🔷 Military Mission Line

The Military Mission Line

There is an invisible line in the Gulf of America with strategic importance.

It’s called the Military Mission Line (MML), and it divides the Eglin Gulf Test and Training Range (EGTTR) to preserve geography for live weapons testing and evaluation.

EGTTR

The EGTTR is the nation’s largest weapons test and evaluation range—180,000 square miles of controlled airspace stretching from Key West to Northwest Florida.

This unique expanse enables the testing, training, and evaluation of cutting-edge weapons against maritime and aerial targets using robust telemetry systems.

The first Trump administration called the EGTTR “an irreplaceable national asset used by DoD to develop and maintain the readiness of our combat forces, and is critical to achieving the objectives contained in the National Defense Strategy.”

The Line

Oil drilling expansion from the west became an issue in the 1980s and, in 1983, the EGTTR protected by law in 1983.

This protection was renewed in 2006 by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA), which established the Military Mission Line (MML) that set a moratorium on gas and oil leasing activities east of the Line through 2022.

In 2018, the Pentagon reaffirmed this stance: “If oil and gas development were to extend east of the MML, without sufficient surface limiting stipulations and/or oil and gas activity restrictions… military flexibility in the region would be lost, and test and training activities would be severely affected.”

This strategic freeze has been extended since then and is was protected through 2029 via the National Outer Continental Shelf Program.

So What

But…it’s not as protected as you think.

The current protection is an executive order—not law—and is a big deal when administrations and their near-term priorities change.

Supported by an executive order issued earlier this year, the Department of the Interior released “Unleashing American Offshore Energy” to terminate the National Outer Continental Shelf Program—and its MML restrictions—to replace it with a new plan that will run through 2031.

This new plan expands oil and gas lease sales, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has just announced Big Beautiful Gulf 1, the first tranche of lease sales under this new authority.

It’s a no-brainer but worth stating: new drilling structures, wind farms, and exploratory activities are incompatible with military operations.

As these leases expand eastwardly, they will reduce the size and utility of the EGTTR.

What Now

While this Big Beautiful Gulf 1 doesn’t encroach on the MML, there is no protection for eastward expansion into the EGTTR in Big Beautiful Gulf 2 or whatever lease sale comes next.

U.S. leaders now face a critical decision: how to balance economic development while protecting the nation’s premier weapons evaluation resource.

Want to learn more? Dig in here.

In That Number

10,000 times

The US Air Force is modernizing its wargaming with an AI-powered "digital sandbox" that will generate and run complex simulations up to 10,000 times faster than real time, allowing for rapid analysis of capability and course-of-action scenarios.

TRIVIA

Nine days, 26,000 miles, and zero fuel stops. Which aircraft accomplished this record-breaking flight around the world in December 1986?

A) Spirit of St. Louis
B) Voyager
C) Bell X-1
D) SpaceShipOne

On the Radar

Navy 6th-gen fighter update. The compromise version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) fully backs the Air Force’s F-47 with a $2.6B authorization, but only allocates a $74M for the Navy’s F/A-XX counterpart—exactly what the Pentagon requested and 84% reduction from 2025 spending.

• The Merge’s Take: Despite earlier RUMINT, it appears the Navy’s 6th-gen fighter remains in jeopardy. The issue isn’t the need, though—it's execution. The administration has concerns about the industrial base’s ability to support both the F-47 and the F/A-XX while they are at the same development stage (Boeing won the F-47, and F/A-XX is down to Boeing and Northrop Grumman). Delaying F/A-XX a couple of years would address that concern, but the Navy is ramping up pressure to make a decision. Expect more news as Congress finalizes its 2026 legislation, and more fireworks in ~April 2026 when the Pentagon releases its FY2027 budget request.

DIU Review. Pentagon is reviewing DIU’s tech portfolio as it weighs consolidation in an effort to reduce overlap and focus resources on outcomes for the newly-released 6 critical technology areas.

• The Merge’s Take: There is a clear shift in vibe inside the Pentagon, from experimentation to adoption. The concern with DIU is that it is spread too thin; at one point, it had 133 active projects, raising concerns about the service’s ability to even absorb the successes that came from them. Time will tell if DIU gets a more focused charter.

Looking Glass Back. The Air Force may reclaim the nuclear Airborne Command Post mission—“Looking Glass”—27 years after handing it to the Navy’s E-6B fleet. A new notice announced an industry day for “Looking Glass - Next.”

• The Merge’s Take: The move may be a by-product of the E-6B fleet’s future—or lack thereof. The Looking Glass mission is all about having an airborne backup to send the order to launch ICBMs. The Navy is replacing the Boeing 707-based E-6B with the 4-prop E-130J Phoenix II, and part of this decision was to split the TACAMO (nuke sub comm) and Looking Glass (ICBM comm) missions. Before the Navy took on this role, the Air Force flew the mission with dedicated EC-135s.

They Said It

“I will say this, it's one thing to design and innovate. It's another thing to build a prototype, and then it's an entirely different ball game to then scale manufacturing.” 

— Christopher Calio, CEO of RTX, cautioning that Silicon Valley-backed defense firms must overcome the challenge of scaling production

Knowledge Bombs

• Australia bought 7 more MQ-28 CCAs after a successful AIM-120 live-fire test

• Saronic was awarded a $392M Navy contract to produce autonomous USVs

• Pryzm announced a $12.2M seed funding round to transform federal procurement with AI

• Saab & Divergent utilized software and additive manufacturing to build an aircraft fuselage

• Vatn Systems raised $60M in Series A funding for autonomous underwater vehicle manufacturing

• K2 Space raised a $250M Series C funding at a $3B valuation for high-power satellites

• Grid Aero & A2G partnered to integrate autonomous logistics and ISR for remote missions

• Boom Supersonic closed a $300M funding round and announced it’s adapting it’s turbine engines to power AI data centers

• HavocAI completed the first air-sea autonomy mission in a GPS-denied maritime environment

• Aechelon used AI to convert SAR imagery into real-time 3D synthetic terrain

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ANSWER
On December 14, 1986, Voyager took off for the first nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world. The two pilots landed on December 23rd—9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds later.