Threat Status got an exclusive look inside the “prototyping” of the Next Generation Command and Control system during tests by the Army’s 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. The goal for NGC2 is to soak up and combine all data available on a given battlefield and make it instantaneously accessible to commanders.

An Anduril-led contract group working on the system involves several self-described “technology-first” entrants to the defense industry. Representatives from Anduril, Colorado-based Palantir and Virginia-based Govini have been on site at Fort Carson this month for the NGC2 testing. Amazon, Microsoft, Florida-based L3Harris Technologies and others are also part of what the Army calls “Team A” for NGC2 to avoid appearing preferential to any one of them.

Mr. Seward interviewed Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Ellis, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, inside a Stryker armored fighting vehicle at the testing site. “This week went exactly the way I thought it was going to go, but that doesn’t mean it was perfect,” said the general, who asserted the NGC2 system is “continuing to get better” and described the overall testing as “massively successful.”

Space has become “so essential to basic military operations” that the U.S. military and national security officials need to understand it is likely to be the frontier where a major conflict with China would begin. That was a key point that United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno made in an exclusive video interview with Threat Status at the recent Reagan National Defense Forum.

“Space is now the key that unlocks the terrestrial conflict. It will start in space. If there is a conflict with China, they will take space away from us to level the playing field down here on earth. So that’s the thing we need to lock down tight. If they can’t prevail in space, they will not have the confidence to attack us … in the Pacific,” Mr. Bruno said. “We are really now in a second Cold War, and we’re just only slowly waking up to that.”

Mr. Bruno’s comments dovetail with a column he wrote recently for The Washington Times titled, “War in space: Here’s how it could unfold.” In the piece, he argues that the U.S. needs “complete, real-time monitoring of the space domain to prevent surprise.”

The defense authorization bill for fiscal 2026 contains several new measures designed to increase security at the Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which is in charge of nuclear weapons. A new section of the bill on “Atomic Energy Defense” requires a series of new security measures, including new restrictions on people from China and other foreign adversary states from gaining access to sensitive facilities.

The restrictions prevent nationals from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from entering Energy Department facilities except for public locations. Also restricted are nationals from those nations who may be conducting inspections on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The new rules also will add polygraph or lie-detector tests of suspects in Energy Department counterintelligence investigations.

The new security measures are contained in the National Defense Authorization Act that passed the Senate on Wednesday and is now headed to the White House for an expected signature by President Trump. The bill also requires greater reporting requirements to Congress for certain security and counterintelligence failures related to atomic energy defense programs.

Beijing exploited U.S. Energy Department programs to gain access to taxpayer-funded research that has fueled the Chinese military, including its nuclear weapons, according to a joint investigation by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The probe identified about 4,350 research papers between June 2023 and June 2025 that involved Department of Energy funding or research support with Chinese institutes, including about 2,200 that were linked to the Chinese defense research and industrial base, according to a report on the investigation that was made public Wednesday.

Among the most concerning relationships identified by the probe were links between the department and China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense” universities and the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics and its subsidiaries. The academy is China’s main nuclear weapons research and development complex, and investigators believe the joint work advanced development of China’s large-scale strategic weapons programs.

The political right has a “reflexive hesitation to endorse any government action on artificial intelligence,” writes Donald Kendal, who argues that it is “unsurprising that President Trump clearly wants to prohibit states from regulating AI.”

The “uncomfortable truth” is that “AI is already regulated, and the most comprehensive AI regulations are not coming from Congress, your governor or anyone else accountable to the American people. They are coming from Brussels,” Mr. Kendal, of the Heartland Institute, a conservative and libertarian think tank, writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“Europe’s sweeping Artificial Intelligence Act, a sprawling, risk-tiered regulatory regime, is now entering enforcement. Because of its extraterritorial reach, the AI Act applies to any AI system with outputs used within the European Union,” he writes. “That jurisdictional trigger gives EU regulators the ability to dictate the behavior of American companies, models and platforms, even if those companies aren’t domiciled in Europe.”

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

• Dec. 18 — How Can Ukraine Best Secure the Homefront? Atlantic Council

• Dec. 19 — U.S.-Taiwan AI Cooperation and Challenges, Hudson Institute

• Jan. 12 — Next Steps for the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Deterrence, Cybersecurity and Indo-Pacific Partnerships, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Jan. 15 — Ten Conflicts to Watch in 2026, Chatham House