Pentagon Launches Project Meridian to Shape Future Warfare

The U.S. Department of Defense is turning to technology executives and private-sector innovators to anticipate future military threats, accelerate weapons development and maintain American military superiority. Announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Project Meridian places Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in leadership roles, prompting debate over whether defense contractors should help direct the Pentagon's long-term military planning.

According to a September 30 memorandum cited by Israel Defense, Hegseth tasked Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael with launching the initiative. The team must identify future battlefield requirements and propose actionable ways to develop, test and deploy relevant capabilities by January 28, within 120 days of the directive.

The initiative will examine artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology and other emerging technologies. Hegseth said the effort would prioritize practical capabilities for future conflicts rather than developing new departmental strategies or policies. The Joint Staff and military service branches must also align their future warfare research with the project.

MS NOW reported that the appointments have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest because Musk and Luckey lead companies that seek Pentagon contracts. The report noted that both executives have supported Republican political candidates, while their businesses operate in areas directly relevant to military procurement and strategic planning.

Project Meridian is intended to develop a forward-looking assessment of future military capabilities. Hegseth described its mission as establishing a “proactive vision for shaping American dominance in the future of warfare” by “identifying the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield.”

According to Israel Defense, Hegseth said the department must acknowledge that expertise in anticipating future conflicts does not reside exclusively within the Pentagon. He argued that involving outside innovators could help identify emerging technologies and solutions that conventional military planning might overlook.

The appointments have drawn criticism over whether commercial interests could influence decisions about future weapons systems. MS NOW argued that executives whose companies sell military equipment and technology should not lead a strategic planning initiative without safeguards against conflicts of interest.

The report noted that the Pentagon awarded Anduril a $2.9 billion contract to build submarine components and another contract worth $1.9 billion to expand command-and-control software. These awards followed other substantial contracts during President Donald Trump's second term.

MS NOW also cited concerns about Anduril's technical performance and safety record, referencing a Wall Street Journal report from the previous year. The company defended its development approach in a statement, acknowledging, “We do fail … a lot.” Neither the Pentagon nor Musk's or Luckey's companies had commented on the potential conflicts described in the report.

The controversy comes as the Pentagon seeks to accelerate the adoption of commercially developed defense technology. CBN News reported that the Defense Innovation Unit, established to connect the military with technology companies, has helped businesses bring new capabilities into military service.

Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO of Saildrone, described how attitudes toward autonomous maritime technology have changed since he first approached the Navy in 2013.

“I tried to sell to the U.S. Navy in 2013, and they literally laughed at me and said, 'How do we possibly use unmanned systems?' and I said, 'Well, believe me, one day it'll be a thing,'” said Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO of Saildrone.

Saildrone subsequently expanded its work with the Navy, Coast Guard, Homeland Security and allied governments. Its autonomous vessels can remain at sea for months, using cameras, radar and other sensors to track ships, detect suspected smuggling and monitor threats to critical infrastructure.

Jenkins said the technology has revealed how little authorities know about activity across vast ocean areas.

“All our customers that we work for, the first thing they say is we had no idea how many things were out there...You realize (the ocean is) an incredibly vast place that is both underutilized and underprotected. It's really like the Wild West. No one's looking. Some very, very nefarious things happen out there,” Jenkins told CBN News.

In one operation, a Saildrone Voyager detected suspected drug smugglers, helping the Navy seize cocaine valued at more than $81 million. The company also reached a new milestone when one of its newer vessels launched missiles during Navy training exercises, although human operators retained responsibility for lethal decisions.

Jenkins said military customers increasingly want more advanced capabilities on autonomous platforms.

“What we're seeing now is customers wanting more and more sophisticated payloads, everything from signals intelligence through to electronic warfare, through to kinetics,” Jenkins explained.

Sarah Pearson, the Defense Innovation Unit's chief of strategic initiatives, described Saildrone as an example of a commercial technology program that expanded across military services after its initial development through the unit.

