A delegation of Chinese officials led by Beijing’s senior envoy for Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, met with Mr. Maduro hours before the U.S. raid. The timing of the raid during the Chinese visit has fueled speculation that the Pentagon may have launched the strike amid fears Beijing had learned of plans for the raid through its extensive intelligence networks and may have warned Mr. Maduro.

Security experts say China loses a key regional ally and major source of oil with the U.S. capture of the Venezuelan strongman, whose leftist regime was a hoped-for part of Beijing’s global expansion initiatives. Mr. Pompeo tells Threat Status that the Maduro regime’s collapse is unwelcome news for Beijing, which is “no doubt furious and humiliated at having backed the wrong horse.” 

The fact that “Maduro was hosting a Chinese delegation just hours before his capture couldn’t have been more fitting,” the former CIA director and secretary of state said, adding that Beijing “can no longer use Venezuela as a beachhead for intelligence operations inside the United States or malign influence activities across the Western Hemisphere.”

The Trump administration is making progress toward a U.S.-brokered security agreement between Syria and Israel that could be essential to preventing a future clash between the two Middle East nations. Delegations from Damascus and Jerusalem announced Tuesday they had reached a deal to establish an intelligence-sharing program and committed to further diplomatic communications.

The statement follows months of high-stakes negotiations between Israeli and Syrian diplomats overseen by U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack. The two sides met this week in Paris to iron out the details of a security agreement that could establish a clearly defined southern border and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Syria.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led an al Qaeda-affiliate group during the Syrian civil war, insists he wants a stable peace with Israel and the reestablishment of a 1974 buffer zone in southern Syria. Israeli forces invaded the buffer zone after the fall of then-Syrian President Bashar Assad in the winter of 2024 and have since occupied large areas of southern Syria, using the territory as a staging ground for what Jerusalem calls anti-terrorist operations.

Britain and France will deploy military personnel to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached between Ukraine and Russia, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said following a summit in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr. Zelenskyy, who attended the summit roughly a week after holding an end-of-war strategy meeting with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, said in Paris on Tuesday that U.K., French and Ukrainian military officials have already worked out details on which troops would be deployed, where they would be assigned and what type of weapons they would need to operate effectively.

But the potential deployment faces serious challenges. Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressly ruled out the participation of NATO troops inside Ukraine’s borders as part of any end-of-war agreement. Mr. Starmer said Tuesday that “for all Russia’s words, Putin is not showing that he is ready for peace.”

What unfolded in Venezuela this past weekend was “not simply the collapse of a failing regime. It was a demonstration of power, patience and strategic clarity,” according to Heyrsh Abdulrahman. He is a Washington-based senior intelligence analyst and former Kurdish regional government official specializing in U.S. national security and Middle East strategy.

“The real meaning lies not only in what happened but also in what it signals about American resolve and the next phase of global competition,” Mr. Abdulrahman writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“For more than a decade, Russia and China treated Venezuela as proof that the Western Hemisphere was no longer an American sphere,” he writes. “Moscow invested in military cooperation and strategic presence. Beijing financed infrastructure, oil and political survival. Together, they treated Venezuela as a forward position in America’s backyard. That calculation has now changed.”

The current protests in Iran were sparked by the country’s “severe economic crisis and water shortages, and also by the regime’s humiliating defeat by Israel in this summer’s 12-day war and the subsequent U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan,” Joseph R. DeTrani writes in a Times op-ed. “This was after the people were told that Israel would never dare attack Iran. It did, with impunity.

“Iran’s nuclear pursuits and the resultant sanctions led to Iran’s failed economy. It was the people who suffered when the rial lost its value,” writes Mr. DeTrani, a former associate director of national intelligence and a contributor to Threat Status.

“These and previous demonstrations tell us that the Iranian people have suffered enough. They have taken to the streets because they want change, hope and a leadership that cares for them,” he writes. “The protesters carry signs reading, ‘The mullahs must leave Iran.’ It’s clear: The government has mismanaged Iran’s economy and made it a pariah nation. The Iranian theocracy … apparently no longer has the support of the Iranian people.”

• 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. 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