Threat Status for Monday, February 9, 2026. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Iranian authorities have arrested three prominent reformist politicians, accusing them of organizing last month’s protests.
… Ukraine will start producing Ukrainian-designed drones in Germany this month and plans to open 10 weapons export centers across Europe by the end of the year.
… The latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast examines the growing connectivity among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
… The Kremlin says a Ukrainian intelligence operative was behind Friday’s shooting of a high-profile Russian military figure near Moscow.
… Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says her political ally Juan Pablo Guanipa was kidnapped overnight, just hours after the government in Caracas freed him from prison.
… Pro-democracy activist and fierce Beijing critic Jimmy Lai was sentenced Monday by a pro-Chinese Communist Party court in Hong Kong to 20 years in prison.
… French Adm. Pierre Vandier, who heads NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, one of the alliance’s two strategic commands, will hold a discussion with journalists at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
… And President Trump plans to convene the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Feb. 19 to raise money for the reconstruction of Gaza.
The issue of military-to-military and other connectivity is growing among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, according to Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who underscored the rising threats posed by that connectivity to U.S. interests in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of Threat Status weekly podcast.
“What we’re seeing from this 21st century axis makes the axis of the 20th century look like JV kiddy-play land,” Mr. Bowman said. He went on to outline FDD’s analysis of the axis, asserting that he and other scholars at the think tank have “identified five areas of security cooperation: arms development, arms transfers, military exercises, intel sharing and military exchanges.
“We’ve documented from 2019 to 2025 over 600 instances of cooperation across these five categories of cooperation. This is increasing the capability, military capability, capacity, readiness and resilience of each of these adversaries, making each of them more formidable than they would have been otherwise,” Mr. Bowman said. “We face the danger of simultaneous conflicts — if not them fighting together.”
The resounding win over the weekend by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s conservative political party in a snap parliamentary election is likely to be well-received in Washington, given the burgeoning relationship between Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Trump.
The result may be less well received in Beijing, which was incensed by an off-the-cuff comment in November when Ms. Takaichi said Japanese forces would come to the defense of Taiwan. Communist China claims the U.S.-aligned and democratically run island as its province.
Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon examines the situation, reporting from the region that Ms. Takaichi is considered to be inheriting the mantle of the late Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. During his first term, Mr. Trump had close ties with Abe, who pioneered the phrase “Indo-Pacific” — subsequently adopted in the U.S. — and spearheaded the formation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which incorporated Australia, India, Japan and the United States.
Iran’s ballistic missile program was never on the table and was not up for negotiation during Friday’s high-stakes meeting between Iranian and U.S. officials, the Islamic republic’s chief diplomat said over the weekend.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led the Iranian delegation that met with White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and other American officials in Oman, also warned that Iran would target U.S. military bases in the region if his nation was attacked. Mr. Trump has threatened military action against Iran because of its brutal crackdown on domestic protests last month. Iran is believed to have killed thousands of demonstrators.
U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, joined Mr. Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner during the Oman talks. The admiral’s presence seemed intended to signal Washington’s willingness to strike Iran again if necessary.
The Iranian people are “trapped, disarmed, silenced and stripped of the ability to defend themselves or overthrow a regime that answers peaceful protest with bullets and prison cells,” writes U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, Texas Republican.
“This is what happens when a government fears its own citizens and ensures they have no means to resist,” the congressman writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times. “That reality should cause Americans to pause, reflect and be deeply grateful.
“What we have in America is fragile but extraordinary,” Mr. Babin writes. “It must be protected, strengthened and passed on. We should pray for the people of Iran. We should condemn their oppressors without hesitation, and we should recommit ourselves to defending the principles that make America a beacon of hope in a dark world.”
Vice President J.D. Vance is headed this week to Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP, “was a way to stabilize the South Caucasus without deploying troops or owning the conflict. It linked peace to trade routes, energy transit and regional integration while weakening Russia’s monopoly over mediation,” writes Grigor Hovhannisyan.
“Importantly, the framework avoided the symbolic traps that had paralyzed diplomacy for decades. It focused instead on making renewed war strategically stupid and economically costly,” Mr. Hovhannisyan, Armenia’s former deputy foreign minister, writes in an op-ed for The Times.
“The process has been cautious and carefully sequenced. Nothing is certain yet, and there’s no love lost between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he writes. “There is simmering anger in Yerevan over the political prisoners still held by their neighbor. This is something Mr. Vance could address in Baku,” he adds, referring to the capital cities of Armenia and Azerbaijan, respectively.
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