In future conflicts, the U.S. military will seek to create an “unbelievable” level of chaos so that its enemies are overwhelmed, overmatched and unable to mount an effective counterattack. And Florida-based L3Harris believes its “Wolfpack” system can play a crucial role in that new environment.

Threat Status got an exclusive look at the two products that make up the system: The “Red Wolf” is a long-range strike vehicle — essentially acting as a missile that can target enemy ships or other assets from great distances. And the “Green Wolf” is an electronic warfare platform equipped with electronic attack and detect, identify, locate and report capabilities.

Matthew Klunder, L3Harris’ vice president of Navy and Marine Corps accounts, told Threat Status that the systems can help form the “hellscape” that U.S. Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said he wants to create over the Taiwan Strait as a means of deterring Chinese aggression. And, Mr. Klunder said, the L3Harris systems are far cheaper than past capabilities, making it practical to produce and deploy them in bulk.

Within the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal is a massive cut to the Office of Space Commerce, which could cripple the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, before it even gets off the ground. And some space policy experts say that could create ripple effects throughout the U.S. economy.

On the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Audrey Schaffer, a longtime federal space official who now serves as the vice president of strategy and policy at Slingshot Aerospace, explains why the proper coordination and tracking of satellites in orbit is vital. Having the proper system in place — something resembling Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control for space — will only grow more important as space gets more crowded, she said.

“If satellites are suddenly operating, basically flying blind, without knowledge of where other satellites are, we create real risks not just in space but for our economy and for national security,” Ms. Schaffer said.

There were signs this week that the Republican-led House is pushing back against some of the White House’s proposed cuts to NASA and other space-related priorities. 

President Trump surely will like hearing this: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the BBC on Friday that Europe had been spending far too little on its own security in years past.

“We know we have to do more on our own and we have been free-riders in the past,” he said. “They’re asking us to do more and we are doing more.”

Individual European countries, and NATO as a whole, have begun to dramatically ramp up defense spending, which Mr. Trump has long called for. And it seems like it’s helped thaw the relationship between Mr. Trump and the transatlantic alliance. Earlier this week, the president reversed course and said NATO is no longer “obsolete.”

Russian officials made what appear to be veiled threats of military action over Greenland, which Mr. Trump has suggested should be part of the U.S. as a bulwark in the Arctic region against potential adversaries such as Russia and China.

Officials in Greenland and Denmark, of which Greenland technically remains a part of the kingdom, have ruled out ever becoming part of the U.S. But Russian officials believe that a major NATO base will be built there instead, posing major security concerns for the Kremlin. Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has more on this story, including the comments from Vladimir Barbin, Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, about the “military-technical measures adequate to the emerging threat” that Moscow is prepared to take.

It’s no secret that technology and innovation are rapidly changing the fundamental nature of warfare in the 21st century. But the recent Israel-Iran clash should serve as something of a wake-up call for the Defense Department that it needs to move even faster and become even more agile.

That’s the argument from Ali Reza Manouchehri, the Iranian-born CEO and co-founder of MetroStar, a Virginia-based, AI-enabled defense tech solutions provider. He argues in a new op-ed in The Times that the sheer size and global reach of the U.S. military is no longer the deciding factor in and of itself. Israel’s highly advanced military and its cutting-edge weapons, he writes, helped it achieve the upper hand quickly over Iran.

“America’s geopolitical competitors are not standing still. The competition is no longer defined by raw military size but rather by strategic advantage: who can sense, decide and act faster through seamless integration of digital and physical capabilities,” he writes. 

• July 18 — Aspen Security Forum, Aspen Institute

• July 21 — Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• July 22 — Breaking China’s Chokehold: Securing America’s Advanced Battery Supply Chains, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• July 22 — Hot Topic: Revolutionizing Contracting & Procurement via Speed, Execution and Innovation, Association of the United States Army

• July 22 — Lessons Learned: An Examination of Historic Security Incidents at Mass Gatherings, House Homeland Security Task Force on Enhancing Security for Special Events in the United States

• July 23 — The State of Republican Foreign Policy with Rep. Jake Ellzey, Hudson Institute 

• July 24 — Coffee Series: Maj. Gen. Mark Bennett, director of the Army Budget Office, Association of the United States Army 

• July 29 — ICE Pact: The Icebreaker Collaboration Effort and Arctic Security Conversation, The Heritage Foundation