Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Shin Bet expands election interference probe to suspected Palestinian Authority funding - report Israel warns Lebanon: Fighting will resume if Hezbollah joins renewed Iran conflict U.S. strikes Iran’s Qeshm Island as Trump talks down war risks Iran says it would reopen Strait of Hormuz in 2 days as part of U.S. deal Crimes Against Humanity: Iranian regime killed 221 children during January 2026 protests, UN fact-finding mission says JPost Editorial: Countdown until US midterm elections are over feels like waiting for war with Iran US to mediate trilateral talks with Ukraine, Russia in Abu Dhabi next week, US envoy says America’s Gulf allies prepare for new round of strikes on Iran—and the blowback China's Xi says Middle East should not become battleground for great power rivalry Trump faces midterm verdict with control of Congress at stake Spanish Socialists Weaken in Election Polls After Train Crash WINEP’s Patricia Brennan: AI accelerated U.S. operations in Iran. Now it’s time to rethink the human role.In The News
Israel
In a country where politics has become a bare-knuckled brawl, Isaac Herzog, the mild-mannered president now tasked with persuading Israel’s party leaders to lower their fists and form a government, is a throwback to a gentler era. – Reuters
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) is investigating suspicions that the Palestinian Authority transferred money to members of Arab political parties in an attempt to influence Israel’s October 27 election, N12 reported on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
The question, now, is whether Israel’s Jewish political leaders – and the public they represent – are ready to accept them as legitimate partners in governing the country. – Jerusalem Post
Islamic State (ISIS) has stepped up its attempts to carry out attacks against Israel since Hamas’s October 7 invasion. It has attempted more in the period since the massacre than in the previous nine-and-a-half years combined, according to Aaron Zelin, the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in a publication released on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
Israel has conveyed a message to the Lebanese government in recent days through US mediation, demanding that the Lebanese army redeploy its forces and establish checkpoints in areas where Hezbollah operatives reside. – Arutz Sheva
An Uzi submachine gun, which the IDF discontinued use of over 30 years ago, was returned to the military as part of a weapons and military equipment collection drive which began on Sunday at dozens of drop-off points across the country. – Arutz Sheva
Israel’s National Cyber Directorate has issued an urgent warning to supermarket chains, food companies, and logistics centers across the country following a wave of cyberattacks in Europe in which hackers remotely seized control of refrigeration and freezer systems in supermarkets, causing extensive damage. – Arutz Sheva
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday discussed options for forming the next government, declaring his wish to form a broad patriotic government including his political partners as well as other parties willing to join. – Arutz Sheva
Jacob Sivak writes: The current electoral crisis is not the first in Israeli history and I suspect it won’t be the last. However, the bigger story is that Israel continues to function as an open democratic society, in spite of almost 80 years of serious external threats. Unlike the soldiers on duty who can vote remotely, Israelis living abroad must return to Israel to vote. I think it incredible that 70,000 Israelis did that for this past election. Would that happen anywhere else? – Algemeiner
Iran
The U.S. attacked Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, U.S. officials said, in the latest of a series of limited strikes Washington has secretly carried out against the country in recent weeks as President Trump touted the possibility of a diplomatic deal. – Wall Street Journal
Oil prices fell Monday as renewed diplomatic efforts to end the conflict between the U.S. and Iran eased concerns over Middle East oil supplies and fears of escalation following the U.S. midterm elections. – Wall Street Journal
Iran is prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in two days if the United States agrees to a set of demands, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after a week of intensified negotiations to avert a return to war. – New York Times
Iran executed two men convicted over the killing of four police officers in the central city of Isfahan during protests in January, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Tuesday. – Reuters
US President Donald Trump raised doubts on Monday about whether he would follow through on a threatened resumption of military strikes against Iran and said a deal with Tehran could happen. – Reuters
Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government has been granted more authority by the country’s supreme leader to pursue peace talks, as President Donald Trump hinted at progress in negotiations. – Bloomberg
With little transparency from Washington and warmongering from Tehran, people across the Middle East have been left anxious and confused, scanning for signals on whether the conflict between Iran and the United States will reignite. – CNN
At least 221 children were killed during Iran’s nationwide protests that began in late December 2025, according to findings presented by the United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. The figure includes children as young as four months old. – Algemeiner
