The war between Israel and Iran intensified through the weekend, with Iranian missiles penetrating Israeli air defenses and Israel carrying out a brazen daytime assault on Tehran as world powers, including the United States, China and Russia, jockeyed for influence over the direction of the conflict in the days to come.

Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early Monday, killing at least eight people, while Israel said on the fourth day of the conflict that it had achieved “aerial superiority” over Tehran and could fly over the Iranian capital without facing major threats.

Chinese officials have vowed to support Iran, and Russian officials say they’re ready to mediate between the warring parties, with the Kremlin also offering to store Iranian uranium at sites in Russia. Mr. Trump is toeing a cautious line on the war. He says U.S. forces could become involved, but he has also appeared to try to distance the U.S. from Israel’s campaign. Several news organizations have reported that Mr. Trump privately vetoed an Israeli plot to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader.

Starlink, which operates via thousands of communications satellites in close-Earth orbit, has activated its internet service over Iran in hopes of giving Iranians access to information following their government’s shuttering of ground-based internet amid the ongoing war with Israel.  

“The beams are on,” Mr. Musk, who owns the Starlink system, posted on his X social media site. Israeli and U.S. officials say the current situation could create an opening for a public uprising against the unpopular Islamist regime that has controlled Iran since 1979.

There are more than 7,500 active satellites in Starlink. It remains to be seen how impactful the system will be for Iranians, given that access to service typically requires the installation of rooftop terminals.

Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb” attacks that relied on drones launched from trucks to destroy at least 40 strategic Russian aircraft deep inside Russia have put a spotlight on the vulnerability of American bombers to Chinese and Russian missiles fired from shipping containers.

During the June 1 attacks, drones were launched from trailers smuggled into Russia and disguised as shipping containers. Weeks later, Israel similarly penetrated Iran’s borders and set up a secret facility inside Iran that used close-in access to launch precision drone strikes against key targets in Tehran.

Both incidents raise concerns among U.S. security officials about the vulnerability of military targets in the United States, including at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, where Google Earth imagery shows 29 B-52s open to drone or missile strikes; and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, where 16 B-1 bombers can be seen in the imagery.

North Korea on Friday held a relaunch ceremony for a destroyer that capsized during its maiden launch last month, the second in a class of blue-water assets that gives Pyongyang the kind of naval reach and capabilities the impoverished state has never before possessed.

The 5,000-ton destroyer Kang Kon — named after a general killed in the Korean War — represents as much a geopolitical threat as a naval one. Such ocean-going ships could enable North Korea to join the high-tech navies of China and Russia in regional exercises, providing them with a counterbalance to the emerging U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral team.

The Kang Kon’s relaunch was a triumph for Pyongyang. The ship capsized last month during an unusual sideways launch at the port of Chongjin. That infuriated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who ordered the immediate investigation and punishment of related officials.

The U.S. intelligence community in March produced a “primer on the excessive wealth” of Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior Chinese officials, exposing the “hypocrisy” of the Chinese Communist Party, writes Joseph R. DeTrani, an opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“The Russian Federation has a similar hypocrisy,” writes Mr. DeTrani. “Former Russian anti-corruption opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in February 2024 in a Russian penal institution, documented the excessive wealth of Russian President Vladimir Putin and close associates Sergei Shoigu, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council.”

“Corruption is like a cancer that slowly eats away at leadership credibility,” Mr. DeTrani writes. “In 1858 … Abraham Lincoln said: ‘You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.’ Eventually, the people will demand transparency and openness from their governments and demand unwavering integrity from their leaders.”

• June 16-22 — International Paris Air Show, Government of France

• June 17 — The Russian Wartime Economy, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• June 17 — How Tariffs are Testing America’s Relationship with Southeast Asia, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

• June 17 — 15th Annual South China Sea Conference, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• June 25 — The New IC, Intelligence and National Security Alliance

• June 26 — The Realities of an Invasion of Taiwan, Stimson Center