“Saildrone was one of the early programs that we stood up at DIU, and now they're quite a success story. Having started at DIU and now scaling across many of the services, that's phenomenal...I would argue, though, that we don't have the years that it took to do that,” Pearson said.

Dan Berkenstock, co-founder of satellite-imaging company Skybox and now associated with the Hoover Institution, compared the current technology boom with an earlier period of American innovation.

“When I look at Silicon Valley today, I think of the sort of Golden Era back in the 1950's and '60s. I worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center in college, and I got to meet some of the people who had landed on the moon or helped people land on the moon, and hearing their stories of what it was like back then, that's what it feels like to me today in Silicon Valley,” Berkenstock told CBN News.

Berkenstock attributed the shift partly to entrepreneurs motivated by public service and national security challenges. He said some had military or intelligence backgrounds and wanted to address problems they had encountered during their service.

“You had a new generation of entrepreneurs that were interested in government service, were motivated by 9/11, in some cases had served previously in the military or intelligence services, and so they had this kind of desire to solve problems that they had seen in uniform or in service,” he explained.

Pearson identified Russia's invasion of Ukraine as another turning point, prompting technology companies to consider how their products could support the United States and its allies.

“That is when I watched most of my former colleagues still in industry, whether they were at startups or big technology companies, begin to explore and really think seriously about how we take the best technology we have in industry and ensure that the United States of America and our allies have access to that,” Pearson said.

Despite growing demand, Pearson said venture-backed startups receive less than 1 percent of the Pentagon's budget. Berkenstock emphasized that companies need reliable purchasing commitments before investing heavily in military technology.

“For companies, especially new companies part of this emerging defense industrial base, to make commitments to that, they need to know that if they build it, someone will buy it,” Berkenstock said.

CBN News also reported that Foundation Future Industries is developing humanoid robots intended eventually to undertake missions that expose U.S. troops to significant danger. Co-founder Mike LeBlanc, a former Marine, said Defense Department funding has helped advance the technology.

“Our robot wouldn't look anything like it does today without the Department of Defense. They have, through small grants and research grants that we've worked together with other companies on, they've put over $73 million into helping us develop this technology, primarily the actuators that are in the robot,” LeBlanc told CBN News.

The actuators function as robotic joints, determining how machines move, lift objects and perform physical tasks. The company's development illustrates how government research funding can support technologies that may eventually have military applications.

Berkenstock also identified space as an increasingly important domain for future military competition, as satellites and other objects become more mobile and the technologies operating in orbit grow more sophisticated.

“We're moving into an age where space is becoming dynamic, where things that have traditionally stood still are now moving tremendously. It's natural that space will become a battleground, either below the threshold of outright conflict or above it, but it's really unclear today how that happens,” Berkenstock said.

MS NOW also questioned Musk's and Luckey's qualifications to direct military planning, noting that neither has served in the armed forces or established a comparable academic or policy record in national security. The report cited Musk's intervention in Ukrainian naval drone operations near Crimea after Russia's 2022 invasion, drawing on Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk.

The report said Musk had disabled Starlink access for Ukrainian sea drones preparing to attack Russian ships near Crimea after expressing concern that the operation could provoke a nuclear response. Ukraine later struck a Russian target in Crimea using different methods, and Russia did not respond with nuclear weapons.

MS NOW cited Luckey's argument in a 60 Minutes interview that “we need to transition from being the world police to being the world gun store.” It also reported that Musk spent $288 million supporting Trump and Republican candidates in 2024, while companies associated with Musk had received substantial government contracts.

Meanwhile, CBN News reported that Pearson warned against underestimating international competitors as the United States develops new military capabilities.

“Everything is at risk, right? Adversaries can be phenomenal competitors, and they're observing” Pearson warned, according to CBN News.

Project Meridian's initial assessment is expected to identify technologies and capabilities required for future conflicts, with the Pentagon's January 28 deadline setting the first formal milestone for the initiative.