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Marcus Schuler edits BattlePolicy, a daily defense-technology brief connecting the companies and capabilities behind modern war to the contest among Europe, the US, Russia, and China.
The U.S. Army's next-generation high-pressure 6.8 mm rifle, replacing the M4 in close-combat formations with greater range and barrier penetration.
The standard US carbine of the post-Cold-War era — a compact, 5.56 mm direct-impingement select-fire weapon that served across Afghanistan, Iraq and dozens of allied forces.
Spain's Álvaro de Bazán-class frigate — the first European Aegis air-defence combatant, carrying 48 Mk 41 VLS cells and shaping a generation of allied frigate designs.
China's tube-launched, electric loitering munition — a man-portable, recoverable-or-lethal reconnaissance-strike system that can be launched singly or in swarms from a 48-tube vehicle, and is being aggressively export-marketed alongside the larger Rainbow and Wing Loong families.
Russia's dominant loitering munition — an electric X-wing anti-materiel drone with shaped-charge, fragmentation, and thermobaric warheads, used at mass scale against artillery, armor, and air-defense assets in Ukraine.
The Switchblade family of tube-launched, man-portable loitering munitions — the 300 for anti-personnel and the 600 for anti-armor — delivers precision strike with real-time operator oversight, and has been battle-proven in Ukraine.
China's tandem-wing HALE ISR UAV — a high-altitude strategic reconnaissance platform frequently compared to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, in PLAAF and naval service since 2018.
China’s MQ-9-class armed drone — a turboprop MALE UCAV with 480 kg payload, 32-h endurance, and a combat-proven export record from Libya to Yemen and Sudan, priced to undercut Western alternatives.
Russia's indigenous medium-altitude long-endurance combat drone — a reconnaissance-strike platform used in limited numbers over Ukraine and marketed for export.
Russia's most prolific tactical drone — a catapult-launched, parachute-recovered ISR workhorse that has become the eyes of its artillery in Ukraine and a node in the Leer-3 electronic-warfare system.
High-altitude, unarmed strategic reconnaissance UAV that serves as the U.S. Air Force's persistent global ISR backbone, also operated by NATO’s AGS force and South Korea.
The People's Liberation Army Navy's most numerous modern surface combatant — a 4,000-tonne multi-role frigate with a 32-cell VLS, YJ-83 anti-ship missiles, and a global operational footprint built on Gulf of Aden anti-piracy deployments.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s most numerous modern destroyer — a multirole air-defence combatant with 64 universal VLS cells, an AESA radar, and over 35 hulls in service, forming the backbone of China’s carrier escort and blue-water surface force.
The Soviet-built Slava-class guided-missile cruiser — a Cold War "carrier-killer" anchored around 16 deck-mounted P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles and an S-300F area air-defence system, now reduced to two active hulls after the sinking of the Black Sea flagship Moskva.
Russia's principal modern multirole corvette family — compact littoral combatants evolved from a simple anti-surface/ASW design into a Kalibr-carrying strike platform, forming the coastal backbone of the Baltic, Northern, and Pacific Fleets.
A Russian Black Sea Fleet frigate class, the Admiral Grigorovich (Project 11356R/Krivak V) delivers Kalibr cruise-missile land-attack strikes and provides multirole escort — a workhorse of Moscow's naval strike from the Black Sea.
The Royal Navy’s next-generation ASW frigate — a quiet, acoustically optimized design that became one of the most successful Western surface-combatant exports of its era, selected by Australia, Canada, and Norway, and building for the UK as the City-class.
The US Navy's FREMM-derived next-generation frigate — intended as a 20-hull class to close the force-structure gap, cut to 2 half-built hulls when the program was canceled in November 2025 amid runaway redesign and cost growth.
The Franco-Italian FREMM multimission frigate — combining anti-submarine warfare excellence with long-range land-attack and air defence, and the design parent of the US Constellation class.
The Royal Navy's specialist area air-defence destroyer — built around the SAMPSON AESA radar and the Sea Viper missile system, with a 48-cell Sylver VLS, a symbol of high-end European naval capability and the first RN ship to intercept a ballistic missile since the Gulf War.
Russia's air-launched aeroballistic missile, marketed as a hypersonic "Dagger" and carried by modified MiG-31K interceptors — a weapon whose "uninterceptable" myth was punctured when a Patriot battery shot one down over Kyiv.
Russia's primary road-mobile short-range ballistic missile — nuclear-capable, maneuvering, and the workhorse of its deep-strike campaign in Ukraine.
China's premier long-range active-radar beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, developed for the J-20 and other modern PLAAF fighters, and the first Chinese AAM to see combat—contested but revealing—in the 2025 India-Pakistan air clashes.
China's road-mobile DF-17 marries a medium-range ballistic missile booster to the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle — a maneuvering, low-altitude payload built to outwit missile defenses and hit fixed high-value targets at 1,800–2,500 km.