Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Trump’s Board of Peace lowers ambitions as peace plan lags Trump to host Netanyahu, Zelenskiy as Ukraine, Iran wars reach critical stages Iran, Turkey seeking regime change in Israel via foreign interference, Likud MK tells 'Post' Iran and Oman seek agreement on Hormuz in bid to jumpstart peace talks Trump backs new talks but it’s unclear what he hopes to achieve this time Hudson Institute’s Walter Russell Mead: Iran is a hedgehog, Trump is a fox Impressed by Ukraine’s battlefield gains, Trump warms to Zelensky New round of talks between Israel and Lebanon to begin August 4 in Rome Houthis pushing to model Iran's Hormuz control in Red Sea, Yemeni FM says US looks to boost anti-China spending worldwide by hundreds of millions, documents say Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say WSJ Editorial: The White House missile shortage excuseIn The News
Israel
Israel’s right-wing government and the Board of Peace created by President Donald Trump to implement his Gaza peace plan appear on a collision course over the future of the enclave. – Washington Post
For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a meeting with President Trump is always an opportunity to showcase their close relationship even if they, at times, disagree. – New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday, with wars in Iran and Ukraine at critical stages and his ties with both leaders markedly different. – Reuters
Palestinian villagers in the occupied West Bank said on Monday the area was coming close to breaking point after increasing incursions by Israeli settlers and violent stand-offs, such as one that left six people shot dead last week. – Reuters
Palestinian workers are now permitted to work in Israeli West Bank communities, the IDF told military reporters on Monday, following a ban imposed by Central Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth on Saturday. – Jerusalem Post
Likud MK Amit Halevi identified Iran and Turkey as the primary orchestrators of a strategic effort to sow internal division and achieve “regime change” in Jerusalem in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
The IDF has increased its deployment across the West Bank to 26 battalions, adding two battalions amid a sharp escalation marked by Palestinian terrorist attacks and attacks from settlers, The Jerusalem Post learned on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
Israel’s next government will declare Qatar an “enemy state,” former prime minister and head of Together Naftali Bennett said at Israel’s National Security Conference (INSS) on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday morning that it shot down two drones over the Jordan border, near the Dead Sea, adding that the drones did not cross into Israeli territory. Their origin was under investigation, the army said. – Times of Israel
Iran
A lull in fighting between the U.S. and Iran has accelerated diplomacy aimed at a short-term fix for the most contentious issue of the war—restarting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. – Wall Street Journal
Now the conflict is entering its sixth month and a period of deep uncertainty. After nearly two weeks of attacks and counterattacks, Mr. Trump has held off a major escalation. But major issues between the two sides remain unsettled. – New York Times
President Trump said on Monday that there was “a good chance” a new round of diplomacy with Iran could yield a breakthrough, but warned that he would quickly resume the airstrikes he paused over the weekend if that did not happen. – New York Times
For the past two decades, major exporters and traders of liquefied natural gas have pitched the fuel as a panacea for the world’s energy-hungry emerging economies. – New York Times
Mediators have achieved progress in getting the United States and Iran back to negotiations, regional officials said Monday, after both sides paused attacks following a period of rapidly escalating tensions. But scattered attacks by armed groups across the region underscored the lingering tensions. – Associated Press
UN experts on Monday called on Iran to cancel death penalties imposed on 10 young men in a single hearing over their alleged role in anti-government protests that rocked the country in January. – Agence France-Presse
President Donald Trump is threatening to strike Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility — a site the United States previously left untouched while bombing the country’s other major nuclear sites, raising new questions about what may have changed. – Fox News
Walter Russell Mead writes: The president’s mix of unorthodox diplomacy and tactical flexibility has let him conduct an extended campaign against Iran without precipitating a global economic crisis. He isn’t the first wartime leader to discover that limited supplies of critical materials can force awkward changes in timing and tactics, and he probably views his decision to suspend the offensive against Iran less as a major setback than as one more move in a long campaign. Iran may be a hedgehog, but Donald Trump is a fox, and he’s unlikely to give up until he’s tried every trick in the book. – Wall Street Journal
Marc Champion writes: Trump now has no option but to find a way to end the war that acknowledges the limits of US power and gets a lot more creative about the sticks-and-carrots on offer to cajole Iran into an acceptable deal. This will require a python-like approach that takes a lot longer to reach its goal than Trump would prefer. For this kind of long squeeze he should enlist the participation of US allies in the Gulf and Europe, which have more at stake than the US, while also involving China and a post-Netanyahu Israel. – Bloomberg
