SPA Acquires Group W, Defense Analytics Company

As yesterday’s science fiction becomes today’s reality, we are helping usher in a new era of space and defense innovation.    Hear from Morgan Sawchuk, Jordan Roberts, Toney Jacobson, Michael Brown, and Patrick Grilli as they share what excites them about working in this groundbreaking industry and what it’s like to advise companies developing transformative space and defense technologies.   Join us at LA TECH WEEK by a16z to continue the conversation!   #SpaceLaw #SpaceDefense #LATechWeek

I finished “The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High‑Tech Warfare” published in 2022 by Christian Brose. The Problem Traditionally, defense spending has focused on buying platforms — carriers, fighter jets, tanks, etc., Brose says that’s backwards. The goal of a military should be deterrence: making it crystal clear to rivals that using force will fail. To do that you don’t just buy things; you buy outcomes. Focus on buying big systems leaves you brittle. Brose argues it’s better to build integrated networks that can sense, decide, and act together. The kill chain (what actually wins wars). Brose boils into three segments: 1. Sense — understand what’s happening. 2. Decide — rapidly choose the best action. 3. Act — deliver an effect that achieves the objective. The military actor that can sense, decide, and act the fastest will win the war. The Tech Revolution Changing Everything Commercial tech is racing ahead in developing sensors, edge computing, AI, robotics, new space systems, and quantum. These advances will reshape the kill chain: faster, more distributed sensing; automated decision loops; and more precise, time‑sensitive strikes. That means the character of military power will shift from a few big platforms to smaller interconnected systems. Space is a Game Changer Brose contends we’re in a new space race: thousands of small satellites are being launched to provide high‑speed comms and high‑resolution intel. Future kill chains will flow through space. Instead of relying on single platforms to close the loop, militaries will distribute sensing, decision‑making, and action across an integrated network — enabling faster tracking and strikes against targets. What Brose Recommends - Buy outcomes, not just platforms. Measure forces by what they can accomplish, not what hardware they own. - Favor large numbers of smaller, cheaper systems that can be widely dispersed. That forces rivals to spend more to find and target you, reducing their margin to invest in new offense. - Invest in integrated networks — not isolated systems — so sensing, decision, and action are resilient and rapid. Bottom Line Brose makes a persuasive case that acquisition and strategy need to change now to deter and prevail in future conflicts.

That image is a famous example of survivorship bias from World War II. Here’s the story: Analysts were asked where to reinforce armor on planes coming back from missions. They marked the bullet holes on returning planes (like in the diagram). At first glance, it looks like the wings and tail should be reinforced, since they had the most hits. But statistician Abraham Wald pointed out the key insight: These were the planes that survived. The ones that didn’t make it back were hit in the places with no bullet holes in the diagram — like the cockpit, engines, and center fuselage. So armor should go where the returning planes had no damage, because that’s what killed the others. The lesson: Don’t just look at the data you have (the survivors). Consider the missing data (the failures). That’s why the picture keeps popping up online — it’s used as a metaphor for survivorship bias in business, science, and life.

Dimensions vs. Domains – Reframing the Battlespace For decades, military doctrine has organized warfare into five operational domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. These domains are valid for force structure, capability development, and operational planning. However, they are no longer sufficient to describe how modern conflicts unfold. Today’s battlespace is not just physical—it is dimensional. Domains describe where warfare occurs. Dimensions describe how it unfolds. The U.S. Army’s ADP 3-13 introduces three foundational dimensions: physical, informational, and human. These dimensions cut across all domains. A missile strike may occur in the land domain. However, its effects ripple through the informational dimension via media coverage, through the human dimension via public perception, and through the temporal dimension via escalation dynamics. This dimensional model is more than a semantic shift—it is a strategic imperative. It allows planners to account for cross-dimensional effects, which refer to how actions in one layer propagate through others, often recursively and unpredictably. To this foundation, we must add two more dimensions: Temporal: Warfare is a contest for time. Duration, frequency, sequence, and opportunity shape strategic outcomes. Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS): EMS is the substrate through which information is transmitted, sensed, and contested. It enables cyberspace, powers communications, and underpins every non-physical dimension. Together, these five dimensions—physical, informational, human, temporal, and EMS—form the architecture of modern conflict. They are not bounded theaters. They are overlapping fields of interaction. Consider a cyberattack on a hospital. It is not just a technical event. It is a human trauma, an informational disruption, and a temporal manipulation. It erodes trust, delays care, and reshapes perception. It is a multidimensional maneuver. This reframing also clarifies the role of cognition. Cognition is not a separate domain; it is the connective tissue across dimensions. It is where meaning is made, decisions are formed, and trust is either built or broken. It is, and always has been, the true target of operations, actions, activities, and desired effects—the opposition's perceptions. We are already well into the next war - whatever we will come to call it.

