Commercial technology boosts hopes of directed-energy weapons

Airbus is at a crossroads. It needs to address its major twin-aisle product line disadvantage to Boeing, while simultaneously implementing organizational reforms that could leave the company with less cash for new product development.

Two recent events epitomize radically diverging fates in the global defense industry. At the end of 2013, Singapore ordered Type 218SG submarines from German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) for €1.6 billion ($2.2 billion). A month later, the French defense minister awarded a €1 billion contract for the modernization of Dassault's Rafale fighter aircraft (see photo). A good story for both companies? Not quite.

Although it has been fashionable to declare the death of the regional-jet market, recent trends suggest that not all deaths are created equal.

The drag-reducing benefit of flying in formation has been known for decades—far longer if you are a bird—but making it practical is the challenge. Geese join up in V formations when they migrate, but all are headed in the same direction; finding opportunities for formation flying within military and commercial air-transport networks crisscrossing the globe is harder.

Does a different backdrop foretell a revival of defense deals in 2014?

Barely a decade ago, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) demonstrated that driverless vehicles could navigate desert roads and negotiate city streets. Now car manufacturers from Audi to Toyota are promising that autonomous driving technology will make their vehicles safer by the middle of this decade.

The past few months have seen stark harbingers of looming pain.