Bucket-wheel excavators mine rare earth materials on Ukrainian soil on February 25, 2025, in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. (Kostiantyn Liberov via Getty Images)
The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald fires the first Naval Strike Missile from a US destroyer on July 18, 2024, in the Pacific Ocean. (US Navy photo)
Fast-attack submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777) enters Dry Dock 1 at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Hawaii, on September 4, 2024. (US Navy photo by Justice Vannatta)
A South Korean Army K1E1 tank crosses a pontoon bridge on the Imjin River during a joint river- crossing exercise as part of the Freedom Shield military drills with US and ROK forces in the border town of Yeoncheon, South Korea, on March 20, 2025. (Getty Images)
The medium-displacement unmanned surface vessel Sea Hunter sits pierside at Naval Base San Diego during the Unmanned Surface Vessel Division One Establishment ceremony on May 13, 2022, in San Diego, California. (US Navy photo by Kevin C. Leitner)
A General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger unmanned aircraft flight tests the Skyborg Autonomy Core System in El Mirage, California, on June 24, 2021. (US Air Force photo by Tabatha Arellano)
An unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) operator recovers a MK 18 MOD 2 UUV after an operational test off the coast of Bahrain on October 20, 2015. (US Navy Photo by Jonah Stepanik)
Ukrainian Army soldier Ihor Gutsenko gets ready to fly an Airlogix unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance drone in a field outside Kyiv on November 9, 2022. (Paula Bronstein via Getty Images)