Current senior military officers and current and former Defense Department officials tell Threat Status that Mr. Hegseth has lost the trust and respect of some top military commanders, with his public “grandstanding” widely seen as unprofessional and the personnel moves made by the former cable TV host leading to an unprecedented and dangerous exodus of talent from the Pentagon.

Mr. Wolfgang delves into their attitudes about Mr. Hegseth’s leadership. One current Army general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said his Sept. 30 speech was a “massive waste of time. … If he ever had us, he lost us.”

Some analysts are quick to point out that military recruiting has surged since Mr. Hegseth took his post earlier this year. Supporters cite that as clear evidence Mr. Hegseth’s approach is resonating with at least a subsection of young Americans and in the process is strengthening the armed forces.

However, high-level sources say Mr. Hegseth is simultaneously doing deep damage to the military. They say the Quantico speech seemed to crystallize beliefs that the secretary operates with a junior officer’s mentality that has led him to micromanage policies about issues such as military facial hair standards and press access to the Pentagon, sometimes at the expense of the much broader portfolio of a typical defense secretary.

Mr. Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an $8.5 billion minerals sharing agreement Monday that Mr. Trump says will make Australia a major U.S. source of rare earths elements being withheld by China, which controls some 80% of the world’s reserves of the metals used in everything from smartphones to fighter jets.

Sen. Todd Young, Indiana Republican and a leader on nuanced policy moves at the center of U.S.-China great power competition, recently told Threat Status in an exclusive video interview that Chinese restrictions on rare earth mineral exports could have detrimental effects on the U.S. defense industry.

Mr. Young introduced a bill in April with Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat, that calls for more robust intervention by the U.S. Geological Survey to give American companies a competitive advantage in developing mines around the world. Sens. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, and John Hickenlooper, Colorado Democrat, also signed on to the bill, which is awaiting action in the Senate.

Hundreds of thousands were without power and water Tuesday following a massive Russian missile and drone attack on the energy grid in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region. The overnight attacks — part of a concerted Russian campaign to leave Ukrainians freezing and without electricity as winter approaches — also hit energy infrastructure in the neighboring Sumy region that borders Russia.

Chernihiv, which is less than 100 miles from Kyiv, has been repeatedly harassed by Russian missiles and drones since the beginning of the war in February 2022 and has faced more strikes recently as Moscow intensifies its attacks on energy infrastructure.

Chernihiv acting Mayor Oleksandr Lomako said the attacks are increasing because winter is approaching and Russia wants to deprive Ukrainians of heat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy echoed Mr. Lomako’s assertions, saying Russia is using the winter cold as a weapon and calling on the U.S. to provide Kyiv with sufficient long-range strike capabilities.

Opinion columnist Robert Knight writes in The Washington Times that while “Democrats are furious” that the Trump administration has sent U.S. military forces to sink drug boats from Venezuela, he would imagine that “Americans are cheering” as “taking out the cartels’ death-dealing drug fleet beats trying to interdict the narcotics on the streets of Newark or Oakland.

“The U.S. has moved eight warships, an attack submarine, jet fighters, spy planes and reaper drones into international waters and skies near Venezuela,” writes Mr. Knight, director of the Culture & Media Institute at the Media Research Center. He notes that Mr. Trump has announced that the CIA is operating inside the South American country and that it is “no secret that he would like to see regime change.

“Part of the president’s rationale is that Venezuela’s socialist government under dictator Nicolas Maduro is killing Americans by profiting from illicit narcotics, especially cocaine,” writes Mr. Knight. “A State Department report released in March named Venezuela ‘a major drug transit country.’”

One of the “few remaining instruments of U.S. leverage” in the South Caucasus is Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act to condition aid to Azerbaijan on the ending of blockades and the use of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Den Kalmyk writes in the Times. He argues that repealing the act “would be strategic disarmament as Azerbaijan deepens ties with China, hedges with Russia and expands its alliance with Turkey, a NATO member whose reliability is uncertain at best.

“Since joining the Belt and Road Initiative in 2015, Azerbaijan has deepened cooperation with Beijing,” writes Mr. Kalmyk, an expert on the post-Soviet space and a former senior lecturer at Yale and Oxford universities.

“Section 907 remains a low-cost lever of influence. It requires no troops or new spending; it simply signals that U.S. aid carries conditions and that aggression has consequences,” he writes. “Repealing it would remove the last institutional check on Baku’s behavior and signal that Washington accepts faits accomplis without penalty. A measure once embodying deterrence would become a symbol of inconsistency.”

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

• Oct. 23 — The U.S. in the South Caucasus: Mapping New Strategic Opportunities, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 28 — How America Failed to Disarm North Korea: Implications for the Future, Stimson Center

• Oct. 30 — How Long Can Russia’s Weakening Economy Support Putin’s War on Ukraine? Hudson Institute