Salem Alketbi writes: Mere involvement in preparations from within the apparatus of the Guardianship of the Jurist or its affiliated networks is enough to trigger a painful response against that apparatus itself, not against the low-level operative who can easily be discarded. The ultimate question is not whether Iran can physically get to Trump. It is whether the West is ready to turn this threat into an unbearable burden on Iran’s vengeance structure before it becomes a defining event that shakes the entire international order. – Jerusalem Post
Russia and Ukraine
For more than a year, President Trump insisted in private conversations with advisers that Ukraine was losing the war. But in recent weeks, the president has expressed fresh optimism about Ukraine and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, according to people who have spoken to him. Trump, the people said, has been impressed with Zelensky’s resilience as he takes the fight deep into Russian territory. – Wall Street Journal
Ukrainian drones have hit military-supply lines connecting Russia and Iran through the Caspian Sea, exploiting a new front in two increasingly intertwined wars. – Wall Street Journal
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Andy Burnham, the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, on Monday, making the wartime leader the first foreign head of government Burnham has hosted since taking office last week and signaling Britain’s commitment as a staunch ally of Kyiv. – Washington Post
A Ukrainian drone campaign against Crimea’s power grid has left hundreds of thousands of people in the Russia-held territory without electricity for days at a time. – New York Times
Ukraine wants a prototype for a European anti-ballistic system codenamed Freyja to be ready within the first half of next year, a senior official said, as Kyiv pushes its allies to help deliver a weapon capable of downing Russian missiles. – Reuters
All 100 members of the U.S. Senate have been invited to a meeting on Tuesday evening with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy when he is in Washington for the funeral of late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, two Senate aides said. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has told members of Congress it will not finish spending $400 million Congress has authorized for aid to Ukraine until fiscal year 2029, even as Kyiv runs critically low on weapons it needs to fend off Russian missile attacks. – Reuters
Russian strikes on front-line localities in eastern Ukraine killed seven people and injured more than 20 on Monday, officials said. Prosecutors in Donetsk Region, the focal point of fighting along the 1,200-km (775-mile) front line, said three people had died in two areas near the contested city of Kostiantynivka. – Reuters
Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) writes: The Arctic punishes every planning failure: soldiers cannot fight if their vehicles will not start, their fuel freezes or their aircraft cannot land. The side that can move, supply and replace forces across the High North holds the advantage before the first brigade ever crosses a border. Empty missile positions do not mean Russia is retreating. Unfinished barracks do not mean war is imminent. Together, they show Moscow accepting vulnerability now to preserve military options later. NATO must use the interval before those options become deployable. The time to prepare the Arctic is before the troops arrive. – Fox News
Lebanon
The Trump administration supports a phased IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon under the framework of the Hezbollah disarmament deal, senior US officials told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
Hezbollah and Iran took advantage of a gap in Lebanon’s education system to create schools that can indoctrinate the next generation of martyrs and elite in their cause, according to a new report by Col. (ret.) Jacques Neriah published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. – Jerusalem Post
The next round of US-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon will take place next week in Rome, the State Department confirmed on Monday. – Times of Israel
Yemen
Yemen’s Houthi Movement aims to replicate Iran’s Hormuz Strait strategy in the Red Sea by disrupting shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb and has been emboldened by an insufficient international response, Yemen’s top diplomat said on Monday. – Reuters
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they targeted a number of sensitive crude oil supply and transport sites linking eastern Saudi Arabia to the critical Red Sea oil export hub of Yanbu. Saudi state oil giant Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – Reuters
Empty supertankers are heading to Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir to collect Saudi crude as observable traffic at the kingdom’s key Red Sea export hub dwindles following threats from Houthi militants. – Bloomberg
The Houthis have continued to promote propaganda claiming they have provided support to Hezbollah despite the anger it provokes among Yemenis, who continue to endure a humanitarian crisis, because of the group’s perception of itself as the “vanguard of Muslim causes and Muslim people,” Bridget Toomey, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday night. – Jerusalem Post
Saudi Arabia
After four years of political deadlock in Yemen, the Houthis were growing increasingly frustrated. A truce between the Iranian-backed militia and neighboring Saudi Arabia had turned into a brittle stalemate, and the Houthis, feeling they had little to lose, wanted greater authority over Yemen and its oil resources. – New York Times
