DNA sequence associated with a major dog allergen.

However, Lamm said he does not anticipate significant challenges to applying the technology to working dogs.

“We’re working on stuff that’s like a hundred times more advanced than, you know, a couple dog edits,” he said, referring to his team at Colossal.

“When we made our dire wolves, we made 20 edits, which included edits specifically from dire wolves in those variants that had not existed for over 12,000 years in the genome, so not only can we make edits, but we can even make edits with lost alleles,” he added.

Engineering a better working dog

While the science might not be a problem, Warhound co-founder Spirk said the company’s immediate focus is identifying “the best of the best” dogs and breeds to biobank, as well as developing the company’s “Warhound standard” for training working dogs.

He explained that a wide variety of dogs are used across federal, regional and local agencies. Warhound is working with different government organizations to identify the top-performing animals, though he declined to say which ones.

He said they are “understanding who wants what type of dog, and what the specialized capabilities of that dog are.”

“You can imagine that the dog that we need sitting outside McDill Air Force Base is much different than a dog that somebody’s going to jump out of a helicopter with,” Spirk continued.

Using genetic material collected in the biobank, Warhound scientists will map the animals’ genomes and look for opportunities to edit genes to improve their overall health, wellness and longevity before beginning the cloning process.

“Once the scientists do their magic and make these dogs, we will immediately begin training,” Spirk said, adding that their experts suggest training should begin for puppies as young as two weeks.

The idea behind early training, he explained, is to breed dogs to the highest standard, and then begin acclimating them to the tasks and conditions they’ll be expected to encounter in the field. For example, he said, a dog trained primarily on asphalt might struggle to function on a different surface, such as grass or sand.

“You’re just naturally going to have a better product coming out when we domesticate the production,” Spirk said.

The first Warhounds should be “coming off the line” in about two years, he said.  

Once Warhound figures out the right balance of nature and nurture for working dogs, Spirk said the company would like to explore ways to apply its research to the other 98 million dogs in America.

“Nobody’s ever had the resources to do it and to figure it out,” he said, adding, “It’s pretty motivating.”

In an interview with Military Times, Ross Pederson, Neros’ head of growth, called the expansion of the U.S. small drone industry “a huge benefit to the American taxpayer.”

“I don’t think you have to squint too hard to convince yourself that small drones are going to be very, very important in the future of warfare,” he said. “And if you look at the status quo ante, which is that 99% of them are made in China, that’s not a tenable place for the U.S. to be.”

The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, or OSC, provided the loan. Neros said it will commit an additional $165 million to the expansion, which brings the total investment to $615 million.

Pederson argued that OSC loans to Neros and drone maker PDW, which received an $820 million loan in July, will strengthen the U.S. industry. China has “completely dominated” the sector, he said, with Chinese companies supplying the vast majority of components used to assemble drones.

Explaining its reasoning for giving Neros the loan, David Lorch, director of the OSC and senior advisor to the deputy secretary of defense, said the company “has already demonstrated an ability to design, manufacture and deliver exceptional small unmanned aircraft systems.”

The company is one of the leaders in the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program, a competition that seeks to find the best quality, most affordable small drone for combat.

“OSC’s investment will turbocharge Neros’ ability to manufacture drones and components critical for the production of drone systems,” Lorch added in a statement.

The federal government has taken other steps over the past year to expand the domestic small-drone industry, ranging from launching high-profile competitions to imposing tariffs on imported drone components.

Although the Trump administration’s broad use of tariffs on consumer goods has drawn criticism, drone industry experts say the import duties have helped encourage companies to seek domestic alternatives.

In October, Brett Velicovich — author of Drone Warrior, which documents his military experience using small drones in combat, and head of drone company POWERUS — told Military Times that tariffs on drone components were “one of the smartest things the White House has done in decades.”

He argued that the U.S. had put “handcuffs” on its domestic industry through export restrictions, while China faced fewer constraints. That imbalance, he said, helped China capture the overwhelming majority of the global market for small drones and their components.

