Threat Status for Friday, October 24, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
President Trump is headed to Asia for high-stakes meetings, including with Chinese President Xi Jinping, that could reshape a global economy grappling with his reordering of trade relations.
… More than 30 U.S. senators have urged Mr. Trump to push Mr. Xi to release pro-democracy leader Jimmy Lai.
… North Korean soldiers based inside Russia’s Kursk region are coordinating reconnaissance and military strikes in Ukraine.
… Mr. Trump is vowing more U.S. military strikes on alleged drug smugglers, calling cartels the “ISIS of the West.”
… U.S. forces expanded their campaign against alleged drug boats to the eastern Pacific Ocean, striking two boats in the ocean and the latest one in the Caribbean, bringing the total number of vessels hit to 10.
… China provided more than $530 million to top-ranked American universities in recent years, but the schools failed to disclose how the funds were spent, prompting concerns about foreign influence, according to an open-source intelligence report.
… And Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the “international stabilization force” set to oversee Gaza under Mr. Trump’s ceasefire agreement will be led by countries that Israel is “comfortable with.”
The best drone pilots are “young guys — or young women — who are former gamers,” according to Yuriy Kyrylych, an academic and representative of Ukraine’s drone industry. “They don’t look like special forces … they are new-era soldiers.” He made the comments at a “Lessons from the Ukraine War” seminar during this week’s Seoul Aerospace and Defense Expo, or ADEX.
Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reported from the floor of the expo, which bristled with everything from armored fighting vehicles and mock-ups of missiles of all classes to binoculars and thermal image sights, specialized small-arms munitions and protective gear.
Many booths, operated by Korean and global defense contractors, devoted space to drones and/or defenses against them. While many Western companies with backgrounds in expensive fixed-wing or rotary aircraft work on highly advanced drones, the unmanned aerial vehicles’ expendability means focus should be on capabilities, not specs, Mr. Kyrylych advised. “The most useless thing in a drone is the platform itself,” he said. “Its payload, and its data transmission, is much more important.”
Most of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains buried under tons of rubble at sites bombed in Israeli and U.S. airstrikes in June. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps this week that Iran still holds about 890 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% — just short of weapons-grade level — at the targeted nuclear facilities.
“The damage … was severe, but even though Trump talks about ‘obliteration,’ Iran’s technical know-how hasn’t vanished,” Mr. Grossi said. “Its centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium, can also be rebuilt.”
His comments were published after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly insisted on Oct. 20 that the U.S. airstrikes in June failed to cripple the Islamic republic’s atomic capabilities.
A British warship operating under NATO command monitored a Russian destroyer last week as it sailed in U.K. waters. The Royal Navy confirmed that on Oct. 17, NATO’s Allied Maritime Command near London ordered the Portsmouth-based destroyer Duncan to shadow the Russian vessel Vice Admiral Kulakov as it transited through the English Channel.
“This Type 45 destroyer utilized her advanced sensors and systems to intercept the Kulakov in the North Sea, monitoring her passage westward through the Channel towards the island of Ushant off the French coast,” British naval officials said in a statement.
The surveillance mission, which lasted through Sunday, marked the first time a British warship was tasked directly by NATO command. The coordinated effort involved military forces from three nations, including the French navy and Dutch air force, British officials said.
Jed Babbin, a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Times, writes that if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “wants to create a more favorable atmosphere in the press, he should try to be more open to the press.”
Mr. Hegseth could emulate former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by “inviting groups of reporters and columnists into the Pentagon for private briefings,” writes Mr. Babbin. “That wouldn’t create a pro-Pentagon bias in the media but it would clearly help.”
Mr. Hegseth’s current restrictions on reporters “will certainly backfire,” Mr. Babbin writes. “The reporters who cover the Pentagon, and a great many others, are well known to the Pentagon’s denizens. Private telephone calls or emails will ensure that leaks continue, and reporters who don’t sign up for Mr. Hegseth’s new restrictions will gladly publish any sort of gossip or scandal. The only effect of Mr. Hegseth’s new restrictions will be to drive reporters and Pentagon people further underground until the stories are published.”
With Ukraine “well into the fourth year of war with Russia, challenges remain, yet there is talk of peace, and planning is underway to rebuild the country once the war ends,” writes Pavlo Chumak, who highlights the work of the Unity Club that he founded to draw on “leading experts from various sectors to provide advice, conduct public discourse and offer possible road maps to the government and the private sector, stimulating discussion on the best ways to move Ukraine forward.
“Planned Unity Club events include conferences, lectures, cultural displays and support for programs to assist Ukrainians, as well as partnerships with other groups,” Mr. Chumak, the owner of Sunpro, a leading Ukrainian sunflower seed oil producer, writes in an op-ed for The Times.
“The club will focus on creating a strong, inviting business environment, continuing the fight against corruption, attracting investment, building civil society, developing independent media, helping the reintegration of veterans into society, strengthening Ukraine’s ties to the outside world (particularly as regards efforts to join the European Union) and working for more efficient, responsive government institutions,” he writes. “We believe these efforts will attract many refugees who fled the country, allowing them to bring their talents to building the new Ukraine.”
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