US President Donald Trump warned Monday night that the United States could strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility within an hour if necessary, while expressing confidence that Tehran was interested in reaching a diplomatic agreement. – Arutz Sheva
Editorial: Israel must retain the freedom to act against genuine threats, and the United States must not allow Tehran to use negotiations indefinitely as cover for rebuilding its capabilities. But decisions of such consequence require clear objectives, sober judgment, and an honest explanation of the risks. The public deserves to know whether leaders are preparing a limited operation, a prolonged confrontation, or another round whose ending nobody can confidently predict. The calendar may tell us when the elections are over. It cannot tell us when war is necessary, still less when it will end. – Jerusalem Post
Russia and Ukraine
The United States will bring together delegations from Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 to discuss ending Moscow’s war against Ukraine, post-war security agreements and de-escalation, US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday. – Reuters
Russian forces on Monday bombed a school being used as an aid distribution point in a village in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, killing 26 people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the country’s emergency services said. – Reuters
The Kremlin said on Monday that it assumed that the Ukrainian army used a local ceasefire last week in and around the Russian-held southern town of Oleshky to regroup, something it called normal practice, but said it had no specific information on whether Russian forces had done the same. – Reuters
Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of taking advantage of a rare, US-backed humanitarian ceasefire last week in the southern Kherson region to strengthen its military position there. – Reuters
Russian owners of non-state data centres will be required to reserve 10% of their capacity to help keep Russia’s IT infrastructure running, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday. – Reuters
The furnaces are cold, the factory floor deserted, and twisted metal litters the grounds of Kamet Steel, a vast industrial complex that once helped power Ukraine’s economy but closed after a Russian attack. – Associated Press
The Russian military suffered record casualties in Ukraine last month while also ceding some territory to Kyiv’s forces, according to Western intelligence data and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. – Bloomberg
Russia’s Defense Ministry plans to shift December salary payments into January for the first time, while the government braces for a sharp widening of the budget deficit toward year-end. – Bloomberg
The US is planning to ask NATO allies to contribute more money to a key weapons-delivery program for Ukraine, people familiar with the matter said, a sign that US defense support for Kyiv continues despite lingering tension between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. – Bloomberg
Russia is fitting drones with larger jam-resistant antennas, making it harder for Ukrainian forces to use electronic countermeasures to scramble their navigation signals, Ukrainian officials said. – Defense News
Editorial: Mr. Trump’s determination to appease Mr. Putin is starting to look less about finding a durable if imperfect peace in Ukraine and more about the Trump Administration wanting a reordered world and an entente with Russia at any cost. Mr. Trump is doing this as the reality on the battlefield in Ukraine is that Russia is losing the initiative and even some territory while enduring monthly casualties in the tens of thousands. Yet the Administration is offering Mr. Putin lifelines that will help him prolong his bloodbath in Ukraine. Mr. Trump has tried to placate Mr. Putin for two years, and he appears no closer to ending the war than he was on Inauguration Day. – Wall Street Journal
Arabian Peninsula
Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product shrank 3.8% on year in the third quarter as the Arab region’s largest economy struggled to contain the fallout from the Iran war—even before the latest escalations with Yemen’s Houthi militants. – Wall Street Journal
For Saudi Aramco, the war in Iran has brought extraordinary disruptions to its exports and damaging direct attacks on its facilities. But that has not dented the company’s bottom line. The state-owned oil giant reported on Tuesday an adjusted net income of $31.2 billion between July and September, up 9 percent from the same period a year earlier, and revenue of $28.6 billion. – New York Times
Riyadh Air, Saudi Arabia’s aspiring luxury carrier, is busing international passengers to and from an alternate airport four and a half hours from its hub, which was damaged in strikes. – New York Times
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of Aden, the main stronghold and temporary capital of the country’s internationally recognised government, four military sources told Reuters on Monday. – Reuters
April Longley Alley writes: Washington cannot bomb its way to a stable Yemen or a secure Saudi Arabia. But it can use its diplomatic leverage to bring together its two estranged Gulf allies, strengthen their Yemeni partners, and create the conditions for an eventual political settlement that will need to include the Houthis. For a president seemingly eager to keep the United States out of another war in the Middle East, helping allies help themselves may be the most effective—and least costly—form of American leadership. – The National Interest