The tariffs have created a bottleneck for components that has “been hard on everyone,” Velicovich said. But he argued that they have also pushed domestic companies to “now focus on (National Defense Authorization Act)-compliant parts” and “forces all of us to find new supply chains.”

“In the end, it’s what’s good for America because we can’t continue to be reliant on China. We can’t continue to be reliant on those systems,” he said.

But tariffs aren’t necessarily the main driver of domestic sourcing for military customers, according to Pederson. The Defense Department has long been prohibited from purchasing drones containing electronic components from certain foreign countries, including China, he said.

“When it comes to that specific customer set, the tariffs aren’t necessarily the driving factor. It’s really the prohibition that the Department of War has on purchasing Chinese electronics,” he said.

Before receiving the loan, Pederson explained, Neros didn’t manufacture its own components. Instead, it contracted other companies to manufacture parts that it then used to assemble drones. That is expected to change as the company expands its domestic production capabilities.

Neros has already expanded its in-house motor production and will soon begin manufacturing surface-mount technology components, which are used to populate circuit boards, Pederson said.

“By late next year, somewhere in the like 80% by dollar value of the drone should be made in-house, like in the same physical space where the drones are being assembled,” he said.

Pederson declined to provide specifics about the loan’s terms, including its interest rate and repayment timeline, but he said it is not subject to loan forgiveness and that the Defense Department has manufacturing goals for the company.

“They’re all centered on making these components in the United States and making them available broadly to the market, not just to ourselves,” he said.

In a Nov. 2 announcement, Andy Yakulis, Vector’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said the stack was designed for intuitive operation and scaled production.

“Modern warfare requires more than individual platforms. It requires systems that work together, operators who can employ them effectively, and the industrial capacity to produce them at the scale the mission demands,” Yakulis said.

The Warfighter’s Stack builds on Vector’s experience participating in the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance Program, an effort to rapidly expand and improve the domestic commercial drone industry through competition.

The Pentagon also uses the program to identify top-performing drone manufacturers and place orders with them. Vector ranked fourth in the close-quarters battle category during the latest round of competition, resulting in a government order for 5,000 of its drones.

According to the company, the Warfighter’s Stack consists of the Mace drone, a High-Voltage Electronic Safe and Arm Device, or HV-ESAD, and the Hilt hand controller. “Together, the systems connect the aircraft, energetic integration, and controller into a single operational architecture,” the company said.

Vector described the Mace as a compact, attritable drone — meaning inexpensive and relatively easy to replace — designed to maneuver through “confined and complex environments.” 

According to Vector, the drone features low-light and thermal cameras, electronic warfare-resistant capabilities and support for fiber-optic control. It also includes an altitude-hold feature intended to reduce operator workload. 

Additionally, the Mace can integrate with the Android Team Awareness Kit, or ATAK, and supports both ArduPilot and Betaflight piloting firmware.

The company’s HV-ESAD is a universal system designed to integrate with a range of drone platforms and munitions. Vector said the modular device was selected to support the Drone Dominance Program.

The company said the Hilt controller was built “around the requirements of the modern warfighter,” with a design intended for use with gloved hands and alongside other military equipment.

Yakulis described the controller as “a purpose-built interface that is rugged, adaptable, and designed to work with the systems they are actually operating.”

According to the announcement, Vector designed the Warfighter’s Stack with production scale in mind and says it can “fulfill orders in the thousands.” However, the company declined to provide details on contracts or timelines. 

Authorities charged 37-year-old James Thomas Ashbacher with unlawfully transmitting and retaining national defense information and theft of government property.

According to the indictment, Ashbacher worked for a private security company at Army Special Operations Command, a position that afforded him a Top Secret security clearance.

The government did not name the company but said Ashbacher had worked there for several years.

The indictment alleges Ashbacher collected classified materials between 2021 and March 2024 before posting some of them to two social media websites.

The government did not identify the websites but listed 10 videos that it said revealed “unit-specific and sensitive tactics, techniques and procedures and call signs,” along with other sensitive operational information.

Authorities also allege Ashbacher took a classified document on Alternative Compensatory Control Measures Programs, which detail security protocols federal agencies and contractors use to protect classified information.