Saudi Arabia said Monday it had intercepted a “number of drones” that Iran-backed militias in Iraq had launched at the kingdom’s oil facilities. Riyadh demanded in a statement that Iraq take “all necessary measures to ensure the prevention of the use of its territory as a launching point” for attacks. – Wall Street Journal
Daniel C. Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller write: The more recent memorandum of understanding with Iran is another example of short-term thinking that produced a seriously flawed document, among the worst in the annals of U.S. diplomacy. It was hastily negotiated, frontloaded in favor of Iran, and missing any reference to the goals about which this war was supposedly fought. The U.S. negotiators basically met all of Iran’s key requirements and achieved none of their own. Iran’s nuclear program was not constrained, nor was its missile program. And, perhaps most significant of all, Iran was anointed as determining the arrangements for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with no mention of U.S. opposition to Iran’s charging a toll or fees after 60 days. – Foreign Policy
Korean Peninsula
Brazil and South Korea agreed to accelerate talks on a potential trade deal between the Asian nation and the South American bloc Mercosur, their presidents said on Monday during a ceremony in Brasilia. – Reuters
South Korea’s top financial regulator said on Tuesday that authorities would consider a cap on single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETF) investments for retail investors if needed, local media reports said. – Reuters
South Korea’s consumer confidence climbed for a third straight month in July as an artificial intelligence-driven semiconductor boom and expectations for stronger wage growth offset concerns over elevated inflation and recent stock-market losses. – Bloomberg
Harrison Kass writes: North Korean leaders have not extended this assistance to Russia out of altruism. Analysts suggest Pyongyang could receive money, food, fuel, military technology, satellite expertise, and missiles in return. The war is essentially a transaction: troops for cash. The benefits of battlefield expertise are another selling point for North Korea. Its officers are eager for firsthand experience observing modern warfare, and Ukraine offers an opportunity. Lessons learned abroad could influence future North Korean military doctrine. Of course, even if additional North Korean troops deploy to Ukraine, integration would not be simple. Barriers exist, including language, logistics, communications. And there is no guarantee that North Korea’s troops will be any good; previous deployments are believed to have suffered heavy casualties. – The National Interest
China
The Chinese start-up Moonshot publicly released the details of its latest artificial intelligence model on Monday, showing the world how it was built. But in a departure for most Chinese A.I. firms, Moonshot indicated that people or companies that want to use it on a large scale will have to secure licenses to use it. – New York Times
China’s leading technology companies have been steadily releasing artificial intelligence models that perform nearly as well as the best systems in the world. But they are all facing the same problem: overcoming the punishing economics behind the technology. – New York Times
Chinese President Xi Jinping hopes Slovakia will play a constructive role in the development of European Union’s relations with China, focusing on properly handling conflicts and differences, according to a report on Tuesday from state news agency Xinhua. – Reuters
China’s commerce ministry said on Monday that new U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese goods over alleged forced labour were unjustified and amounted to protectionism, and urged Washington to remove them. – Reuters
Editorial: The Chinese fishing fleet remains a danger on the high seas. Thousands of vessels, allegedly subsidized by their government, are known to kill endangered animals and illegally catch wildlife, including sharks and dolphins. Support vessels allow these boats to remain stocked and at sea while evading justice at international ports. A bipartisan group of nine senators, led by Cruz, is now asking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to impose sanctions on a list of 29 support vessels. It would sure help to have better technology to track the fleet. That’s what the money was for. – Washington Post
Michael Toth writes: Over the past decade, a coordinated climate litigation campaign has sought massive judgments—often in the tens of billions of dollars—with the goal of bankrupting U.S. oil and gas companies. The real question is whether the U.S. will let its energy policy be rewritten through state court rulings that align with a geopolitical rival’s interests. The Constitution’s answer is clear: International emissions regulations belong to the federal government’s foreign-affairs power, not to local courts. – Wall Street Journal
South Asia
Indian activists are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over the use of AI-powered surveillance used at the largest youth protest in decades, with one court case set to become a test of federal powers even after agitation ended. – Reuters
Indian authorities have suspended a policeman for firing rounds in the air from an assault rifle to disperse student protesters in an eastern state over the weekend, the latest flashpoint in a wave of youth protests that forced the federal education minister to resign. – Reuters
