Threat Status for Monday, November 10, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
North Korea is strengthening military ties with Russia.
… The Pentagon is revising its cyber force generation model to give U.S. Cyber Command more control over recruitment and training.
… Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s meeting Monday with President Trump has sparked speculation the administration may push to lift Assad-era sanctions on Damascus.
… Secretary of State Marco Rubio is headed to Canada for the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting to discuss peace initiatives in Ukraine and Gaza, maritime security, Haiti, Sudan, supply chain resiliency and critical minerals.
… Hamas has handed over the remains of an Israeli soldier who was killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip more than a decade ago
… Russian airstrikes on Ukraine dipped in October, likely due to bad weather.
… A car exploded near the historic Red Fort in India’s capital Monday, killing at least eight people.
… And details on what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is actually promising regarding Pentagon acquisition reform.
Pyongyang ignored outreach from Mr. Trump on Friday while hosting a delegation of senior Russian military officers, as fresh North Korean units have moved into Russia to help in Moscow’s war against Ukraine amid rising questions over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s long-term geopolitical aims.
Some 5,000 North Korean “construction” troops are being sent into Russia, with 1,000 engineers, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. The troops will reconstruct war-torn infrastructure, while the engineers will conduct mine clearance. South Korean lawmakers shared the information from a closed-door parliamentary briefing from the intelligence service with local media last week.
Experts say Mr. Kim is seeking to maintain his relevance to Russian President Vladimir Putin without risking any more of his best troops in battle — and may even be suffering pangs of conscience. The South Korean intelligence agency has estimated that some 2,000 North Korean troops involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine have been killed. If that estimate is accurate, casualty ratios of five wounded for one killed would indicate 10,000 wounded, or 12,000 total casualties.
The defense secretary delivered a clear choice in a major “Arsenal of Freedom” speech Friday to the largest defense contractors, or “primes,” asserting that “speed and volume will rule” the acquisition process going forward. But what specific reforms will actually be put in play?
Mr. Hegseth said the Pentagon is canceling the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, the traditional acquisition requirements system inside the Defense Department. In its place, the Pentagon will establish three decision forums to expedite the process, including a funding pool to purchase and immediately implement “promising solutions” for warfighters. He said the Pentagon will eliminate “testing for the sake of testing,” potentially shaving months or even years off the development process.
More broadly, Mr. Hegseth said the Pentagon will award companies larger and longer contracts for proven systems. In some cases, he said, it will accept a solution that provides 85% of what it wants rather than waiting for a perfect 100% solution that could add years to the time it takes to get the system into the hands of troops. The question now is whether acquisition reform will help blunt criticism of the secretary from those who’ve questioned whether he is too focused on theatricality and not enough on nuts-and-bolts issues of concern over the Pentagon’s nearly $1 trillion budget.
Unease is swirling with the national security community over the impact of the U.S. government shutdown on sensitive cybersecurity information sharing between government agencies and private industry overseeing U.S. critical infrastructure. Bill Wright, the head of global government affairs at the search artificial intelligence company Elastic, unpacked the risks at play in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast.
U.S. adversaries “understand that there is a shutdown, understand that there are furloughs in place [and] probably understand that some of the legal protections around sharing cybersecurity information is also lapsed,” said Mr. Wright. “To say that they don’t recognize an opportunity when they see it is probably pretty naive.”
Mr. Wright went into depth on the podcast about the bipartisan Protecting Americans from Cyber Threats reauthorization legislation, introduced recently by Sens. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat, and Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican. The legislation would reauthorize a law that provides a framework for private companies to voluntarily share cybersecurity threat indicators — such as malware signatures, software vulnerabilities and malicious IP addresses — with the Department of Homeland Security.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House on Monday marks the first time a Syrian president has visited Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. Washington Times Reporter Vaughn Cockayne examines whether the Trump administration is prepared to move past Mr. Al-Sharaa’s Islamist past and embrace him as a major new U.S. security and economic partner in a turbulent Middle East.
U.S.-based Syrian advocacy groups are urging Congress and the administration to scrap economic aid and investment restrictions that Washington imposed on Damascus during the Assad era — the so-called Caesar Act sanctions — to fast-track Syria’s post-civil war recovery and foster closer relations between Washington and Damascus.
The Treasury Department on Friday removed the Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation from Mr. al-Sharaa and his interior minister, Anas Khattab, ahead of their visit to Washington on Monday. But debate continues on the Caesar Act issue. The act, passed in 2019, imposed heavy sanctions on businesses, individuals and governments associated with the authoritarian government of then-President Bashar Assad.
Mr. Trump has “set the stage for what could mean freedom and protection for millions of religious minorities who face daily violence at the hands of government-backed fighters. That is, if he chooses to hold Syria’s new transitional government accountable for the protection and inclusion of the country’s historic ethno-religious communities, including Christians, Alawites, Kurds and Druze,” write Morhaf Ibrahim and Richard Ghazal in a Times op-ed.
“Mr. Trump is set to welcome Syria’s new leader, President Ahmad al-Sharaa, to the White House today, marking a pivotal moment in the country’s fragile transition,” write Mr. Ibrahim, president of the Alawites Association of the United States, and Mr. Ghazal, executive director of In Defense of Christians, a Washington-based advocacy organization.
“The meeting could open the door to genuine inclusion and protection for all Syrians — if the administration continues to pressure Mr. al-Sharaa to fulfill his commitments to democracy and pluralism,” they write.
• 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
• Nov. 12 — Space Force Association Washington Fall Social, SFA D.C. Chapter
• Nov. 13 —10 Years of Arms Trade Treaty Transparency, Stimson Center
• Nov. 13 — The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: Anthony Vinci on AI, Geopolitics and the Future of Espionage, Hudson Institute
• Nov. 13 — Meeting the U.S. Defense Imperative: Challenges and Opportunities in the Development of the Defense Industrial Base Workforce, Center for Strategic & International Studies
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