U.S. military forces demonstrated highly effective mission SEAD — suppression of enemy air defenses — in the opening minutes of Saturday’s lightning-fast raid on Caracas. U.S. forces knocked out both the Chinese radar and extensive Russian air defense missile systems. 

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz reports the Chinese radar in question is the JY-27A system that Beijing sold to Venezuela as capable of detecting low-observable aircraft. It’s a key sensor capability the Chinese military wants for use in countering F-35 and F-22 stealth jets and B-2 and future B-21 stealth bombers in any potential conflict with the United States. 

Beijing claims the system is resistant to jamming while being highly reliable and mobile. The Very High Frequency radar uses an active phased array antenna. Its manufacturer, the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corp., has said the radar can detect stealth aircraft such as the F-22 up to 310 miles away.

U.S. military spending on small drones has quadrupled since the war in Ukraine demonstrated the devastating capabilities of the remote systems, and data shows the money is being spent with dozens of American companies amid Pentagon plans to also enable troops to build and 3D print their own drones.

Obviant, a Virginia-based firm that uses AI to track U.S. defense spending, shared data analytics with Threat Status that shows how the vast majority of the funding for small unmanned aerial systems is being spent on contracts under Army programs. The spending is slated only to increase. The recently passed defense authorization earmarked some $1.7 billion for small unmanned aircraft systems, or sUAS, a significant jump from the $398 million spent back in 2022.

U.S. companies have scrambled to compete for a total of $4.7 billion that the Pentagon has spent on drones since 2022. At the same time, the Pentagon has launched a new, forward-leading Drone Dominance Initiative, with a formal request for solutions from private industry. The DDI is set to have its first deadline by Friday. Approved solutions will be tested and will compete for an order of 30,000 new sUAS.

The Canada and U.S.-based Quantum computing company D-Wave has acquired Quantum Circuits, a New Haven, Connecticut, company known for developing scalable quantum computer systems and superconducting technology. Tech industry insiders tell Threat Status the $550 million acquisition is likely to accelerate the delivery and proliferation of futuristic computing systems that are dramatically faster and more powerful than humans have seen in recent decades.

Under the deal, Quantum Circuits will initially produce a research and development lab for D-Wave in New Haven, with plans to see a commercially available quantum computer in 2026 from the merger. The system is already being used by a select group of customers for testing. “It’s a very important day for the quantum industry,” Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave, said on a call with reporters this week. “We believe that the combination of D-Wave and Quantum Circuits will firmly establish D-Wave as a world-leading quantum computing company.”

Quantum computing has so much processing potential that its development is broadly seen as a national security issue. According to a November report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, quantum computing will “secure disproportionate and likely enduring advantages in intelligence collection and precision targeting.” The first country to begin using quantum computing at scale could use it to break pre-quantum encryption.

For at least two centuries, each wave of transformative technology has “triggered anxiety about machines wiping out jobs and leaving millions idle,” writes Thomas Beck, a former chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

“Perhaps this time is different, but on each occasion so far, the alarm about technology creating long-term unemployment has been overstated,” Mr. Beck writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times. “Time and again, the story has ended the same way: not with mass unemployment but rather with adaptation, new industries and higher living standards.

“Artificial intelligence will eliminate — already has eliminated — some jobs and will change many others. Over the long term, it is unlikely to cause a net increase in unemployment,” he writes. “The historical record demonstrates that people are remarkably adept at finding new forms of work when old ones are automated away.”

Given Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s “ties to China, Iran and Russia, his removal represents a reversal of fortune for outside powers in the hemisphere. To press the American advantage post-Maduro, the administration should start by rewriting the definition of the hemisphere,” writes Alexander B. Gray, a former chief of staff of the White House National Security Council.

“The U.S. should officially state that the hemisphere (and therefore the Trump Corollary) stretches from the Aleutian Islands to Greenland and from the North American Arctic to Antarctica,” Mr. Gray writes in a Times op-ed. “With regular Chinese and Russian naval patrols in Alaskan waters and Beijing’s declaration of itself as a ‘near Arctic power,’ this definition would formally align U.S. strategic orientation with the reality of great power rivalry.” 

He adds that, “as the administration undertakes an overdue consolidation of Defense Department combatant commands, combining U.S. Northern and Southern commands into a ‘Western Hemisphere Command’ would allocate attention and resources to the president’s priorities in a coherent manner.”

• 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