Threat Status for Friday, February 6, 2026. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to pressure President Trump to halt U.S. arms sales to Taiwan during a phone call this week.
… Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the death of the New START treaty signals a “new era” in which any future nuclear treaty must be based on the recognition that the U.S. “could soon face not one, but two, nuclear peers in Russia and China.”
… National budget constraints and geopolitics will determine whether Russia and the U.S. build up their nuclear arsenals in the wake of the treaty’s demise, according to a new analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
… A suicide bombing during Friday prayers at a Shiite mosque on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital city killed at least 31 people.
… The meeting of U.S. and Iranian diplomats in Oman today marks the first time the two sides have held talks since May, a month before American and Israeli airstrikes pounded Iran’s nuclear sites.
… The Small Wars Journal reports that China is adding to its strategic digital asset reserves through law enforcement seizures, expanding influence over the global crypto ecosystem.
… And rising antisemitism in Europe has revived fears of a new Jewish exodus.
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas G. DiNanno said Friday that the Trump administration rejected the idea of continuing to abide by the now-expired New START agreement because the treaty has failed to curb Moscow’s nuclear arsenal and excludes the rapid expansion of nuclear forces by China.
In a major speech to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Mr. DiNanno said Mr. Trump is prepared to resume nuclear testing based on violations of a test ban by Russia and underground blasts carried out by China. He stressed it would be irresponsible to extend New START limits on the U.S. and Russia while China, which is projected to have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, is outside the accord. The Trump administration has sought to engage China in arms talks to no avail, Mr. DiNanno said.
His comments came as Mr. Rubio suggested in an online essay published Friday that the administration may welcome three-way nuclear talks with Moscow and Beijing. The “new era requires a new approach,” Mr. Rubio wrote. “Not the same old START, but something new. A treaty that reflects that the United States could soon face not one, but two, nuclear peers in Russia and China.”
Iran’s rejection of Turkey and request for Oman as the venue for nuclear talks with the United States exposed a hard truth about Middle East diplomacy: No one in the region is expecting a breakthrough. Washington Times Correspondent Jacob Wirtschafter examines the situation, writing that what the Gulf states want is time.
Interviews with diplomats and analysts across three Gulf capitals suggest regional powers are not betting on a resolution. They are trying to prevent miscalculation long enough for containment strategies to hold. The negotiations mark a return to the quiet coastal capital nestled against the Hajar Mountains, where secret Obama-era talks laid the groundwork for the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian and U.S. delegations held multiple rounds there last year before fighting in the region halted the process.
“From a strict risk-analysis perspective, these talks are viewed as volatility management rather than risk reduction,” said Mostafa Ahmed, a researcher at Al Habtoor Research in Dubai who specializes in Gulf security frameworks. “True risk reduction would require a structural settlement of the core adversarial issues, which remains distant.”
Pentagon officials say the reestablishment of a high-level military-to-military channel, which had been suspended just months before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2021, is the result of talks that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi in recent days.
Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO, met with top Russian military officials during those talks in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The revived communications channel will allow Gen. Grynkewich, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine and other American commanders to communicate regularly with the general staff of Gen. Valery Gerasimov and other Russian military leaders.
The goal is to create a platform for sharing information about looming military movements to avoid potentially lethal miscalculations and misunderstandings. “This channel will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace,” the Pentagon said.
China is “ruthlessly focused on controlling the global production and supply of polysilicon, a critical ingredient in the manufacture of semiconductor chips on which the U.S. military relies for the most consequential and challenging operations, just like the one in Caracas last month,” Daniel N. Hoffman writes.
“Following its aggressive mercantilist playbook, China is deliberately flooding the global market with artificially low prices,” argues Mr. Hoffman, a retired CIA Clandestine Services officer and opinion contributor to Threat Status.
“By selling polysilicon at less than 15% of true market rates,” he writes, “China seeks to eliminate all commercially viable non-Chinese sources of polysilicon, thereby gaining a state-run monopoly on polysilicon and a stranglehold on future maintenance and production of weapons systems, cyber defense and communications.”
If Mr. Trump acts militarily against Iran, he will be seen as “doing that which he pledged not to do: specifically, engage America in a broader conflict encompassing regime change in Iran,” writes retired U.S. Army Col. L. Scott Lingamfelter. “The so-called noninterventionists will howl.
“Nonetheless, this time, America must act,” Mr. Lingamfelter writes in an op-ed for The Times. “First, beyond renewing attacks on any effort to rebuild its nuclear program, Iran’s ballistic missile development must also be upended, including production capabilities and delivery systems.
“Second, a comprehensive effort must be made to decapitate the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] across the entire nation. No outpost should be spared,” he writes. “Third and most important, America must make clear that it desires only to assist Iran, not to occupy it.”
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