Middle East & North Africa
America’s Gulf allies are steeling themselves for a heavy U.S. bombardment of Iran that they expect to trigger a vicious cycle of retaliation against their own economic and civilian infrastructure as early as this week. – Wall Street Journal
Six months after leaving OPEC, the United Arab Emirates on Monday began hosting ADIPEC, one of the world’s largest energy conferences, where it told an audience of industry executives it had increased oil exports in spite of the Iran war. – Reuters
Libya’s eastern-based parliament voted on Monday to appoint Fawzi Abu Khazam as governor of the Central Bank of Libya, after accepting the resignation of governor Naji Issa. – Reuters
Gregory Gause III writes: A refocus on commitment, deterrence, and protection of energy flows is also a necessary step to restoring bipartisan support for America’s regional military presence. The divisions and inconsistencies in domestic politics are more likely to force a decision to withdraw from the Gulf region than any regional pressures. A limited definition of America’s regional goals undergirded the bipartisan consensus on Gulf military presence through Democratic and Republican administrations from 1991 until recently. Therefore, a clear restatement of that original purpose, coupled with a rejection of attempts to force regime change that have eroded that consensus, is needed to provide both the international and the domestic support for a rebuilt and resilient military presence in an area of the world that remains vital to the world economy and American prosperity. – Middle East Institute
Emil Avdaliani writes: Both transformations depended on structural changes in productivity, industry, technology, and military organization. Few aspiring middle powers in the Middle East have the potential for such a transformation. Thus, the growing activism of Middle Eastern middle powers is an important feature of contemporary international politics, but it should not be confused with a fundamental redistribution of power in the region. Their influence remains uneven, their autonomy is constrained by military limitations, and their effectiveness depends on productive relationships with established great powers. Geopolitical balancing is neither new nor a reliable path to great-power status. – The National Interest
Korean Peninsula
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was conducting a probe into the leak of personal information related to President Lee Jae Myung’s June overseas trip and was taking steps to reissue passports for Lee, his wife and other affected officials. – Reuters
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called on Tuesday for the creation of a powerful government-wide cybersecurity body to coordinate functions scattered across agencies, pointing to limitations in the current capacity to protect critical systems. – Reuters
North Korea said on Tuesday it tested on Monday a strategic cruise missile mounted with a dispersal warhead and assessed the flight characteristics for a vertical strike, state news agency KCNA reported. – Reuters
North Korea has dismissed as “absurd rhetoric” US allegations that it was behind a $6.3 billion cryptocurrency heist on the Binance platform, as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange made more assets available for withdrawals by worried clients. – Reuters
South Korea’s headline inflation slowed in October, government data showed on Tuesday, providing a slight reprieve for central bankers but remaining firmly above target. – Reuters
China
In the past month, Beijing has moved to control the exports of dozens of technologies, including drones, artificial intelligence models and agents, and certain processes used to develop advanced medicines and to make solar panels. – New York Times
Global investment in artificial intelligence is “overly concentrated” and crowding out traditional industries by raising borrowing costs, a top official at China’s financial regulator said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in separate meetings with Iranian and Saudi national security officials in Beijing on Monday, said all parties in the Middle East conflict should focus on political solutions rather than resorting to arms again. – Reuters
The Middle East and Gulf region should not become a battleground for great-power rivalry and China is willing to work with Arab nations to achieve lasting peace, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Oman’s sultan on Monday. – Reuters
Theodore Bunzel, Edward Fishman, and Addar Levi write: China’s divide-and-conquer strategy has capitalized on distrust within the U.S. alliance system. Restoring that trust will require Washington to make commitments that persist no matter who occupies the White House. The central wager of an economic security alliance is that the United States can gain leverage over China by surrendering some leverage over its allies. An economic zone for the free world can turn the tide against China, but only if the United States ties itself to the mast. – Foreign Affairs
