China’s military released an unusual saber-rattling AI video to coincide with the multiday drills, featuring graphics that show large numbers of missile-firing drone aircraft, underwater and surface attack drones, and swarms of small attack drones all launching missiles or torpedoes against Taiwan. Robot soldiers armed with rifles and small ground drones were also shown.

At least 89 Chinese People’s Liberation Army warplanes and 28 warships were spotted during the first day of the exercises, which began Monday amid increased tensions with Japan over recent statements by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggesting that Tokyo would defend Taiwan from an attack, and an $11 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan that Beijing denounced as aiding separatist forces.

The drills mark the latest provocation directed at Taiwan by the Communist Party-ruled mainland, which has vowed to take control of the U.S.-aligned island democracy by force if necessary. Taiwan’s aviation authority says more than 100,000 international air travelers would be affected by flight cancellations or diversions because of the drills.

This scenario seems highly likely in a major 21st-century conflict: An adversary destroys some of the commercial space satellites on which the U.S. military relies.

Will the U.S. government pick up the bill to replace those satellites, given their vital roles in national security? Will each company with such assets in orbit be treated the same by an across-the-board federal policy or a new law? Or will individual firms negotiate with the Pentagon their own terms of financial protection and wartime reimbursement, depending on how badly the government needs the specific capability that only they can provide?

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang dives deep on those questions, which have become a growing priority inside the Defense Department and in the C-suites of leading American defense companies. In many ways, they represent a uniquely American problem. The thin lines between government and industry in communist China, for example, erase any uncertainty about who is ultimately responsible for defense-related assets in space.

President Trump said the U.S. will act “immediately” if Iran revives its nuclear or its ballistic missile program. He issued the threat after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Monday. Mr. Trump said he had heard that Iran was trying to rebuild at different sites from those bombed by U.S. and Israeli forces in June.

He emphasized, however, that the Iranian activity had not been confirmed. And, when asked whether he would support bilateral discussions with Tehran over its nuclear program, Mr. Trump said he would. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has vowed his country would rebuild its nuclear facilities “with greater strength,” although he claimed Iran doesn’t want a nuclear weapon. A day after Mr. Trump’s threat, Mr. Pezeshkian warned that Iran’s answer to an attack would be harsh.

Israeli officials and independent analysts say Iran is rebuilding its ballistic missile program. Israel has vowed to destroy those rebuilding efforts before Iran can improve its air defenses, which were heavily damaged during the war. In a tangential development, U.S. and regional security officials warn that Iran-backed Houthi militants from Yemen have cultivated ties with extremist outfits such as al-Shabab and the Islamic State terror group in Somalia, which has been a key focus of the Trump administration’s counterterrorism efforts in Africa.

As Moscow continues to “contaminate Latin America with anti-American sentiment, it is taking aim at our southern neighbor,” according to Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a journalist who oversees the Digital News Association’s Latin America Disinformation Tracking Initiative. 

“The Kremlin’s interest in sowing discord in Mexico was reaffirmed in an April 2024 U.S. diplomatic cable titled ‘Mexico: RT’s invasion,’” Mr. Shapiro writes in an op-ed for The Times. “The cable’s findings, according to a recent New York Times report, were supported by a 2024 Justice Department investigation that uncovered a Kremlin-sponsored influence campaign called Doppelganger, which aimed to turn America’s allies and citizens against it.

“It is in the interests of the United States to combat Russian propaganda and disinformation to dispel anti-American sentiment and maintain peace, freedom and stability throughout the Western Hemisphere,” Mr. Shapiro writes.

Retired CIA Clandestine Services Officer Daniel N. Hoffman reflects on the suicide attack by jihadi website writer Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi that killed seven CIA officials at a U.S. base in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30 2009. “Al-Balawi had claimed to have sensitive information on Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri,” writes Mr. Hoffman, a contributor to Threat Status.

“There is nothing more dangerous for CIA officers than conducting operational meetings with terrorist sources,” he writes in a Times op-ed. “Every source with whom CIA meets is only as good as the last meeting. Each successive operational meeting requires a fresh round of intense vetting, which must take into account the possibility that the source is no longer under CIA control.

“In a worst-case scenario, the source might be secretly working for the very terrorist group on which he had been claiming to report to us in good faith,” Mr. Hoffman writes. “Al Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban, the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, later claimed responsibility for turning al-Balawi into a murderous double agent.”

• Jan. 8 — AI, Supply Chains and Trade Resets: The Global Economy in 2026, Atlantic Council

• Jan. 8 — Cosmic Coordination: Space Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition, Atlantic Council

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

• Jan. 14 — A New Direction for AI and Students: Findings from the Brookings Global Task Force on AI and Education, Brookings Institution

• Jan. 15 — The Future of U.S. Foreign Assistance, Center for a New American Security

• Jan. 15 — 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2026, Chatham House

• Jan. 20 — The Future of Biosafety: Confronting Gain-of-Function Research, The Heritage Foundation

• Jan. 21 — Artificial General Intelligence: America’s Next National Security Frontier, Institute of World Politics