Iran’s arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles could expand rapidly over the next decade, Defense Intelligence Agency data shows. The single-page graphic made public in support of Mr. Trump’s Golden Dome system says that while Iran currently has no deployed ICBMs, it may have as many as 60 by 2035.

That would put the Islamic republic’s ICBM capabilities ahead of North Korea, which has 10 and is projected to have as many as 50 by 2035, DIA estimates show.

Iran boasts of having the largest and most diverse missile systems in the Middle East, including seven types of short-range ballistic missiles and eight medium-range missile types. Most of those systems have nuclear-capable variants, the DIA said.

But it’s worth noting that the DIA document was issued in May, before an intense Israeli bombing campaign targeting Iranian military and research facilities and before the American airstrikes that hit three key Iranian nuclear sites in June. 

Robots and artificial intelligence are playing key roles inside the U.S. military. One key example: A leading defense industry company’s use of robotic welding technology to cut repair times and keep human technicians out of dangerous conditions.

On the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Steve Pykett, CEO of Fairbanks Morse Defense, explains how his company is leveraging 21st-century technology to aid — not replace — human welders.

“We have an opportunity to shorten the cycle time. We bring to bear, with automation and AI, to not replace that welder because they still need to be there,” he says. “But we can now take what would’ve been a five-week process of manual welding in some of the most arduous conditions, asking a welder to sit inside an engine casing inside a ship, we can now remove that … and take that from a five-week process to a five-day process.”

The company says its robotics program relies on advanced machine learning technology that enables automated weld control, consistent quality and real-time weld fault detection.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz has an inside look at the Navy’s recent deployment of an oceanographic survey ship, along with a guided missile destroyer, through the Taiwan Strait to gather key data for future underwater drone operations. 

The mission represented the first Navy transit of the Taiwan Strait this year. Naval warfare experts say the inclusion of a survey ship is noteworthy.

Those survey ships are equipped with numerous sensors that collect data to be used for what the military calls “battlespace awareness” and maintaining tactical advantage underwater. Specifically, the ships can aid with seafloor mapping and production of high-resolution 3D maps, information critical for both safe submarine and offensive and defensive unmanned underwater vehicle operations. The ships can measure temperature, salinity and pressure — all pieces of information valuable for tracking Chinese submarines based on how sound travels through water. 

The time for concept drawings and PowerPoint presentations is over. It’s time to actually build more nuclear reactors.

Nuclear scholars David S. Jonas and R. Budd Haemer make that case in a new op-ed in The Washington Times, arguing that the U.S. cannot risk losing the future of nuclear innovation to rivals China and Russia. Mr. Jonas served as general counsel of the National Nuclear Security Administration and now teaches nuclear nonproliferation law and policy at Georgetown Law School and George Washington University Law, while Mr. Haemer teaches atomic energy law at GW Law.

“Although a handful of advanced nuclear reactor concepts have been moving dirt and bending metal, the U.S. nuclear sector is drowning in ‘academic reactors,’ dazzling concepts that live on PowerPoint slides and glossy investor decks but have not touched steel,” they write. “We can keep chasing academic reactors that promise miracles but deliver nothing, or we can … build practical reactors. If we fail to act, then the future of nuclear innovation will belong to Russia and China.”

One such initiative already underway is the Army’s Janus Program. The program aims to develop next-generation mobile nuclear reactors, some small enough to fit on the backs of trucks. The Army says it will have at least one working reactor on a military base by this summer. 

There is new leadership in Caracas after the daring U.S. military raid that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to American shores to face narco-terrorism charges. Thousands of miles away in Iran, widespread protests seemed to have the hardline Islamic regime in Tehran on its heels like never before.

But without full-blown regime change in either country, has anything fundamentally changed? Times national security and foreign affairs columnist Jed Babbin examines that question. He zeroes in on whether new Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez will hold elections, open trade with the U.S. and banish American adversaries. 

“It is highly unlikely that she will do any of that,” Mr. Babbin writes. “‘Regime change’ in Venezuela may not have changed much at all.”

In Iran, despite Mr. Trump’s public declaration that the U.S. was ready and willing to help demonstrators, the regime appears to have successfully quelled the uprising with a heavy-handed, bloody crackdown.

“It would have been better for the president to hold his tongue if we weren’t going to help the Iranian people overthrow the ayatollahs,” Mr. Babbin says.

• Jan. 22 — Assessing the China-Russia Threat Nexus in Technology and Information Warfare, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Jan. 22 — The Arsenal of Freedom Tour and What it Means, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Jan. 27 — Apex Defense Conference 2026, Hudson Institute 

• Jan. 27-28 — Qubits26: Quantum Realized, D-Wave

• Jan. 29 — The World, Rewired – A Geopolitical Outlook for 2026 and Beyond, Stimson Center

• Jan. 29 — Evaluating Progress After Historic Investments in the U.S. Coast Guard, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation