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In that context, “Greenland represents a gap in FDI screening. Denmark’s screening regime does not apply to Greenland, and investment in Greenland can be scrutinized or blocked only through indirect means, such as refusing land or mining permits.”

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We found “no state in the Arctic applies special rules to screening investments in their Arctic territory. Instead, states have national screening regimes that apply uniformly to Arctic & non-Arctic regions… Some Arctic states, particularly Iceland, also face capacity barriers to FDI monitoring.”

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Arctic Foreign Direct Investment

In 2021 I led an NDAA-mandated study on Chinese (FDI) in the Arctic for OSD. One of our major findings, from regulatory and legal analyses led by @cornelloverfield.bsky.social, was that “Greenland lacks [an FDI] screening process altogether.”

cna.org

CNA studies show that China’s investments and other activities in the Arctic pose an economic challenge to the United States and other Arctic interests.

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AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF DENMARK TOGETHER WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF GREENLAND

One of the genuinely novel parts of the US / Denmark / Greenland agreement is a renewed focus on managing foreign direct investment (FDI) in Greenland. That meets a genuine need, and is in service of Greenlandic, Danish, NATO, US, Canadian, and EU security interests.

whitehouse.gov

AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF DENMARK TOGETHER WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“According to Tallis, there is an unanswered question of how much risk the military should accept when deploying uncrewed systems, including how to determine when a system has delivered enough value to justify its loss.“ www.militarytimes.com/news/your-mi...

militarytimes.com

CENTCOM has become a battle lab for unmanned systems

Unmanned systems have moved quickly from experimentation and exercises into the demands of an active war.

Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“‘What the Americans are doing now is not viable long term . . . it’s only focused on getting oil and gas out, it’s not focused on getting cargo and commodities in,’ said a Gulf official. ‘Eventually there’s a limit to this.’”

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“Container ships are among the most risk-averse. The number that travelled through to the Gulf between March 1 and September 7 this year was down to 240, some 94 per cent down from 4,198 vessels a year earlier, according to maritime analyst Xeneta.”

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“While some oil tankers have been shuttling in & out of the strait under US air cover, other shipping traffic has fallen to minimal levels, in part because the rates those vessels can earn — compared with much higher rates for tankers — make it not worth the risk.” H/t @cornelloverfield.bsky.social

ft.com

The Gulf cargo trade that vanished

The Strait of Hormuz was a transit hub for goods from helium to corn. Businesses have battled to find alternative routes

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Strange way of saying your prior baselines were wrong…

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Austal USA's woes are a notable counterpoint to the theory that foreign shipyard management competency is readily transferable to US subsidiaries. I'm loathe to extrapolate too much from just one case, but the MIB clearly faces deep structural challenges that new ownership does not solve on its own.

forbes.com

A Fight For Austal USA Is Great For Shareholders But Bad For The U.S.

As a bidding war erupts for Austal USA, the U.S. government may need to weigh in on the future of the troubled American shipbuilder.

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It is hard to shape how analysts price stock multiples, but anything that makes it easier for non-specialists to enter the DoD market could spur more creativity in processes, energy among primes, and innovation transfer across sectors. Worth keeping an eye on implementation to see where this goes.

war.gov

Two reasons non-defense firms are disincentivized from competing in the defense sector are regulation and the valuation of the defense sector to investors. Per @csis.org, “USG compliance is a wide, deep, and shark-infested moat behind which defense specialists compete mainly against each other.”

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Isolation matters because of its effect on innovation and adoption of competitive business practices. The vast majority of the U.S. economy is not defense related, and there is an enormous degree of innovation in best practices and technology, of which defense specialists may not be early adopters.

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lockheedmartinshare.blogspot.com

The defense sector then was relatively diverse in its number of prime contractors and, in particular, the number of primes with non-defense sources of revenue (e.g.,, Ford had an aerospace subsidiary, now part of Lockheed). In 2024, ~ 2/3 of major DoD programs were delivered by defense specialists.

The Legacy of Ford Aerospace

We’re also celebrating 100 Years of Accelerating Tomorrow by Lawrence R. Lockheed acquired several companies in the 1990s, and their l...

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Setting aside raw scale, which is a huge challenge, I see 3 structural business problems with the current defense industrial base: consolidation, isolation, and speed of innovation. This effort by the Deputy Secretary takes aim at some root causes of isolation, so let’s talk about that for a minute.

war.gov

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US limits air defence time slots for tankers sailing through Hormuz

“Joshua Tallis, naval analyst at the US security research organisation CNA, said the request for ships to transit at specific times was likely ‘an effective means to manage the costs associated with a persistent and indefinite US defence of the southern Strait of Hormuz route’.”

ft.com

Shift to two specified times daily follows increase in Iranian attacks

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Agreed on the Reapers, I think Navy is much further behind though

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Attritable ≠ consumable. I don’t want to levy criticisms that make DoD less risk tolerant of real world UxS use. The learning is needed. But we also haven’t figured out exactly what level of expendability we attribute to uncrewed systems, nor how we assess when they have achieved amortized value.