Joel Wuthnow writes: If Chinese leaders believed that they could achieve victory quickly and with few shots fired, they might take the bet. Deterrence, then, will require convincing them that they cannot. The United States, Taiwan, and other governments should invest in drones, rebuild munitions stockpiles, and ramp up messaging to China that a long, drawn-out conflict is likely. As long as China’s leaders believe that a war would be indecisive in its early stages, the threat of domestic crisis would be a powerful reason not to start one. – Foreign Affairs
South Asia
An Indian national was killed and a New Zealander injured after two helicopters collided as they prepared to land in Nepal’s Mount Everest region on Tuesday, authorities said. – Reuters
Washington aims to use peace diplomacy in Myanmar as a way to expand US influence and potentially gain access to the country’s rare-earth deposits, according to a recently published State Department strategy document. – Reuters
A newborn baby was among at least 15 people killed in Myanmar military strikes at multiple locations over the weekend, including a maternity clinic and a school, an ethnic armed group, an aid worker and rights monitors said on Monday. – Reuters
Suspected militants riding a motorcycle shot and killed two police officers assigned to protect polio workers during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said. – Associated Press
Derek Grossman writes: Washington should not expect Pakistan to abandon its longstanding strategic partnership with China, nor does it need to. If the Trump administration can turn Pakistan’s mineral wealth into a reliable source of critical minerals for American industries, then it could strengthen US-Pakistan relations while reducing Beijing’s leverage over Washington. Ironically, one of China’s closest strategic partners could help America become less dependent on China. – The National Interest
Asia
Malaysia’s key institutions will hold a series of meetings on Tuesday to help prepare against cyber and geopolitical threats, the country’s premier told parliament. – Reuters
New Zealand’s ruling National party and centre-left opposition Labour are neck-and-neck in the final days before Saturday’s general election, according to the latest opinion polling. – Reuters
Singapore will work with ASEAN member states to strengthen the implementation of an agreement on transboundary haze when it chairs the regional bloc next year, the country’s environment minister said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Taiwan must be the master of its own maritime information and conduct its own ocean surveys given the island’s fate rests on protecting its waters, the minister in charge of the Coast Guard said on Monday. – Reuters
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders are leaving their country each year, many crossing the Tasman in search of better opportunities in Australia. – Bloomberg
Europe
Britain’s defense secretary hoped to start a national conversation about resilience when he announced that everyone should stockpile enough supplies to survive 72 hours without food, water or power. – Wall Street Journal
Now, Russia has jumped in, too, fanning claims of a putsch by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and amplifying attacks on Poland’s pro-European government by hard-right politicians at home and abroad. – New York Times
After seven strikes on cargo ships near NATO members Romania and Bulgaria last month, the US-led military alliance said it would deploy maritime patrol aircraft, radars and drones to bolster its eastern flank in the Black Sea. – Reuters
Latvia’s armed forces briefly warned on Monday of a threat in the airspace affecting two regions of the Baltic country and said NATO air policing fighter jets had been activated. – Reuters
Thousands of European troops will take part in a military exercise in Poland this month to prepare for a hypothetical postwar mission in Ukraine to boost the country’s economy and rebuild its armed forces. But some experts say the deployment may never take place. – Associated Press
Greenland has opened a new international airport, seeking to lure visitors from around the world as the Arctic island looks toward eventual independence from Denmark. – Associated Press
Sánchez’s Socialist party has about 24.6% backing among voters, compared with about 26% a week earlier, according to a poll by SigmaDos published Monday by newspaper El Mundo. This would grant the Socialists between 97 and 103 seats in parliament in a Nov. 29 national election, down from the current 121. – Bloomberg
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu plans to meet high school students again as they call for a fresh round of protests and school blockades. – Bloomberg
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany must appoint a woman as head of state for the first time as the ruling coalition nears a decision on who should succeed President Frank-Walter Steinmeier next year. – Bloomberg
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever tendered his resignation after his five-party coalition failed to agree on a new budget — but the king didn’t immediately accept the offer. – Bloomberg
NATO is reshaping how it develops military technology as alliance leaders warn that cheap drones, artificial intelligence, and rapidly evolving battlefield threats are compressing timelines for innovation from decades to months. – Jerusalem Post
Islamist extremism is fueling a growing wave of antisemitism in Germany, with newly released government data revealing a sharp rise in Islamist-motivated crimes in 2025, raising fresh concerns about the safety of Jewish communities and Israelis living in the country. – Algemeiner
