Top U.S. military intelligence officials warned that China is developing and deploying next-generation fighter jets and launching advanced satellites at an alarming pace — all with the goal of controlling the crucial space domain.

Threat Status is on the ground at this week’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference just outside Washington. National Security Editor Guy Taylor reports on the stark warnings about the speed of China’s modernization and the country’s long-term goals. Specifically, officials said, Beijing wants to replace the U.S. as the preeminent power in control of the orbiting assets that undergird global military dominance.

Brig. Gen. Brian D. Sidari, deputy chief of space operations for intelligence for the U.S. Space Command, and others spoke at the event on a panel discussion titled “The China Threat.” Threat Status will have more coverage from the conference throughout the week. 

It’s been one of the hottest questions inside the defense industry since Mr. Trump’s Golden Dome project was formally launched earlier this year. Will traditional “primes” such as Lockheed Martin and RTX dominate the process and score the lion’s share of contracts? What role will companies such as Anduril, Palantir and others play? What kind of collaboration will be required across the industry? How many companies could be involved?

We’re still waiting for answers to those questions. But on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Rob Mitrevski, president of Golden Dome strategy and integration at major defense company L3Harris, offers an insider’s take on what the process could look like.

Mr. Mitrevski and retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Gould, vice president of global business development at L3Harris, spoke to Threat Status ahead of this week’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

“There is a wide-ranging set of capabilities that will be required here,” Mr. Mitrevski said of the Golden Dome project. “There’s not one company or two companies that can really satisfy all the needs of the Golden Dome executive order. So, I think it will take some sort of team that’s made up of national capabilities, traditional, innovative. Look, I think it’ll be a combination of the competition you expect to see across the industry with a collaboration that’s necessary from the nation that seeks to protect itself.”

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has a fascinating look behind the curtain at some internal politics in Moscow. Two years after the Wagner Group mercenary outfit and its late leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an ill-fated march on Moscow, a Russian militia that reports directly to President Vladimir Putin has established its own tank units.

The National Guard of Russia, known as Rosgvardiya, is a 400,000-strong organization that is not part of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Its primary objective is to provide domestic security to ensure the continuity of Mr. Putin’s regime. Some of its units have fought in Ukraine.

But the decision to provide Rosgvardiya with its own tanks suggests that Mr. Putin is taking new precautions to guard against paramilitary threats to the security of his regime.

It’s been a relatively underreported story in the broader Russia-Ukraine war, but Mr. Putin’s alleged massive child kidnapping ring in Ukraine has added new momentum to a push in the U.S. to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Trump administration has made the return of abducted Ukrainian children a priority, but so far has stopped short of the terrorism label. There are just four countries currently on the list: Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba.

Lawmakers have stepped up pressure to add Russia to that list. A bipartisan group of senators, among them Russia hawk Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, introduced a bill that would compel Secretary of State Marco Rubio to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism unless Russia returns the tens of thousands of children it has allegedly kidnapped.

Space has become a 21st-century warfighting domain, and the U.S. is woefully unprepared for a conflict that could begin there at any moment.

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, makes that case in a new op-ed for The Washington Times. Echoing some of the warnings delivered by Pentagon officials this week about China’s alarming intentions in space, Mr. Bruno argues that there’s no guarantee that the U.S. right now could render a space attack ineffective, leaving the nation deeply vulnerable.

“Wholesale orbital destruction is an attack on the homelands of the U.S. and our allies. Our infrastructure depends more on space than that of our adversaries,” he writes. “Without satellites, Americans could face immediate collapse: no electricity, water, transportation, working credit cards, crippled emergency response, and empty supermarket shelves. That looks very much like a nation at war. Until we can render a space attack ineffective, we remain in a dangerous no-man’s land.” 

• Sept. 23 — Cyber Defense Summit 25, Mandiant & Google Threat Intelligence

• Sept. 23-24 — Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Air & Space Forces Association

• Sept. 23-30 — U.N. General Assembly High-level Week 2025, United Nations

• Sept. 23-25 — National Cyber Summit

• Sept. 24 — Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race, American Enterprise Institute

• Sept. 25 — Building the Space Force We Need and the Intelligence to Support It, Intelligence Studies Project

• Sept. 25 — Counterforce in Contemporary U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance