The flagship annual conference of the AUSA is underway, with the Army’s 21st-century modernization effort in the spotlight. It’s billed as the “Army’s most powerful event.” More than 44,000 people are expected to attend, while players big and small from across the U.S. defense industrial base show off their latest weapons technology.

Threat Status is on the exhibition floor of the gathering, which comes amid the federal government shutdown — a reality that has cast an uneasy spotlight over future federal funding of the U.S. military. Questions swirled heading into Monday about the extent to which attendance may be curtailed, given furloughs and travel expense freezes impacting the Pentagon.

AUSA President Army Gen. Robert Brooks Brown told Threat Status that cutting the Army’s budget would deeply harm U.S. national security. “There’s rumors now of ‘cut the Army,’ which has happened historically,” Gen. Brown said. “That would be very foolish because [the Army is] the linchpin of the joint force.”

Mr. Trump was given a hero’s welcome on Monday at Israel’s Knesset, where he was greeted with thunderous applause that lasted several minutes. He was introduced as the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House.”

Hamas is no longer holding any living hostages since kidnapping 251 during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. The bodies of 28 deceased hostages are expected to be released soon. In exchange, Israel has begun releasing 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The developments are the first phase of ending the Gaza war, with humanitarian aid also starting to provide relief for the enclave’s devastated, starving population.

“After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace,” Mr. Trump said. “This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.”

During his trip to the region, Mr. Trump is attending a peace summit in Sharm El-Sheikh with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and other leaders. Big questions remain about the future of security and governance in Gaza. After chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” in the Knesset, the president’s speech was briefly interrupted by an opposition Israeli parliament member who held up a piece of paper that said “Recognize Palestine.”

Ten years after then-Chancellor Angela Merkel flung open Germany’s borders to refugees from war-torn nations, the immigration-friendly policy continues to shake the German political landscape and challenge the national security of Europe’s largest economy. Times foreign correspondent Joseph Hammond analyzes the situation in a dispatch from London.

A decade after Ms. Merkel decided to keep the border with Austria open, more than 700,000 Syrians still live in Germany. Only a few thousand have returned to their home country since the fall of the Assad regime in December. For the center-left Christian Democratic Union, the country’s ruling party, these new Germans are potential voters. The party won 28.5% of the vote in February’s elections and entered a coalition with the left-wing Social Democratic Party.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany, meanwhile, has been energized. It stormed into the Bundestag in 2017 on a wave of anger over Ms. Merkel’s refugee stance. Earlier this year, the AfD finished second in national polling for the first time. Riding a wave of outrage over immigration, the party captured 20.8%, its best result to date, while polls now show the party edging ahead of the CDU in popularity.

Department of Homeland Security officials on Friday announced a “Smart Wall” plan for the Mexican border, which would include fences stretching more than double the current length of the border wall and sensor technology to protect remaining areas too rugged for a wall.

Barriers would begin at the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, run largely uninterrupted until they reach the western edge of the Big Bend area of Texas, and then pick up northwest of Laredo and run to the Gulf of America near Brownsville.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency overseeing the boundary, is calling the new wall system the “Smart Wall.” CBP says it has issued $4.5 billion in contracts to start construction. That money was the first installment from tens of billions of dollars in Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It will pay for 230 miles of new fencing and 400 miles of new roads and technology.

U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon writes that “maintaining deterrence toward China — that is, holding Beijing’s military aggression in check — will require more than getting factory assembly lines up and running again, as we did during World War II and the Cold War.

“It will require a whole-of-government approach as well as enhanced cooperation and integration between the U.S. and its allies,” Mr. Fallon, a Texas Republican and member of the House Armed Services, Intelligence, and Oversight and Government Reform committees, writes in an op-ed for The Times.

“After all, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and throughout the Middle East have taught us that victory on today’s battlefield will not be determined by who has the greatest weapons systems or stockpiles,” he writes. “It will be determined by the side that can produce the necessary weapons quickly and exercise command and control effectively to execute movement and maneuver.”

• Oct. 13-15 — AUSA 2025 Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA)

• Oct. 14-16 — Aviation Week MRO Europe, MRO Europe

• Oct. 15 — Vanguard of Manufacturing: Fortifying U.S. National Security, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 20 — Are Geopolitics Leading to Fragmentation of the International Financial System? Brookings Institution

• Oct. 21-22 — Missile Defense Agency Small Business Conference, Tennessee Valley Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA)

• Oct. 22 — Europe’s Energy Transition: From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine to Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Agenda, Brookings Institution