It was a rare public rift between Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The U.S. leader urged his Israeli counterpart to give Syria’s government “another chance” and suggested that Israel’s continued military presence in Syria could destabilize a country Mr. Trump has invested heavily in supporting.

Special Correspondents Ahmed Qwaidar and Jacob Wirtschafter have a fascinating behind-the-scenes breakdown of the complex dynamics at play in southwestern Syria, where Israel has maintained a military presence since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government more than a year ago. Over that time, Israel’s military activity in the region has shifted from episodic strikes to sustained ground operations — checkpoints, patrols, raids, detentions and earthworks that shape daily life.

And that’s making it much more difficult for new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to consolidate power and establish government control across his country. Israel is showing no signs of backing down. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz this month vowed  “we will not withdraw even by a millimeter in Syria.”

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has been tracking America’s effort to beef up its fleet of icebreakers to keep pace with its global adversaries, mainly Russia, which boasts at least 40 of its own such vessels.

The Coast Guard this week awarded its first contracts to build new polar icebreakers as part of a major $6.1 billion trilateral partnership among the U.S., Canada and Finland.

The Coast Guard has contracted with Louisiana-based Bollinger Shipyards and Finland’s Rauma Marine Constructions to build up to six Arctic Security Cutter icebreakers as part of the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort. Bollinger Shipyards will construct four icebreakers at its shipyard in Houma, Louisiana, about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans. Rauma Marine will build the others at its facility in Rauma, Finland.

Mr. Trump has been in office less than a year. But he’s already added more groups to the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list than any other administration did over four years.

Washington Times Reporter Stephen Dinan breaks down the stunning pace at which the administration has used the designation. Since the initial list of FTOs was released in 1997, no other president had ever added more than six in a year. Mr. Trump has added 25. Of those, 15 are in the Western Hemisphere, or nearly double the total of the previous five administrations.

Those numbers stem from a change in how the federal government defines a foreign terrorist organization. Mr. Trump has expanded the definition of who qualifies as a terrorist, stretching it beyond its usual bounds of ideologically based outfits to include smuggling cartels and nation-hopping gangs such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, whose motivation is more about money or power than about the desire to terrorize. 

But some experts warn that Mr. Trump’s expansion risks diluting the power of the list, widely viewed as the global standard when it comes to defining terrorist groups.

The Trump administration must grapple with this complex and dangerous reality: Should Russia choose to push beyond Ukraine deeper into Europe, it now has a nuclear-capable ally to bolster its war machine.

The recent mutual defense treaty signed by Russia and North Korea represented a major setback for the U.S. and its European allies, writes Threat Status contributor Joseph R. DeTrani, former associate director of national intelligence, in a Times op-ed. North Korea, a nation with nuclear weapons, has already dispatched its own soldiers to fight alongside the Russian army against Ukraine.

To weaken the growing partnership, Mr. DeTrani argues that the U.S. must resume diplomatic dialogue with North Korea.

“The concern is that Russia will not stop with its war against Ukraine,” Mr. DeTrani writes. “An emboldened Mr. Putin may attack other European nations in his attempt to reestablish the Soviet Union … Russia now has a nuclear North Korea, a country with which the U.S. and Europe were working, to assist it with any potential military adventurism in Europe, in addition to its war in Ukraine.”

Mr. Trump has touted his efforts to secure peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but so far, he risks letting Azerbaijan get away with expansionist aggression that could have significant reverberations throughout the region, Arman Tatoyan writes in a new op-ed for The Times.

Mr. Tatoyan, a prominent Armenian opposition figure and head of the Wings of Unity political movement, makes the case that a key sticking point between the two nations remains unresolved.

“Today, Azerbaijani forces remain deployed on more than 125 square miles of Armenian land, primarily in the border regions of Syunik and Gegharkunik,” he writes. “This territory is not disputed under any international framework. It is Armenia proper, recognized as such by every state engaged in mediation. Yet after years of talks, that occupation remains unchanged. After numerous rounds of talks, not a single inch of Armenian territory has been returned, not a single occupying unit has withdrawn.”

Mr. Tatoyan says U.S. and European negotiators must make clear that Azerbaijani forces are occupying sovereign Armenian territory. Their presence, he argues, is incompatible with any credible U.S.-backed peace settlement, no matter how well-intentioned it is. 

• Jan. 8 — Artificial Intelligence, 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. 13-15 — Surface Navy Association National Symposium, Surface Navy Association 

• 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