The death toll from monsoon rains and flash flooding in Pakistan over the past month surpassed 100 on Monday as weather forecasters warned that more heavy rain is expected across the country later this week. – Associated Press
India has successfully tested a long-range surface-to-air interceptor missile, advancing development of a domestic air defense system to counter long-range aerial threats. – Defense News
Asia
Asian countries, which rely heavily on energy imports from the Middle East, have been deeply affected by the economic fallout of the conflict, which has reignited after the collapse of a preliminary U.S.-Iran cease-fire. – New York Times
A Vietnamese cargo ship that sank in a heavily disputed section of the South China Sea on Saturday was part of island-building projects to assert Vietnamese sovereignty against Chinese claims in the area, according to a Vietnamese official with knowledge of the effort, as rescuers searched for 15 sailors who were still missing. – New York Times
Taiwan will test relocating weapons production lines and converting civilian factories for military use in annual drills next month, the defence ministry said on Tuesday, aiming to sustain combat operations if Chinese attacks hit supply hubs. – Reuters
U.S. customs officials have carried out spot inspections on China-linked factories in Vietnam, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. – Reuters
Australia’s Victoria state gained a new premier on Tuesday after the centre-left Labor Party chose Ben Carroll as its new leader in the state, preparing for a November election that is being widely watched as a test of the right-wing One Nation party’s popularity. – Reuters
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. denounced China in a veiled rebuke Monday in his state of the nation speech, vowing that his government will defend a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea, and saying that Filipinos “do not yield” to conquerors. – Associated Press
Japan’s Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters last week that he had briefly discussed bilateral relations with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi when they ran into each other during the meeting in the Philippines. – Associated Press
Fanny Chao and Sam Bresnick write: While Taiwan is adjusting to the fast-evolving pace of military AI innovation, the United States is pushing ahead. Despite its early progress, the United States still faces significant challenges, and its defense experts have spilled much ink illuminating them. U.S. discussions of issues related to military AI acquisition cover more ground than Taiwanese debates. For example, conversations among U.S. policymakers and analysts about the tension between conventional hardware-centric and iterative AI acquisition processes have focused on issues ranging from prolonged procurement cycles to inflexible funding restrictions. – War on the Rocks
Jagannath Panda writes: Prime Minister Takaichi has overseen a significant investment in defense, with the budget exceeding $58 billion this year for the first time in the nation’s history. She has also expedited the revision of three strategic documents covering national security, national defense, and defense procurement to address the complex threat environment Japan faces. In February’s elections, she secured overwhelming public backing to strengthen the country’s deterrence posture. Taken together, Japan has demonstrated both the capability and the determination to play a proactive role in maintaining the stability and security of the Pacific region. What the renaming to USPACOM changes remains to be seen. But make no mistake: at the heart of US strategy in the region sits a robust and reliable ally that has backed American interests in the Pacific for decades. – The National Interest
Europe
The business of explosives is booming as Western governments unleash spending to bring production home. At least 24 new projects are under way for propellants or explosives across NATO countries, according to information assembled by The Wall Street Journal. – Wall Street Journal
Firefighters on Monday raced to contain the largest wildfires ever recorded in France and Spain as a new wave of extreme weather threatened to fan the flames and start still more blazes. – New York Times
Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany on Monday called for tougher monitoring of individuals who are security threats, a day after prosecutors said the suspect in Saturday’s terrorist attack near a gay Pride event in Berlin was released from detention in May. – New York Times
A former Hong Kong opposition leader has been granted permission to remain in Britain with his family for six months after the authorities withdrew an order limiting his stay to one week, his lawyer said on Monday. – Reuters
Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which was born after the ravages of World War II to help people fleeing war, violence and persecution. Proponents say the treaty has saved millions of lives. – Associated Press
Four decades after the Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation across Europe and turned Italy off nuclear power, Premier Giorgia Meloni ’s government is laying the groundwork to bring it back as the country seeks to improve its energy security. – Associated Press
The suspect subdued after allegedly stabbing three women in Paris on Monday uttered, “it is Allah who commanded me” to a crowd that appeared to be holding him down after the apparent terror attack. – Fox News
Africa
Uganda’s health authorities declared the country Ebola-free on Tuesday ending the East African nation’s latest outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic disease that infected 20 people and killed two of them since it was declared in mid-May. – Reuters
