A U.S. Navy helicopter and fighter jet crashed into the South China Sea within 30 minutes of one another in separate incidents Sunday as Mr. Trump and other top administration officials were traveling to Asia. 

The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that “bad fuel” may have been to blame for the crashes, which have raised questions in national security circles. Both aircraft took off from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.

Pentagon officials said crew members of both the MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter were rescued and were uninjured. The crashes follow other high-profile mishaps this year involving the F/A-18. U.S. Pacific Fleet said Sunday’s crashes are under investigation. 

The defense secretary is heading to Asia on an official trip aimed at bolstering security partnerships with regional leaders amid mounting trade and military tensions with China. The Pentagon says Mr. Hegseth will make stops in Hawaii and Japan before flying to Malaysia for meetings with defense chiefs during a session of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

From Malaysia, Mr. Hegseth will go to Vietnam for talks with leaders in the still-communist nation that the United States is seeking to win over in an effort to counter the expanding influence of communist China. China and Vietnam remain locked in disputes over ownership of the resource-rich Paracel and Spratly islands. The final stop for Mr. Hegseth is South Korea, where roughly 28,000 U.S. troops are deployed. Trump administration officials in the past have considered redeploying some U.S. troops in South Korea.

Among the themes Mr. Hegseth will address in his talks during the trip are the American focus on the Indo-Pacific region, declared as a “priority” geopolitical theater, while stressing the importance of allies increasing defense spending and contributions to collective defense in the region, according to a Pentagon statement.

Cheap, disposable attack and reconnaissance drones — some costing less than $100 on commercial websites — have proven easy to weaponize in Ukraine. These high-volume, low-altitude threats make economical, close-range counter systems critical.

Between missile mock-ups, armored vehicles and other high-cost, high-tech toys, a handful of such systems were displayed at the recent Seoul Aerospace and Defense Exposition (ADEX) that was held in Ilsan, northwest of the South Korean capital. Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reported from the expo that an emerging counter-drone solution is the humble shotgun, which fires a spread of pellets, offering a better chance of hitting hard-to-track targets. 

One of the businesses displaying counter-drone tech at the expo was the South Korean company UTG Co. Ltd. Its “Drone Guardian” marries Italian gunmaker Beretta’s Bennelli M4 combat shotgun to shells filled with tungsten shot from Swedish munitions maker Norma.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “has made it clear that he perceives the treaties and agreements of the past as disadvantageous to Russia” and Moscow is now “modernizing every nuclear system it has, introducing novel ones and expanding its warfighting tactical nukes,” Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, writes in The Times. He notes that China is also embarking on a nuclear buildup at full speed.

“Unchecked, this trajectory will play out in a terrifying sequence. First: The brandishing of tactical nukes, together with threats and rhetoric, will begin lowering the threshold for actual use,” writes Mr. Bruno, an opinion contributor to Threat Status. “Second: Russian and Chinese local territorial objectives will be aided by credible nuclear coercion. Third: A regional conflict may turn bad, leading to a limited use of tactical nukes.

“We must bring Messrs. Putin and Xi to the table,” he writes. “To do that, we must look and be serious. We must modernize our systems, showing commitment to new and more capable systems. We must match and balance any Russian or Chinese capability while assembling a Golden Dome, making it obvious that these countries cannot count on a free hand. Then, and only then, can we force them into a meaningful dialogue and drive this situation back to one of stability.”

By tightening export controls on critical rare earth elements and the technologies used to refine them, China “made one thing crystal clear: Nothing moves without Xi Jinping’s approval,” Seth Denson writes in an op-ed for The Times. Mr. Denson is a business and market analyst and author of “The Cure: A Blueprint for Solving America’s Healthcare Crisis.” “This isn’t a coincidence; it’s calculated leverage designed to remind the world just how dependent it still is on Beijing’s grip over the most essential materials of the modern economy.

“Mr. Trump’s push for economic nationalism and industrial revitalization is not isolationism; it’s insurance. It’s about reclaiming control of the levers that make innovation and defense possible,” Mr. Denson writes.

“The United States currently mines about 45,000 metric tons of rare earth concentrate each year but refines hardly any of it domestically,” he writes. “We have the resources but not the infrastructure. Rebuilding that capability will take time, likely 10 to 15 years, and the political will to see it through. That means this effort cannot end with one administration, no matter how determined.”

• Oct. 27 — Caribbean Buildup: A Renewed Focus on Counternarcotics and Hemispheric Security? Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Oct. 28 — Resilience the Finnish Way: Small States in a Turbulent World, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• 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

• Oct. 31-Nov. 2 — IISS Manama Dialogue 2025, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• Nov. 3 — China’s Economic Priorities: The Fourth Plenum in Review, Brookings Institution

• Nov. 5 — Containment Redux: Persian Gulf War Lessons from Iraq for U.S. Strategy Toward Iran, Foundation for Defense of Democracies