Space, without question, has become a warfighting domain. The U.S. military and American society as a whole are deeply reliant on space for communications and other vital functions.

But how should the U.S. protect its assets in orbit?

On the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space, dives into the complex question of what constitutes an offensive or defensive capability in space. He said recent moves by adversaries such as China and Russia have sparked a conversation about how the U.S. should think about the protection of space-based assets in the decades to come.

“Now we have to say, are we going to be defensive, offensive, or are we just going to put capability on orbit?” Mr. Lightfoot said. “That’s the place where the U.S. is beginning to talk about — are we going to have weapons or offensive capabilities in space and not just be defensive?”

The Golden Dome missile shield illustrates this question. While the missile shield is viewed as a defensive system to stop potential ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks against the continental U.S., it will include space-based interceptors and possibly directed energy weapons that could theoretically be used for offensive purposes.

It’s hardly newsworthy that a Hollywood film might take dramatic license with matters of national security. But the Netflix thriller “A House of Dynamite” is making waves among military insiders for its depiction of current U.S. missile defense capabilities. The film’s release comes at a moment of intense debate about that very subject, with the Trump administration pushing for its cutting-edge Golden Dome shield to protect the continental U.S. from missile attacks.

In the movie, U.S. missile defense systems cannot stop a nuclear attack on Chicago after a failed attempt by the American military to shoot down an incoming missile. The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency pushed back on that depiction in an Oct. 16 memo, writing that “the fictional interceptors in the movie miss their target and we understand this is intended to be a compelling part of the drama intended for the entertainment of the audience,” but the real-world results “tell a vastly different story.” The memo was first reported by Bloomberg.

But others say the film’s characterization is eerily accurate. Laura Grego, research director and senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it’s virtually impossible to know how the military’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense missile defense system would perform during an attack such as the one depicted in the film.

“This is a critical weakness of the testing program,” she wrote in a recent blog post. “We just don’t know how well it would work in a realistic scenario because it’s never been tested in one. Any credible missile defense needs to be able to work in realistic conditions, not just the simplest to test conditions.”

Washington Times National Security Reporter Vaughn Cockayne has details on a Northrop Grumman project to have AI design spacecraft, a fascinating development in the defense industrial space. The defense contractor says it has teamed up with researchers from AI startup Luminary Cloud and Nvidia’s Computer-Aided Engineering product team to develop Physics AI — a physics-based AI model that can generate detailed designs of spacecraft components and subsystems in seconds.

Northrop Grumman says it is using the model to develop a high-performing spacecraft thruster nozzle. The nozzle component is crucial for accelerating exhaust gases, thereby generating the thrust needed to propel and guide the spacecraft. In the future, the company says, the model could be used to design an entire spacecraft.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz is traveling with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Asia this week and has exclusive insights from a senior defense official about North Korea’s supposed hypersonic missile capability. The big takeaway here is that the official says Pyongyang’s recent claims to have tested a hypersonic glide vehicle — a boosted armed glider capable of maneuvering to avoid detection and attack by anti-missile systems — seem to have been an “overstatement.”

“I don’t think there’s any evidence that they’ve mastered hypersonics yet,” the senior official said. “That is technically way different than what they have demonstrated with their previous missile launches.”

However, the official said the North Korean military is “clearly working on hypersonics.”

America needs to advance a policy of “energy dominance” to stay ahead of its adversaries, particularly China. And that energy arms race is linked directly to the development of AI capabilities.

In a new column, Threat Status contributor Clifford D. May argues that China is taking an all-of-the-above approach to energy policy, including the use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, because it understands the need for huge amounts of power to drive its AI programs.

“AI will be a key component in military robots, drones and missiles, anti-drone and anti-missile systems — you name it. It’s not hard to imagine armies, navies and air forces with good AI getting beaten by those with better AI,” Mr. May writes, praising the Trump administration’s formation of the National Energy Dominance Council this year.

“America is in an energy arms race. The mission of the National Energy Dominance Council is to win it, to not come in second to a nation ruled by the strongest communist party in history,” says Mr. May, the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

• Oct. 30 — Accelerating Japan-U.S. Cooperation in Quantum Technologies, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• 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. 3 — Rep. Rich McCormick on Securing American AI Leadership, Hudson Institute

• Nov. 4 — Drones and Deterrence: Building Taiwan’s Asymmetric Capabilities, Center for a New American Security

• Nov. 4 — Israel 2040: Benny Gantz’s Vision for Security and Cooperation, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

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

• Nov. 11 — Free showing of the award-winning documentary “Honor in the Air: Remembering Captain Scott Alwin and the 68th Assault Helicopter Company,” Washington Policy Institute