At least 30 people were killed when armed men attacked a village in Nigeria’s northwestern Kaduna state early on Monday, two residents said. Dogon Rana, secretary to the village head, said gunmen stormed the community shooting randomly and burning houses. Eight children were among the dead, while four other people sustained injuries. – Reuters
Nigeria urged South Africa on Monday to do more to prevent xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other African migrants, saying repeated violence was straining ties and raising questions about whether the government was complicit. – Reuters
The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Monday completed the sixth and final review of Ghana’s $3 billion support program, clearing the way for a final disbursement of about $371 million, the IMF said in a statement. – Reuters
Angola raised 300.3 billion kwanzas ($329 million) through the sale of a 15% stake in the country’s biggest telecommunications operator, Unitel, after investor demand exceeded the shares on offer by more than 20%. – Reuters
The Americas
The sinking of a state-run ferry, which killed an estimated 100 people this month, is deepening political fault lines in Guyana, an oil-rich country and a top U.S. ally in South America. – New York Times
A United Nations fact-finding body on Venezuela said on Monday it was “gravely concerned” over the country’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court and urged it to rejoin. Venezuela’s government said on Friday it had made an “irrevocable” decision to leave, justifying the move by alleging a “geographical bias” within the court. – Reuters
Brazil has requested consultations with the U.S. under the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system over tariffs announced by the Trump administration this month, the Brazilian Foreign Relations Ministry said in a statement on Monday. – Reuters
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva praised Argentine President Javier Milei’s austerity policies and reform agenda Monday, saying they have restored market confidence in a country long regarded as a serial defaulter on its sovereign debt. – Associated Press
Colombian president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella will halt plans to open an embassy to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, a sign of the country’s warming ties to Israel and the United States. – Washington Examiner
North America
Travel by Canadians to the United States fell 25 percent in 2025, Canadian government data shows, as President Donald Trump returned to the White House and Canadians opted to spend their vacation dollars elsewhere. – Washington Post
A $4.5 billion bridge between Michigan and Ontario finally opened to traffic on Monday months after President Donald Trump threatened to derail the project. – Washington Post
For the second time this year, the United States Consulate in Toronto was struck by gunfire in what Olivia Chow, the city’s mayor, called “a brazen attack.” – New York Times
For months, President Trump has been predicting that Cuba is about to collapse. “It’s just going to fall,” he told reporters on Jan. 4, a day after taking control of Venezuela’s oil, which had been Cuba’s lifeline. – New York Times
Haiti’s CEP electoral council on Monday scheduled the first presidential elections in a decade for December with a runoff in February, after plans to hold the vote in August with a December runoff were postponed over security concerns. – Reuters
United States
President Donald Trump demanded Monday that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) keep the Senate in session until it passes a voting bill that he has said would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans. – Washington Post
President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to allow implementation nationwide of his executive order aimed at tightening rules for mail-in voting ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of Congress. – Reuters
The U.S. Senate on Monday advanced the nomination of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to be the top U.S. spy, and he is expected to be approved within days despite a tense confirmation hearing. – Reuters
Michigan health officials reported 9,253 cases of cyclosporiasis on Monday, an increase of 1,077 cases since their last update on Friday, as the intestinal infection outbreak grows. The outbreak in Michigan has resulted in 160 hospitalizations, according to the state’s health department. No deaths have been reported. – Reuters
The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up funding by hundreds of millions of dollars for programs designed to counter China’s growing influence around the world, after it had put a halt to many of those initiatives last year during a flurry of budget and personnel cuts. – Associated Press
Families of 9/11 victims are urging organizers to bar New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani from attending this year’s 25th anniversary remembrance ceremony in Lower Manhattan. – Fox News
The White House is pushing Congress to break a decades-long impasse around the handling of nuclear waste and entice states to get on board, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. – Politico
