Criminal cartels and gangs are what “most immediately and directly threaten the United States,” according to Ms. Gabbard, who also warned during an annual global threat assessment to Congress on Wednesday that American spies are observing China, Russia, Iran and North Korea working closer together in opposition to the United States, with the increased collaboration unlikely to end anytime soon.

Ms. Gabbard testified that drug cartels have flooded America with drugs, helped migrants swamp the border and are growing increasingly violent in the areas south of the border where they operate. At the same time, she said the U.S. still faces threats from the Islamic State and she labeled China as America’s most dangerous state foe, asserting that Beijing “stands out as the actor most capable of threatening U.S. interests globally” — though she notes that China is more cautious than other adversaries, chiefly because it doesn’t want to risk its economy or global image.

Expanding on the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea link, Ms. Gabbard said Russia is largely responsible for brokering the greater partnership, which has accelerated since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. The intelligence community’s global assessments were overshadowed in the hearing when some lawmakers focused their questioning on how and why The Atlantic journalist was included in the group chat.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech Tuesday that allies and partners in the Asia Pacific are key to countering the mounting threat posed by China and deterring a war. “We will work with our allies and our partners to deter the Communist Chinese and their aggression in the Indo-Pacific, full stop,” Mr. Hegseth said in a speech to the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, a Pentagon think tank in Hawaii.

The administration also plans a major buildup to strengthen deterrence against conflict, said Mr. Hegseth, who stressed that President Trump has made clear the U.S. will establish global peace through strength by increasing American power — militarily, economically and in other ways that the defense secretary termed “an America First approach.”

Mr. Trump has called on U.S. allies in Asia and Europe, including Japan and Taiwan, to increase their military spending to reduce their reliance on U.S. support and assistance. Mr. Hegseth said imbalances on defense and military efforts between the U.S. and allies will be rectified.

Gen. He Weidong, one of the Chinese military’s two most senior leaders, has disappeared from public view, and sources tell Threat Status that U.S. intelligence agencies think he is the latest victim of a political purge being carried out by Chinese President Xi Jinping in the upper ranks of the People’s Liberation Army.

Mr. Xi has been aggressively building up China’s military forces for more than a decade. The buildup has included at least 43 purges of PLA officers. National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz reports that most of the purges have been couched as part of an anti-corruption campaign, but are actually part of Mr. Xi’s program of promoting ideological purity within the ranks.

Mr. Xi said in a speech to military commanders in 2024 that “the barrels of guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and dependable to the party.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his colleagues certainly took great glee when Mr. Trump cut aid to Ukraine and paused the sharing of intelligence with it, albeit for a short time, according to retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Tom Jurkowsky, who asserts that “U.S. Cyber Command’s suspending offensive operations against Russia was certainly also met with smiles.” 

“The Justice Department has also disbanded an FBI task force that has focused on foreign influence campaigns such as those Russia used to target elections,” writes Mr. Jurkowsky. He adds that “top shelf vodka most likely flowed in celebration at the Kremlin” after those actions and a U.S. vote against a recent U.N. General Assembly resolution that condemned Russian aggression. 

A spokesman in Moscow said “America’s ‘rapidly changing’ foreign policy ‘largely coincides with our [Russian] vision,’ while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised Mr. Trump for his ‘common sense,’” Mr. Jurkowsky writes. “We should be embarrassed with those words from Russian leaders.”

Clifford D. May asks whether Mr. Trump is being advised by members of his administration to “replicate the failed policies” of his Democratic predecessors. It’s a question that “might occur if you listened to presidential envoy Steve Witkoff’s recent conversation with Tucker Carlson,” writes Mr. May, who heads the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and contributes to Threat Status.

“Mr. Witkoff said that Mr. Putin ‘has gotten what [he] wants’ – just under 20% of Ukrainian territory — and wants no more,” writes Mr. May, who contends that territories taken by Russia in eastern Ukraine and Crimea “can be regarded as Russian only based on what the Institute for the Study of War calls ‘sham referendums’ along with a Russian ‘state-directed effort to deport Ukrainians from occupied Ukraine and to import Russians to live in occupied Ukraine.’”

“Mr. Witkoff then reprised the Obama ‘reset,’ asking: ‘Who doesn’t want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing collaboratively good things together?’ writes Mr. May. “Well, Mr. Putin for one. He’s called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest catastrophe” of the 20th century.”

• March 25-27 — Global Force Symposium & Exposition, Association of the United States Army, AUSA

• March 26 — Annual Worldwide Threats Assessment Hearing, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 

• March 26 — Bending the Defense Cost Curve, Hudson Institute 

• March 27 — Software-defined Warfare Blueprint, Atlantic Council

• March 28 — Building a Sustainable and Successful Semiconductor Ecosystem Under the Trump Administration, Hudson Institute

• March 31 — Fully Exploiting Autonomous Military Systems, Hudson Institute

• April 7 — Maximum Support: Operationalizing the Other Iran Policy, Foundation for Defense of Democracies