Jakub Grygiel writes: The 11th-century Investiture Controversy left behind a weakened Holy Roman Empire, a fragmented Italy and centuries of European division, at a moment when unity was desperately needed against the Saracens and Turks. The absence of a new political settlement, not only in Poland but in Europe writ large, will likely produce an analogous outcome: a weakened European Continent facing rapacious powers to the east and formidable demographic pressure from the south. – Wall Street Journal
Africa
President Trump said on Monday that he planned to remove South Africa from a preferential trade program with the United States, the latest in his administration’s attacks on the continent’s largest economy. – New York Times
The first time Mpho Moroka voted, in 2008, she backed the African National Congress. Almost two decades on, the unemployed 38-year-old from Soweto has switched sides to the rival Democratic Alliance ahead of local elections. – Reuters
At 51, Binina Mohamed is as old as the conflict that drove her from the Western Sahara region into a refugee camp in southern Algeria, where she has spent her life among tens of thousands of others facing a similar fate. – Reuters
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Monday that Washington will suspend South Africa and Rwanda from its flagship duty-free trade program for sub-Saharan Africa, a move that would hit exports including South African auto parts, wine and Rwandan coffee. – Reuters
Uganda said on Monday it had begun withdrawing its troops from Somalia as part of a phased drawdown that will end an almost two-decade deployment helping Mogadishu fight the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency. – Reuters
Keith B. Richburg writes: Voters may be looking for a change from the ANC. “They are actively seeking new political options,” Hill-Lewis said, but conceded, “A small number has chosen us.” The DA may win support at the local level by stressing the basics of getting the water running, repairing the roads and streetlights, and combating crime. The party may end up controlling several of the biggest metropolitan areas. Whether it can translate that support to the national level in three years remains an open question. – Washington Post
The Americas
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his Venezuelan counterpart on Monday about reforms that lay the groundwork for future free and fair elections in the South American country, the State Department said in a statement. – Reuters
Data centers have become one of the most polarizing issues in the world. Argentina’s president wants to lure as many of them as he can get. – Associated Press
Chile President José Antonio Kast’s approval rating sank to a record low as a controversy over the early release of convicted child sex offenders added to anger over a stagnant economy just eight months into his term in office. – Bloomberg
One of Haiti’s largest and most notorious gangs is asking for peace talks amid fears that an influx of thousands of El Salvadoran troops could lead to more bloodshed in the troubled Caribbean nation. – Bloomberg
United States
A federal judge threw out charges against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about their involvement in the Hunter Biden investigation, excoriating the Justice Department’s case as a “slapdash job” that created political theater ahead of the midterm election. – Wall Street Journal
It was a picture-perfect setting for the closing argument of a contentious campaign season. But when President Trump stepped up to a lectern in front of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on Monday afternoon, he had another matter on his mind: rusty pipes. – Wall Street Journal
A federal judge late on Monday turned down a request by Democratic lawmakers and party organizations to prohibit the Trump administration from coercing states into screening incoming ballots. – New York Times
President Trump said he would be willing to issue pre-emptive pardons to aides and allies, including the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, if Democrats win enough seats to take control of the House and Senate and carry out widespread investigations and potential prosecutions. – New York Times
Among the nine people aboard a private jet that plummeted to the ground on Sunday afternoon in Florida were a 20-year-old co-pilot and a Texas family that included two young children. – New York Times
American voters will deliver a verdict on the first two years of President Donald Trump’s second term in Tuesday’s midterm elections, with polls and nonpartisan analysts favoring Democrats to wrest the House from Republicans while control of the Senate remains uncertain. – Reuters
David Kaufman writes: Already, Kamala Harris is suggesting her 2024 defeat was tied to Joe Biden’s refusal to rein in Netanyahu in Gaza. She and other potential Democratic challengers are unlikely to make the mistake of under-criticizing Israel again. This type of fundamental policy shift has no precedent, even for a politician as seasoned and wily as Netanyahu. Which means even if he wins the battle to lead Israel, Israel’s war with Washington may not have even begun. – Jerusalem Post
Yisrael Medad writes: Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens saw it as a “type of fearmongering.” The writing, as it were, is unambiguous. America’s Jews have experienced Tlaib, Omar, and Mamdani. They do not need to add to their troubles by listening to Jewish anti-Zionist progressives. Last January, the liberal Moritz Wimmer wrote on the Cicero website about Islamism in political Berlin as a phenomenon in which “first comes the infiltration, then the submission.” – Jerusalem Post