Stuart Halpern and Tal Fortgang write: In closing, Kennedy said of Israel, “Today we celebrate her eighth birthday, but I say without hesitation that she will live to see an 80th birthday — and an 800th. For peace is all Israel asks, no more — a peace that will ‘beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.’” During this season when America reflects on a birthday of its own, Democrats who have not been captured by the anti-Israel strain within their party would do well to contemplate Kennedy’s words. “This is no time for equivocation or hesitation,” he said, emphasizing that, amid gathering forces of darkness, the obligation of those who cherish liberal-democratic ideals is to support and defend them, at home and abroad. – Washington Post
Cybersecurity
Bahrain cannot claim state immunity to block a spyware lawsuit brought in Britain by two dissidents, the United Kingdom’s top court ruled by a majority on Monday, in a ruling one judge warned would put Britain in breach of international law. – Reuters
Microsoft threw its hat into the ring Monday in the increasingly heated competition among AI-powered cybersecurity offerings, unveiling tools that it claims are better and cheaper than its rivals. – CyberScoop
The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled Monday that Bahrain can’t hide behind state immunity to block a lawsuit filed by two dissidents alleging the government infected their devices with spyware. – The Record
Researchers have uncovered a highly personalized phishing campaign that used Telegram to try to hijack the account of an exiled Belarusian activist, as well as users in Russia and Kazakhstan. – The Record
Editorial: At a time of national self-doubt, Americans can feel pride about our world-leading semiconductors. During the Cold War, the United States fell behind the Soviet Union in the space race and needed the 1957 launch of Sputnik to inspire a comeback. Another way to look at that story, however, is that the Soviets took their lead for granted and lost it. This time, America has produced its own kind of Sputnik. We should not squander it. – New York Times
Raffi Krikorian writes: The defining question for AI in this era won’t be who tops the leader board for usage. It will be whether June 12 can happen to someone else. Anthropic’s models came back online, but the doubt didn’t go away. We need AI the world gets to keep, not because it’s forced to trust its providers but because it never has to. That’s the oldest American play there is: building what the world is already lining up to buy. – Wall Street Journal
Parmy Olson writes: “In practice, we find very little real disruption of the core low-level cybercrime ecosystem by these technologies,” the researchers write in their study. “Despite a substantial level of interest in generative AI in the cybercrime underground, it has not significantly reduced the skill barrier to entry, nor has it led to serious disruptions to established business models or practices.” – Bloomberg
Defense
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials. – Washington Post
With the U.S. running low on expensive guided munitions, the Pentagon is pushing yet another project to develop cheap, long-range weapons that can be mass produced. – Defense News
U.S. President Donald Trump is still holding off approval of a $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan, a potential military rival to Beijing. He pulled back in May after meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who opposes U.S. military aid to Taiwan. – Defense News
The Marine Corps has selected Allen Control Systems’ Bullfrog autonomous weapon station for integration into its Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS) under the Ground-Based Air Defense (GBAD) program, according to a company announcement this week. – Military.com
Editorial: If the U.S. really is running out of missiles and interceptors, that should be a five-alarm fire. Mr. Trump should be calling on Congress to skip its recess and do something about it immediately, and rallying industry for the effort. But if the missile gap is being floated for political purposes by officials who want Mr. Trump to stand down, then the President should banish those voices from the Situation Room. Either way, they’re laughing in Tehran. – Wall Street Journal
Kash Patel writes: What’s next? At our Scam Center Summit, I informed our partners we would be bulldozing these compounds to show the world what full mission success is and challenged them to be the first to participate in this historic effort. We will also continue to target every level of syndicate leadership to ensure total dismantlement of these organizations is achieved. Action is what matters, and it is what this FBI will continue to deliver thanks to the Trump administration. This FBI will keep driving forward and dismantle compounds, seize billions, rescue trafficking victims, return people’s life savings, and rubble these networks. They may think they can target Americans from safe havens overseas. Perhaps they should read the above. – Fox News
Mackenzie Eaglen and Nicholas Carl writes: The not-fully-open-yet-not-quite-closed Strait of Hormuz is showcasing systemic problems that have long plagued the US Navy. As the United States works to secure the strait from Iranian attacks, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle recently told the US Senate that “providing escort services through a contested strait will…exceed the capacity of the Navy to do that effectively.” The CNO’s candor is welcome but is likely breaking news to Washington policymakers. The service seems to make it all work all the time so it can mask, at least temporarily, deep structural weaknesses. Securing shipping lanes is one of the Navy’s core missions. Decades of underinvestment and inconsistent acquisition priorities have left the Navy brittle, overstretched, and falling behind—even relative to Iran, a formidable but far-from-peer adversary. – The National Interest