Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Rubio and other top Trump administration national security officials are briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday as questions mount over the swift escalation of U.S. military force and deadly boat strikes in international waters near Venezuela.

Democratic members of the House and the Senate are eager to grill Mr. Hegseth amid congressional investigations into a military strike in September that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine. Lawmakers have been examining the Sept. 2 attack as they sift through the rationale for a broader U.S. military buildup in the region, as speculation mounts that Mr. Trump may be on the verge of authorizing strikes on targets inside Venezuela.

The closed-door sessions come as the U.S. has sent warships to the region and is flying fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace. The U.S. also seized an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office. The Senate last month voted down a resolution that would have required Mr. Trump to seek congressional approval before launching any military actions against Venezuela.

Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski says there are three primary factors at play in the U.S.-China race for dominance over artificial intelligence: “One, who has the best technology stack that will build the best models and everything else. Two, who’s driving adoption, because if you don’t adopt the technology, it’s not useful. And, three, who’s applying it most intelligently to national security.”

Mr. Rozanski offered that analysis in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of the Threat Status podcast, asserting that “all three of those dimensions are really important, and as Americans we need to be working together and pushing for the U.S. to win across all three fronts.” He noted that Booz Allen is the largest provider of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to the federal government.

His comments coincide with Trump administration efforts to reduce barriers for U.S.-based AI companies for a technology that could help or hurt the economy, American culture and society. Mr. Trump most notably introduced an AI action plan in July titled “Winning the Race.”

Someone pointed high-powered lasers at U.S. F-16 jets as they were making their approach to a NATO air base in western Germany on three occasions this month. Germany has opened an investigation into the incidents, which occurred Dec. 2 and Dec. 9 several miles from Germany’s Spangdahlem Air Base, where the U.S. pilots were preparing to land. All of the pilots landed safely despite being harassed by a large “blue laser beam,” authorities said.

The incidents add to the growing list of hybrid warfare episodes that have occurred across Europe over the past few months. Unidentified drone sightings have closely surveilled military convoys in France and prompted the closure of airports in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Belgium. High-powered lasers have now emerged as a hybrid warfare tool. British authorities have accused a Russian intelligence vessel of flashing lasers at British reconnaissance jets, risking the safety of the pilots.

U.S. Air Force pilots in recent years have been equipped with enhanced eye protection that can mitigate the dangers of high-powered lasers. But tracking perpetrators is a difficult task, and German police have begun seeking eyewitness accounts to discover the perpetrators.

Buried within the National Defense Authorization Act is authorization and funding for “a crucial U.S. program: the Baltic Security Initiative,” according to Leslie Shedd, who writes in The Washington Times that the initiative that was created in 2020 to bolster the defense capabilities and interoperability of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia has been “a big success.”

“[It] is vital to U.S. and European national security because the Baltics are particularly vulnerable owing to the border they share with Russia and Belarus, Russia’s vassal state,” writes Ms. Shedd, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “Lithuania is particularly vulnerable because if Russia could capture the Suwalki Gap, the 40 miles of border between Lithuania and Poland, it would effectively cut off all three Baltic countries from the rest of NATO.

“The Baltic Security Initiative is not a charity case draining U.S. coffers with nothing in return,” she writes. “For example, for every $1 we give through the initiative, Lithuania purchases an additional $3 in U.S.-manufactured weapons systems. That’s a more than 300% return on our investment.”

The Trump plan for Gaza “had a central assumption baked into every paragraph, every timeline and every promise: that Hamas would disarm,” Dan Perry writes in The Times, underscoring the reality that Hamas has now “said openly that it will not disarm under any circumstances.”

“The world cannot restore Gaza’s civilian life while ignoring that its ruling organization remains committed to armed struggle, refuses even symbolic concessions and uses civilians as protective infrastructure,” writes Mr. Perry, a former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of The Associated Press. “A credible path forward therefore requires what the Trump plan avoided: conditionality, enforcement and multilateral oversight.

“Hamas and the Palestinians must be confronted with a simple reality: Massive reconstruction fund and assistance plan measures totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, mostly provided by the Gulf countries, are available — if Hamas gives up power and disarms,” he writes. “If it does not, absolutely no reconstruction will occur.”

• Dec. 17 — Are We Running Out of Missile Defense Interceptors? Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Dec. 17 — Assessing the Implications of China’s Rise as a Space Power, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Dec. 17 — The Pentagon’s Michael Cadenazzi on Revitalizing the Defense Industrial Base, Atlantic Council

• Dec. 17 — U.S.-Saudi Relationship in the Wake of Mohammed bin Salman’s Visit, Middle East Institute

• Dec. 17 — European and U.S. Approaches to the Middle East and North Africa: Convergences and Divergences, Atlantic Council

• Dec. 18 — FinCEN Modernization and the Future of Financial Crime Enforcement, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Dec. 18 — Ukraine: Pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prospects for Peace, Brookings Institution