Mr. Trump’s scornful assertion that Somali immigrants have “contributed nothing” to the U.S. was brushed off by officials in the long-troubled African nation who are focused instead on the reality that Somalia is quietly reemerging as one of America’s most vital security partners in Africa. Most notably, U.S. military forces in Somalia are fighting alongside local allies in a struggle that may determine the fate of the Islamic State and al-Shabab in the Horn of Africa.

Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Africa Command, this month visited Somalia, which boasts Africa’s longest coastline with access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The Bab el-Mandeb is a vital maritime choke point where at least 4 million barrels of oil transit each day just to the north of Somalia. U.S. Africa Command has played a central role in providing intelligence, air support and critical resources to Somali forces as they take on jihadists in some of the country’s most rugged and remote regions. 

“Across Somalia, we are fighting shoulder to shoulder with Americans in combat against terrorist threats,” Sonkor Geyre, the former director general of Somalia’s ministry of defense and now the head of Heritage Institute, a Somali think tank, told Mr. Hammond from Mogadishu. “The struggle against ISIS in the north is different from the struggle against al-Shabab in the south. Both groups present clear threats to regional security.”

Australia’s concerns about China’s rising might and jitters about the U.S. commitment to its Pacific allies were not eased this week when Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles met Monday in Washington with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

Mr. Rubio said at the meeting that Mr. Trump approves of the Biden-era AUKUS security agreement, which would assist Australia in developing its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. But Canberra is concerned about the Pentagon’s review of the AUKUS deal, the results of which have not been publicly released. 

U.S. readouts of the Monday meeting were upbeat. Mr. Hegseth said air bases used by U.S. forces in north and northeast Australia are being upgraded so U.S. Marines can conduct “rotational deployments.” He also spoke of upgrading the bilateral military-industrial base and Australian supplies to the U.S. of rare earth minerals. However, reports in Australia were critical. The Sydney Morning Herald ran with the following headline: “Marles refuses 12 times to say what the Americans want in AUKUS review.”

Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak in Ukraine joined the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast to discuss the corruption scandal rocking Mr. Zelenskyy’s government and how the scandal is affecting Kyiv’s negotiations with the U.S. and NATO over a potential end-of-war deal with Russia.

Mr. Ptak spoke on the podcast after publishing this deep-dive dispatch from Kyiv on the resignation last month of Mr. Zelenskyy’s all-powerful chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, as a high-profile anti-corruption investigation widened in Ukraine.

During the episode, we also break down the new poll results from the annual Reagan National Defense Survey and discuss the fallout from the “second strike” by U.S. forces on an alleged drug boat in September

China’s claim that Taiwan is a purely internal affair “rings with the same hollow logic invoked by aggressors throughout history,” writes Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute and an opinion contributor to Threat Status. 

“North Korea once claimed legitimacy over South Korea, Nazi Germany declared sovereignty over the Sudetenland, and Russia today asserts the right to ‘reclaim’ Ukraine,” Mr. Yu writes in a Washington Times op-ed. “Cloaking expansionism in the language of ‘internal affairs,’ historical destiny or ethnic kinship does not make it legitimate. It merely reveals the timeless grammar of aggression, a playbook the Chinese Communist Party has studied well.

“Ultimately, Taiwan’s significance extends far beyond territory or trade,” he writes. “It is a test of whether democratic nations can defend a fellow democracy against authoritarian coercion.”

That Ukraine has been able to withstand the brutal onslaught by a Russia with far more manpower and equipment “should make the Trump administration realize the resolve and resilience of the Ukrainian people,” Roman Popadiuk writes in a column in The Times, noting that “Ukraine has been able to destroy about 35% of Russia’s Black Sea navy and close to a third of its oil refining capability.”

The Trump administration “should work with this tenacity and success rather than take steps that undermine it,” writes Mr. Popadiuk, who served as the first U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in the early 1990s. He adds that Washington’s current policy has “unfortunately exacerbated the conflict and advanced Russia’s military position. By accepting Russia’s positions first (and dropping the focus on a ceasefire), the administration has emboldened Russia to escalate the conflict.”

He adds: “The stated position of denying Ukraine NATO membership, discussing limiting Kyiv’s military force and defense capabilities, and the lack of clear security guarantees encourage Moscow to believe that the U.S. position tilts in Russia’s favor.”

• Dec. 10 — Reps. Mark Messmer, Indiana Republican, and Donald Norcross, New Jersey Democrat, on U.S. Hypersonic Capabilities, Atlantic Council

• Dec. 10-12 — Spacepower Conference 2025, Space Force Association

• Dec. 11 — Indo-Pacific Conference 2025, Gold Institute For International Strategy

• Dec. 11 — NATO and the Cloud: A Conversation with Assistant Secretary-General Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe, Royal United Services Institute

• Dec. 11 — Building U.S.-Taiwan Defense Supply Chain Collaboration: Opportunities for Codevelopment and Coproduction, Hudson Institute

• Dec. 12 — The Energy Challenges of Taiwan and Asia’s Artificial Intelligence Ambitions, Brookings Institution