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Global shipping rules are collapsing, say maritime nations

We don’t know what comes next, but we should expect the small and middle powers who have gained so much to view the transition with deep concerns. www.ft.com/content/c651...

ft.com

Wars and the growth of the shadow fleet are causing a ‘structural shift’ in global trade, according to 18 maritime authorities

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If the value proposition of that system unravels, if the cost of maritime transits rise permanently, and if maritime instability increases, the order itself comes under immense strain.

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The US led order is fundamentally maritime in nature, an inheritance from Grotius and Pax Brittanica wielded into the most accretive global trading system ever devised. That order is also largely consensual—small and middle powers participated willingly because they accrued wealth and stability.

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It feels like “Finland model” is quickly becoming a truism that risks us misstating its effectiveness or its applicability across ship types. It may prove to be the miracle potion we needed but it feels a bit too early to declare victory.

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I’m not inherently against the “Finland model” for shipbuilding but it strikes me that a lot of people are invoking it as a proven approach whereas I don’t know if the jury is in on its success yet, nor do we know how easily one could extrapolate from an icebreaker to, say, a foreign warship design.

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

As US allies aim to minimize reliance on American technology and defense providers, The Economist notes that cutting the chord is perhaps less effective than leaning in to the bargaining power of mutual dependency: "America’s allies might usefully focus on making themselves even more indispensable."

economist.com

America Inc has a tight grip on allied governments

Companies from Palantir to Lockheed account for a small share of spending, but are hard to shake

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These reports are worth the attention of policymakers and analysts. Allies have a role to play in expanding the U.S. DIB and helping us all gear up for a dangerous world. Leveraging that latent potential is not a guarantee, hence the need for expert hands to help leaders with tough questions.

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Those often center A&P that can address defined gaps, like: “Launch a Solid Rocket Motor and Energetics Consortium with Japan, South Korea, Norway/Nammo, and Germany as initial members”, or “establish Australia as the primary co-sustainment hub for allied IAMD weapon systems in the Indo-Pacific.”

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This paper offers plenty of those, like “[leveraging] the NATO Sea Sparrow Program Office centralized procurement model for additional IAMD system families.” The paper also includes recommendations that clearly solve describable problems and not simply gesturing at DIB miasma.

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This is a solutions-oriented memo aimed at advancing air, missile, and counter-drone defense. The mark of good analysis, in the realm of complex acquisition challenges, is reflected in the effort to link high level objectives with bureaucratic pathways that offer authorities and levers to success.

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Second, by the team at MITRE: “International Cooperation to Expand the Industrial Base and Enable Burden Sharing.” www.mitre.org/news-insight...

mitre.org

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The best part of this paper is that it is rooted in empirical evidence, relying on data gathered from industry engagements and case studies to illustrate evidence of policy in practice.

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Cheap solutions, solutions that scale the force quickly, and solutions that build long-term U.S. industrial capacity may not be mutually exclusive but the policy options that solve for each challenge are clearly different. That’s where the final chapter, on hybrid solutions, really adds value.

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The paper, to its credit, offers no easy answers—levers like overseas module production, foreign ownership of U.S. yards, or direct acquisition of foreign-built ships are all understood as options that optimize towards some interests and away from others.

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Two important new reports on working with allies to expand and stabilize defense manufacturing are worth your attention. A 🧵

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One more: www.mitre.org/news-insight...

mitre.org

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Flexibility in naval procurement alongside our allies can be a major component to bolstering medium-term deterrence—but it has to be done coherently.

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And of course there is the potential delta between what our friends are able to build versus what products are most immediately operationally essential for the navy to meet strategic interests.

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We’d need to be thoughtful about where it makes sense to buy finished versus intermediate goods—ships are systems of systems, it may make sense to buy components in some cases and full packages in others.

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Foreign yards have capacity, know-how, and price advantage. Yet buying the right things from a foreign producer requires thoughtful consideration of relative comparative advantages to avoid DIB fratricide as we invest in US manufacturing capacity simultaneously.

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Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base

Return to steam is getting the headlines from this EO but the more interesting analytic challenge may be in ensuring the Navy does overseas (co)production in the most optimal way possible. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

whitehouse.gov

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF WAR THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

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Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Last week I joined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for a wide ranging conversation on the Strait. We talked about the security environment, commercial vs mil incentives, coercion in diplomacy, and what it really means to restore freedom of navigation in the Gulf. www.rferl.org/a/hormuz-str...

rferl.org

Reopening Hormuz Strait Easier Than Restoring Confidence, Naval Analyst Tallis Says

With the US and Iran launching fresh strikes in the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz is back under the spotlight. Naval strategist Joshua Tallis says restoring commercial confidence -- not military f...

Joshua Tallis @doctallis.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Here’s an incomplete list: Zack Cooper Mick Ryan Sam Lagrone Stacie Pettyjohn