Authorities argue Ashbacher knew sharing the information with unauthorized users was against federal law, pointing to his subsequent attempts to have the material removed from the websites.

According to the indictment, Ashbacher sent a private message to another user asking them to remove references to certain information from a post and to “take ’em down, tuck them away, and repost them in a year or two when my contract ends lol.”

“Just trying to save my ass …. It is what it is ….” Ashbacher allegedly wrote, adding that he knew “a bunch of dudes probs saved everything but trying to do some damage control lol. If not, it’s all good bro, I understand. It was fun while it lasted.”

On April 30, 2025, federal agents executed a search warrant at Ashbacher’s home and recovered night vision goggles that had been reported missing. Authorities allege he stole the equipment sometime between January 2024 and April 2025.

“We do things that like gravity and stay on the ground,” said Logan Jones, Oshkosh’s chief growth officer, in an interview with Defense News, describing the company’s typical offerings. But he called the partnership “a very nice fit for us.”

Jones said the partnership grew out of the Defense Department’s Arsenal of Freedom campaign, which aims to expand the domestic industrial base. Grid Aero needed a partner to help scale production, while Oshkosh was looking to manufacture something with long-term potential.

“We looked where both the market was growing, and where the technology class would benefit from scale,” he said, explaining why the company has been exploring unmanned systems. Oshkosh was drawn to Grid Aero in part because its Lifter aircraft uses metal construction rather than composite materials, aligning with Oshkosh’s manufacturing capabilities.

Although Oshkosh would technically be considered a subcontractor, Jones said the companies describe the arrangement as a partnership because Oshkosh is helping Grid Aero reconfigure the Lifter aircraft “to ensure that manufacturability is at the heart of their design and strategy from day one, not an afterthought.”

However, Oshkosh wasn’t the only company making a decision. For Grid Aero, Oshkosh’s extensive experience in defense manufacturing helped solidify the decision to work together, co-founder and CEO Arthur Dubois said.

“They build vehicles by the thousands, and that is the rate we need. Their lines are also built for variety. A single Oshkosh line can build many variants of a vehicle, each set up for a different mission, without slowing down. Lifter works the same way,” Dubois said in an email to Defense News.

Founded in 2024, Grid Aero developed the Lifter, an autonomous aircraft with modular payload capacity that the company describes as a “pickup truck of the skies.” The Lifter falls into the Group 4 or Group 5 category of unmanned aerial systems, classifications that cover aircraft weighing more than 1,320 pounds.

Dubois said Oshkosh’s manufacturing technology is a good fit for the Lifter because it is “simple, rugged, piston-powered, and made from ubiquitous materials.” He added that the Lifter’s design “borrows as much from military trucks as from traditional aircraft.”

The companies plan to build thousands of Lifter aircraft for the Defense Department and commercial customers. Initially, Grid Aero will conduct low-rate production while Oshkosh establishes a pilot production line.

“As customer demand grows, we will move production to Oshkosh in stages and keep pace with what the customer needs,” Jones said. “As [the Defense Department] plans for future conflicts, the ability to field and replace aircraft at scale is one of the most important advantages it can build.”

In an interview with Military Times, Jason Myers, vice president of defense agencies at General Dynamics Information Technology, explained that Vion can help ground troops quickly establish secure connections with a command center and coalition forces from remote environments.

Using open architecture and AI, he said Vion will connect with outside networks, adapt to or patch connections and translate written messages, voice memos, videos and more, all while maintaining zero-trust cybersecurity protections. 

“We wanted to provide an all-encompassing offering, but we didn’t want to lock somebody into an offering or not be able to use where they’ve already invested,” Myers said. 

He added that most organizations want a custom communications kit, and most companies aim to provide platforms that only work with proprietary equipment and software. But those things can make it challenging and expensive to update or upgrade systems. 

“What we wanted to do is say, ‘Yes, we’re going to use proven technologies,’ but as new things come out, we are absolutely ripping and replacing those, and how to do that securely, in that modular architecture, is really, really different than how things are being done today,” he said. 