Steven Emerson writes: He has never publicly said what he makes of the Brotherhood’s claim that the MSA he helped lead was one of “our organizations”; of the FBI’s assessment that it was “the first formal U.S. MB organization”; or of prosecutors’ finding that ISNA was a Brotherhood creation and CAIR part of its Palestine Committee. Weeks after losing the 2018 Democratic primary for governor, he told CAIR’s national banquet: “CAIR is an organization that has looked beyond its responsibility to Muslims alone.” In 2020, he told a CAIR-Oklahoma banquet that “never has an organization like CAIR been more important than it is right now” and urged the audience to “support this organization.” – Arutz Sheva
Cybersecurity
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said Monday that it had obtained assets to cover about 95 percent of the $6.3 billion in digital currencies stolen in a dramatic heist by North Korean hackers on Thursday that amounted to the biggest crypto hack in history. – Washington Post
But on Tuesday the agency, established by President Trump in his first term, will be largely absent from the action, current and former CISA officials say, weakening the federal government’s ability to help states respond to problems ranging from routine vote-machine disruptions to online hoaxes to bad actors looking to undermine public confidence in the vote. – New York Times
Then, last month, freezers malfunctioned at hundreds of grocery stores in France in what officials called a cyberattack. On Monday, retailers in at least seven more European countries reported problems with refrigeration units. – New York Times
Australia’s world-first teen social media ban was “ill thought out” and amounted to a “profound restriction on political debate”, a lawyer for messaging platform Reddit told the country’s top court in the first legal challenge to the law. – Reuters
Britain should be prepared for an AI-powered cyberattack on its critical national infrastructure in the next two years, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said on Tuesday, adding that China was likely the best equipped to conduct such operations. – Reuters
Apple has begun sending a new round of threat notifications to victims of suspected mercenary spyware attacks located in nearly 100 countries, with targets including a Turkey-based reporter and a Lebanese documentary filmmaker. – The Record
Late on Sunday, Kyiv residents received alarming notifications on their phones warning of possible radiation hazard, a chemical threat and ongoing street fighting in the Ukrainian capital. – The Record
Brazilian cryptocurrency platform Mercado Bitcoin suspended all deposits and withdrawals after a cybersecurity incident on Monday morning. – The Record
Brian Mast writes: We cannot let the CCP exploit gaps in our laws to get the chips, equipment and computing power it needs to strengthen its military. If we close one door but leave another wide open, China will always find a way through and it will mean dangerous consequences for the U.S. on the other side. I applaud President Trump for taking action to protect America’s technological edge and for recognizing that we cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to exploit our own success against us. – Fox News
Defense
Oshkosh Defense announced Monday a partnership with Silicon Valley startup Grid Aero to manufacture large military drones, which would be the first aircraft produced by the Wisconsin-based company. – Defense News
Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia is now on its second continuous rotation to the Philippines, the service announced last week. – USNI News
Patricia Brennan writes: The Pentagon should also expand the conversation globally to develop shared approaches to AI-enabled targeting, based on established best practices in human-machine teaming and consistency with the law of armed conflict. The Pentagon should incorporate technical safeguards that flag potentially stale or poisoned data, clearly identify machine-generated contributions within finished intelligence products, and require independent validation of target locations and sensor data underlying AI-generated targeting recommendations. – Washington Institute
Andrew Martin and Jen Judson write: The Trump administration’s initiatives are “several big steps in the right direction,” said Jan Osburg, adjunct senior engineer at Rand Corp. and lead author of a paper published earlier this year on year on what the U.S. needs to do “to fully realize the promise of the drone revolution.” “It’s going to be both a sprint and a marathon,” he said. “At least the runners have realized the starting gun has been fired.” Utah’s pitch centers on affordability, an educated workforce, a robust venture capital environment and deep military roots. – Military.com
John R. Deni writes: If we assume the remainder flew from Europe, which seems likely, the American taxpayer saved about $75 million in just the first five weeks of the war against Iran by having access to bases in Europe. Reducing US force posture in Europe – for example, to shift some assets to the Pacific – may make sense. But doing so now carries significant strategic risk vis-à-vis Russia and the security of a continent that remains vital to American prosperity. Moreover, it also likely means higher fiscal cost at a time when US debt already seems insurmountable. – Breaking Defense