Northrop Grumman cut verification time by 75% and delivered predictable development by using the advanced AI features in our leading Questa CDC clock domain crossing verification tool. As Lisa from Northrop Grumman put it: “Clock analysis can be very difficult and time consuming, and we want to identify any issues early in the design process.” 🔗 Learn how Siemens EDA helped Northrop Grumman accelerate design cycles and push the boundaries of what’s possible in space, defense, and beyond. https://sie.ag/3xXten 🔗 Discover Questa One CDC Verification https://sie.ag/3CqE4X #SmartVerification #CDCAnalysis #DesignEfficiency

▶️ vertical channels (also known as zones or half-spaces) are the five imaginary corridors that divide the pitch from goal line to goal line, used to organize positioning and create attacking opportunities. From the sidelines inwards, they are typically defined as the Left Wing Channel, the Left Half-space, the Central Channel, the Right Half-space, and the Right Wing Channel. Players occupy these channels to maintain shape, stretch the opposition, create passing angles, and exploit defensive gaps, with attacking teams aiming to occupy as many channels as possible in the opponent's half. ⚫ HASSEN ANALYSIS ⚫

Innovation takes center stage in Grand Forks! 🚀 UND, in partnership with IEEE-USA, recently hosted the AI & Autonomy Summit — a full-day event bringing together top leaders from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Air Force Research Lab, Northrop Grumman, MITRE, and Grand Farm, along with policymakers and educators. The summit featured a fireside chat between UND President Andrew Armacost and DARPA’s Phillip Smith, exploring how artificial intelligence and autonomous systems are reshaping defense, industry, and society. From discussions on national security and workforce development to panels on air, space, and ground autonomy, the event showcased North Dakota’s growing leadership in advancing next-generation technology while fostering collaboration across the public and private sectors. #UNDproud #AI #autonomy #nationalsecurity

In today’s rapidly evolving defense environment, advantage is not defined by hardware alone. It depends on how quickly we can design, test and deploy new systems. In a new Perspective from Strategic Technology Consulting (STC), an Arcfield Company, Katie Fisher explains how AI-enabled systems are transforming defense readiness and how AI adoption is a strategic necessity for building the resilient, next-generation defense systems our nation depends on. Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/41Jb5vf #AI #SystemsEngineering #GoldenDome #WeAreArcfield

🛩️ Northrop Grumman will begin flight tests of its Beacon project this fall, using a modified Scaled Composites, LLC Model 437 “Vanguard” jet to evaluate how AI performs in flight, supporting Pentagon efforts to test AI in real aircraft before integrating it into future combat fleets. Details: ✔️ Six tech companies will join the first phase, namely Applied Intuition, Autonodyne LLC, Merlin Labs, Red 6, Shield AI, and SoarTech ✔️ Vanguard will run Northrop’s new Prism software, which handles core flight and safety functions while allowing outside developers to plug in their own systems ✔️ Safety pilot will be aboard each mission, able to take control if needed ✔️ Early missions will focus on validating Prism before shifting to partner software, with trials continuing through 2026

How does AI support - not replace - humans? See the attached video for Delphini, an important technology in the Public Safety arena, as we are excited to announce the investment in our 6th Spring Rock Capital Venture Partners portfolio company - Smart Response Technologies. Christopher Bachl and I are excited to partner with you! Roger Mann, CEO, attended our 3rd annual Spring Rock Founders & Leaders Conference a couple of weeks ago as we were in the final stages of documentation and fit right in to our Security, Life Safety & Defense Tech group. It's been great getting to know Roger, the Company, and several of its Customers in the months leading into our investment. From technology developed at Air Force Research Laboratory to 911 Center deployments across the country, their Applied AI helps the Emergency Call Center Operator perform in their role and support improved public safety outcomes, clarifying what can become a chaotic environment surrounding dispatch and coordination. With both traction and runway in the Emergency Call Center market, and untapped opportunities from hospitals and schools to military and government Command & Control, the future is bright for both the Company and the mission of Public Safety. Special thanks to Douglas Dreyer and Brett Vaughan - it's great to see the organic ties that bind our Spring Rock Venture Partners focus! #Security #LifeSafety #DefenseTech #PublicSafetyAI #911Tech #CommandAndControl