According to the company, GDIT participated in a Joint Staff J6-led demonstration called Olympus Fires, where the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA, explored ways to improve the Coalition Information Environment, or CIE, which it described as “a modernized architecture built on the principles of Zero Trust and data centricity.”

At a panel discussion in June, U.S. Army Lt. Col. David Courter, DISA’s Combatant Command Integration and Plans chief, explained the goal of the event was to “broker and federate our environments together without replicating a new environment every time.”

Explaining the need for the CIE solutions, Jason Martin, DISA’s Component Acquisition Executive, referenced a friendly fire incident in March, in which Kuwaiti air defenses mistakenly shot down three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets.

“We’ve spent the past 50 years building siloed networks, siloed applications and siloed environments to collaborate internally with our own data. We can no longer do that,” Martin said. “We have to converge networks. We have to plug and play. We have to talk to one another … We have to operate and maintain command and control with a single voice.”

Myers said GDIT is currently working through the acquisitions process for Vion but declined to say with whom. However, he said he thinks Vion, in terms of service, will “have a very long life in where it can add value to the mission.” 

Texas-based Warhound was conceived by Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey and entrepreneur Ben Lamm, who started Colossal Biosciences, a company best known for its efforts to revive extinct species.

In a press release, Warhound chief executive David Spirk said the company aims to reduce the United States’ dependence on a “shrinking” European supply chain for working dogs.

“Our long-term goal is simple: healthier dogs, better-prepared teams, and more service members and first responders coming home safely,” Spirk said, adding that he cares deeply about “protecting people and helping the animals who support them.”

Before joining Warhound, Spirk held several defense-related positions, including senior counsel at Palantir Technologies and chief data officer at both the Defense Department and U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM.

According to the announcement, Luckey and Lamm conceived the idea for Warhound years ago at the annual Moonshots Summit, a gathering where entrepreneurs discuss ambitious ideas.

They recognized two challenges with military working-dog programs: Most of the canines never complete training, and the U.S. relies heavily on a foreign supply chain. 

According to Warhound, overseas suppliers provide 80% of military working dogs. The company also says the United States must train roughly 200 dogs to field 100, in part because so many fail to complete training.

Warhound plans to combine the founders’ respective areas of expertise to address those problems.

“Colossal’s science will help produce healthier dogs with characteristics suited to demanding missions, while Anduril’s technology will give dogs and their handlers greater awareness and protection in the field,” the company said.

Warhound also said it will work with the American Humane Society to safeguard the animals’ health and welfare. The company said its goal is to reduce training washouts, limit the number of dogs entering intensive training unnecessarily and enable safer, more effective missions.

In a federal lawsuit, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Battalion Search and Rescue and Southern Border Communities Coalition argue the Trump administration is misusing so-called “national defense areas” to circumvent longstanding restrictions on military participation in civilian law enforcement.

In a statement, Brian Netter, legal director at Democracy Forward, one of the teams representing the plaintiffs, called the “national defense area” designation “an extraordinary abuse of power with devastating consequences for the people who live, work, worship, recreate, and carry out lifesaving humanitarian work along the border.”

“Public lands do not become military installations simply because the president says so, and the military cannot be handed sweeping new authority to police civilians by drawing a line around land that belonged to the public,” he said, adding, “Our Constitution and laws impose clear limits on the use of the military for civilian law enforcement for a reason.”

The Trump administration began sending troops to the area in March 2025 to support border security and has since expanded the military’s presence along the border in other states. By April of that year, the Defense Department assumed jurisdiction over the 109,651 acres from the Department of the Interior.

The designation made the land, officially named the New Mexico National Defense Area, an expansion of Fort Huachuca for three years. The Defense Department said the designation allowed troops to detain people accused of trespassing in the military area after crossing the border illegally.

However, the lawsuit argues that the federal agencies exceeded their authority to transfer public land through emergency powers. “No statute authorizes the creation of ‘national defense areas,’ let alone permits carving one out of formerly public land,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit adds that the Defense Department has historically used such land restrictions only temporarily to protect people or property during accidents or emergencies.

“Creating a semi-permanent military zone along the southern border for purposes of immigration enforcement is directly contrary to the agency’s longstanding practice,” the lawsuit says.

