Colorado-based defense intelligence company Vantor was selected by the U.S. Army this week for a continued contract supporting the service’s One World Terrain program, an initiative that Vantor says is used to “train and rehearse missions using high-precision, immersive 3D terrain.”

The flexible spending contract could feature spending up to $217 million and includes a possible four-year extension to scale the OWT program for the Army in the future. The company says OWT will use its Vivid Terrain model, a product that CEO Dan Smoot told Threat Status will be integrated into training using Anduril’s Eagle Eye program.

Vantor says Eagle Eye will leverage augmented reality displays to let troops train in a mirror of the conditions around a target. Everything from building layouts to structure heights will be simulated both in augmented reality and in the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment. That program provides an automatically generated global simulation for the Army.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink says the U.S. needs to rapidly scale its production of current weapons systems and expedite the manufacture of future weapons. He issued the call to action in a keynote address at the annual Air & Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium this week in Aurora, Colorado.

Mr. Meink said the Air Force is “supercharging” the U.S. defense industrial base and is in line with the Pentagon’s push to replace the traditional system for purchasing military hardware. “I believe that you need three things to be successful in delivering that capability to the joint force — talent, empowerment and the right resources,” the Air Force chief said.

“It doesn’t matter if we have something that works perfectly under all conditions,” he told a room filled with industry leaders, Space Force Guardians, airmen and other defense officials. “If it is too expensive and I can’t build enough of them to be effective, it’s a failed program.”

President Trump insists Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” by last year’s U.S. airstrikes. But Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, said recently that the Islamic republic is about a week away from having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. Which is it?

Satellite images suggest that at least some key Iranian nuclear sites not only still exist but also are being fortified in an attempt to withstand another round of U.S. bombing. It’s a situation at the heart of ongoing talks occurring between U.S. negotiators — most notably Mr. Witkoff — and Iranian officials. The two sides are meeting in Geneva Thursday with the goal of putting new limits on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and specifically its ability to enrich uranium inside the country.

If the talks turn sour, the prospect is real that Mr. Trump may order fresh strikes on Iran, with the U.S. having built up significant military assets in the region. It is notable that Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas Republican and chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Threat Status podcast last year U.S. strikes in June had set back Iran’s program by “one to two years.”

The Pentagon has concluded that Chinese aircraft engine technology is rapidly narrowing the gap with the United States, according to retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. John L. Barry, who writes that “Beijing could present a credible air challenge as early as 2027 — the same time frame many analysts cite for a potential move against Taiwan.

“By contrast, the United States has drifted into complacency, assuming that technological superiority will sustain itself,” Mr. Barry writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times. “The result has been years of underinvestment in jet engine research and development, leaving many programs stuck at little more than maintenance levels.

“Funding, developing and fielding next-generation fighter aircraft and their propulsion systems is not optional if the U.S. intends to maintain air dominance in the decades ahead,” the retired general writes. “Pausing or slowing engine research creates gaps that are exceptionally difficult to close.”

Gary Anderson, a former chief of staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, takes aim at the Navy Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System and Landing Ship Tank programs as potential targets for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mandate that the services cut 8% in their budgets.

“Canceling [both] will go a long way toward allowing the Navy and Marine Corps to meet their cost-reduction mandates,” Mr. Anderson writes in an op-ed for The Times. “The original Landing Ship Medium cost estimate was as much as $7.2 billion, and the NMESIS would likely run to $500 million.”

“That saved money,” he writes, “would allow the Navy to provide big-deck shipping to get Marine Corps units to the small, fast-breaking contingencies to which it has traditionally responded and rebuild the Corps’ ability to help win big major conflicts.”

• Feb. 27 — U.S. Policy in a Changing Nuclear Landscape, Brookings Institution 

• March 2 — China’s Great Tech Leap Forward and the Implications for the United States, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• March 3 — U.S. Senate Hearing on the National Defense Strategy, Senate Armed Services Committee

• March 3 — A Strategic Response to Sino-Russian Cooperation: Perspectives from Europe and the Indo-Pacific, Hudson Institute 

• March 3 — North Korea’s Ninth Party Congress: Domestic and Global Implications, Stimson Center

• March 4 — Surveying Foreign Influence in AI Tools, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• March 4 — Securing America’s Critical Mineral Supply Chain: A Conversation with Rep. Rob Wittman, Virginia Republican, Hudson Institute