Weekly Defense & Gear Roundup: Navy's New 'Malice' Missile, OpSec Warnings, and Army's Ultra-Light ISV

This week: The Navy's newest extreme-range air-to-air missile breaks cover, the Department of the Navy issues a stark operational security warning to personnel, the Marine Corps awards a major AI contract for cognitive warfare, and the Army's ultra-light Infantry Squad Vehicle program scales up dramatically. Here's what matters for the tactical community this week.

Navy Discloses AIM-424 "Malice" — A New Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile

The Navy dropped a significant piece of hardware news at the Tailhook Association's convention in Reno this weekend: the existence of the AIM-424 "Malice," a new very long-range air-to-air missile already deep in testing. Images released by the service show a Super Hornet from test squadron VX-23 carrying four of the missiles, and the weapon installed in an F-35C's internal weapons bay.

According to specs released by the Navy, the Malice weighs approximately 1,500 pounds — roughly three times the weight of an AIM-120 AMRAAM. It is a two-stage design, a configuration that Defense Department planners have been pursuing for years as they chase extreme-range air-to-air capability. The stated goal: hitting targets at ranges exceeding 1,000 miles, which leadership considers critical to surviving future enemy anti-access systems of equivalent reach.

The missile is slated for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, and the upcoming F/A-XX next-generation naval fighter. Where it slots relative to the AIM-174B "Gunslinger" — which was adapted from the SM-6 surface-to-air missile — remains an open question. What is clear is that the Malice represents a significant leap beyond the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the newer AIM-260 JATM, both of which share the AMRAAM's general mold-line. The program is part of a broader Pentagon push to close the air-to-air missile gap with China and maintain overmatch in the Pacific kill chain.

Details on the manufacturer, secondary mission modes (anti-ballistic missile or air-to-surface), and final performance specs have not been released. Additional reporting is expected soon.

Acting SECNAV Warns Navy, Marine Personnel: Hide Your Online Presence

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao issued a blunt Aug. 19 notice to all Department of the Navy personnel, advising them to immediately harden their online profiles, remove any information linking them to the military, and report suspicious activity to Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

The warning comes as hostile actors carry out what the memo describes as a "coordinated, multi-domain campaign" against Navy and Marine personnel — one that includes aerial surveillance of bases, direct attacks and harassment operations, and the public release of personal information. The threats extend to families. The notice specifically calls out drone sightings, being photographed or surveilled, and suspicious questioning as reportable incidents.

"Adversaries are actively mining this data," the message reads. "Remove any information that could identify your connection to the DON or reveal patterns of life."

This is not the first such warning this year. Cao's predecessor, John Phelan, issued a similar notice in April focused on cyber operations. The new message broadens that scope considerably. The context is the ongoing Iran war — now in its 18th month — and a pattern in which commercially available data, including fitness app tracking and geolocation metadata from publicly posted photos and videos, has been exploited to locate and target American personnel. More than 750 U.S. troops have been wounded in action since Feb. 28, with 18 killed. Nearly half of those wounded were hurt since July alone.

For tactical gear buyers with military or law enforcement backgrounds, this is a reminder that operational security starts well before the range or the deployment — it starts with what you post, who tags you, and what apps you leave running in the background.

Marine Corps Awards Accrete Sole-Source Contract for AI Cognitive Advantage Tool

The U.S. Marine Corps awarded Accrete a sole-source contract on Aug. 21 for the company's Argus for Cognitive Advantage platform — an AI-powered system designed to track, analyze, and visualize narrative development across the full information environment.

Argus draws from open-source intelligence spanning 243 languages and platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Telegram, Weibo, and VKontakte. Its video vision capability can transcribe and translate speech, detect objects and scene content, and infer location cues from hours of footage — compressing what once took human analysts days into minutes. The platform also includes predictive simulation for audience segmentation and narrative tracking that models how information campaigns evolve.

"Cognitive advantage is a warfighting requirement, not a support function," said Bill Wall, CEO of Accrete AI Government. Accrete has previously deployed Argus with the Department of War (2022) and the U.S. Army (2024), and was selected for a 2025 AFWERX STRATFI award to transition the technology from prototype to operational use.

For the tactical community, the contract signals where information warfare is heading: AI-driven, real-time, and designed to operate at machine speed across an exponentially larger data surface than human analysts can manually process.

Army Infantry Squad Vehicle Program Surges to 11,582 Vehicles

The Army's Infantry Squad Vehicle program has grown from an initial procurement objective of 649 vehicles in 2019 to 11,582 — an 18-fold increase driven entirely by validated operational demand. The latest objective was set in February 2026.

The ISV is an ultra-light tactical vehicle designed to transport nine soldiers and their equipment across the modern battlefield. The program took a deliberate rapid-acquisition path: commercial off-the-shelf solutions, minimal military modifications, continuous Soldier feedback through the Army's Transformation in Contact program, and a first unit equipped within 24 months of program start. That stands in contrast to traditional acquisition timelines of four to 10 years.

Program leadership credits that speed to intentionally trading the "zero-defect" acquisition culture for relevance at operational tempo. Senior leaders also held the line on adding encrypted radios and additional equipment to the platform — a discipline that kept the vehicle light and deployable. The ISV heavy variant is currently in development, with enhanced onboard power generation to support next-generation command and control systems.

For ground-level tactical operations, the ISV's growth trajectory is a signal that light, fast, deployable platforms are filling a real gap in how the Army thinks about getting infantry formations into the fight.

Sources: The War Zone (TWZ), Task & Purpose, Soldier Systems Daily