Beyond alleging violations of federal law, the plaintiffs say the military zones are disrupting their work by limiting access to public lands used for recreation and conservation; supporting border communities; and providing humanitarian aid.

James R. Holeman, founder of Battalion Search and Rescue, said his organization leads volunteers who search for people in distress in remote areas and recover the remains of migrants who died crossing the border. Over the past three years, he said, the group’s monthly searches along the Arizona and New Mexico border have uncovered more than 100 death sites.

“Imagine how many more people could be found if we had the access, resources, and support to search systematically. Instead, we’re being locked out,” he said, adding that vast stretches of borderlands are “virtually inaccessible to humanitarian searchers” because of federal designations.

“Now the government is closing off even more territory. We don’t find weapons or drugs. We find Bibles, prayer cards, love notes, and the belongings of people simply trying to survive,” Holeman said. “There is no meaningful, systematic government effort to search for the missing and the dead. They don’t search, and now they’re preventing us from searching.”

In the complaint filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, Marine veteran Tristyn Edwards and active-duty Marine Morgan Stampfli allege that they experienced fraudulent charges on their financial accounts and an increase in spam messages because of the breach.

In September, the DMDC said it had discovered a vulnerability on July 16 in a file-sharing system that allowed unauthorized users to access unencrypted files containing personal information, including full names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and military occupations.

According to the lawsuit, the vulnerability exposed millions of files containing information on service members and people affiliated with the military for approximately nine months before it was discovered.

The lawsuit also alleges that the DMDC failed to “promptly notify” affected individuals, some of whom were informed two or three months after the breach was found.

“The exposure of Plaintiff and Class members’ PII will cause various types of misuse in the coming months and years, including but not limited to, unauthorized credit card charges, unauthorized access to email accounts, identity theft, and other fraudulent use of their Private Information,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit argues that the Pentagon violated federal privacy laws by failing to protect personal records and maintain compliant cybersecurity systems, despite internal warnings about issues in its systems.

The complaint cites multiple reports from the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General describing failures by both the department and the DMDC to implement adequate cybersecurity controls.

In a report published days after the breach, the OIG said that “officials have not taken the necessary actions to demonstrate that they were operating at an effective level for 14 of the 20 [Inspector General Federal Information Security Modernization Act] core metrics.”

News of the Defense Department breach emerged alongside reports of a cyberattack targeting FBI personnel files. However, the group responsible for the FBI incident has not been linked to the Pentagon breach. The department offered affected individuals 12 months of credit monitoring and identity-restoration services.

“Had [the Defense Department] properly implemented standard cybersecurity controls — such as regular review of accounts, scanning for vulnerabilities, field encryption or tokenization of sensitive PII like SSNs, and routine monitoring of system logs for suspicious activity — the Data Breach could have been avoided,” the lawsuit says.

“This enterprise licensing provides all assigned and attached personnel at any echelon within the specified commands the ability to gain MSS accounts within those domains they have authorized access,” the service said in last week’s announcement.

Maven is an AI-enabled software platform owned by the government but developed by the company Palantir. The system aggregates and analyzes data from several feeds like intelligence reports, drone video, satellite imagery, maps and more in support of real-time decision-making by commanders and analysts across services and allies.

For example, Defense Department officials say they used Maven to identify and bomb more than 2,000 distinct targets in Iran within the first 96 hours of Operation Epic Fury. Officials add that the system is used to process about 6 million pages of text per day for intelligence and operational workflows.

Ahead of a Maven training summit in August, the Marine Corps also explained that its demand for Maven has grown, noting that some 5,500 Marines used the system in the month prior. Additionally, the Marines replaced its manual process for filing Situational Reports with a Maven application.

Before the Oct. 1 agreement, the service’s license only allowed specific commands and organizations to use the AI-enabled battle management system and only through a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet. In that August 2025 rollout, the service provided dozens of units with access and training to the system.

The Marine Corps is encouraging commands to designate an MSS implementation lead for their respective organization. The service said that training materials are available on the secure website Intelink. It added that further guidance such as an MSS Implementation Plan will be published separately.