Threat Status for Monday, May 5, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Some hawkish Republicans are fuming over President Trump’s 2026 defense budget proposal. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker said the administration is quietly trying to “shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members.” He adds that the U.S. needs “a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure [Chinese President] Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
… Iran’s foreign minister visited Pakistan on Monday, two days after Islamabad test-fired a ballistic missile amid soaring tensions with India.
… The Kremlin is accusing Ukraine of threatening the safety of dignitaries attending this week’s World War II Victory Day celebrations in Russia after Kyiv dismissed Moscow’s declaration of a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire around Friday’s events.
… A key House Homeland Security subcommittee is holding a hearing Tuesday to examine “suspected efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to build surveillance infrastructure in Cuba.”
… Mr. Trump says he will not drop the tariffs he has imposed on China to jump-start trade negotiations.
… And Threat Status is an official media partner of SOF Week 2025, which opens Monday in Tampa.
The Trump administration’s push for direct nuclear diplomacy with Iran has lost momentum over the past week, with Iranian officials reaching out increasingly to Europe, while Mr. Trump and his top advisers ramp up warnings over Tehran’s support for Houthi militants in Yemen and draw an increasingly aggressive red line by demanding that Iran fully end its uranium enrichment activities.
“Total dismantlement. Yes, that is all I would accept,” Mr. Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I want Iran to be really successful, really great, really fantastic. The only thing they can’t have is a nuclear weapon.” His comments, which echoed similar remarks by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, came as a fourth round of talks between Iranian officials and U.S. negotiators that had been scheduled for Saturday in Rome was postponed.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned recently that Tehran will “pay the consequence” for supporting Houthi militants in Yemen. The Trump administration’s bombing campaign against the Houthis, who have carried out missile and drone attacks against commercial and U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, is growing. The Houthis said last week that more than 60 African migrants were killed when an American airstrike hit a detention center in Houthi-controlled northwest Yemen.
Iran says it is trying to ease soaring India-Pakistan tensions amid a dangerous escalation between the two nuclear-armed nations in the wake of last month’s deadly terrorist attack on tourists in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Pakistan on Monday, two days after Islamabad test-fired a ballistic missile in response to what it said was an imminent threat of attack by India.
The Pakistani military said the surface-to-surface missile had a range of about 280 miles, according to a report by The Associated Press. There was no immediate comment about the launch from India, which blames Pakistan for the April 22 massacre that occurred in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam. Pakistan denies involvement in the Pahalgam attack.
Pakistan’s military said its launch Saturday of a ballistic missile from its “Abdali Weapon System” was aimed at ensuring the “operational readiness of troops and validating key technical parameters.”
Threat Status is an official media partner of this week’s SOF Week 2025 convention organized by the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation. The convention in Tampa is one of the largest gatherings of elite military units worldwide and of the leading defense contractors researching, developing and manufacturing the tools that special operations forces need.
This year’s SOF Week comes as the Trump administration pushes significant structural changes to the Army and other services, while shifting the U.S. force posture in key regions such as the Middle East and the Pacific, and undertaking an ambitious effort to reimagine the U.S. homeland missile defense system. The budgets for special operations units across the military are expected to rise in the coming years amid renewed threats from America’s great power rivals, primarily Russia and China.
National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang is reporting from SOF Week, examining how special operations forces could be central to the broader U.S. military and geopolitical strategy. Those elite units’ roots date to the most dangerous periods of the Cold War, when special operations forces were often on the front lines of the American fight against communist forces, working on the ground with resistance forces and undertaking other specialized missions around the globe.
Stu Bradin, president and CEO of the Global SOF Foundation, joins the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast to offer an exclusive preview of Special Operations Forces (SOF) Week 2025.
During the interview, Mr. Bradin outlines what he sees as the role of America’s elite Special Forces in the 21st century. He also warns that the U.S. government is turning a blind eye to what he describes as the very real and ongoing threat of a major international terrorist attack against the United States.
“Terrorism didn’t give up on us. We gave up on it. If you read any intelligence estimate anywhere in the world, all the adversaries out there are significantly larger than they were pre 9/11, but we just pretend they don’t exist, because Lord knows, we don’t want to relive that again. We refuse to acknowledge it,” Mr. Bradin says. “There’s nothing worse than knowing there’s a problem and refusing to acknowledge it.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich hones in on China’s threats to Taiwan, writing in an op-ed that about half of the island democracy’s electricity comes from natural gas, of which there are “only a few days’ worth of reserves.”
“If China declared a missile closure zone near Taiwan’s main [liquefied natural gas] port or used diplomatic pressure to halt shipments, the country could lose power in less than a week. Layer in cyberattacks on banks, energy systems and communications networks, and it would become a full-scale campaign,” writes Mr. Gingrich, who summarizes a recent discussion with retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery on the “Newt’s World” podcast.
“What’s even more alarming is that China has already begun targeting U.S. infrastructure. Operation Volt Typhoon was a Chinese campaign involving malware inserted into critical American systems in Guam, Hawaii and possibly the West Coast,” Mr. Gingrich writes. “As Adm. Montgomery told me, ‘If they had done this with backpacks and explosives, we’d be at war. But in cyberspace, we gave them a hat tip.’”
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