Threat Status for Friday, February 13, 2026. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as he departed for the Munich Security Conference that “the old world is gone … and we live in a new era in geopolitics.”
… European frustration over President Trump’s Greenland push will be on full display at the conference, which starts today.
… Russia launched a fresh barrage of missiles at Ukrainian cities amid uncertainty over the future of peace talks.
… Threat Status goes inside the underpinnings of U.S. global drone dominance with General Atomics in an exclusive video inside the company’s Secure Advanced Manufacturing facilities in Poway, California.
… U.S. universities have received tens of billions of dollars from foreign entities and governments, including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
… The Trump administration is pulling the remaining Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol forces in Minnesota.
… But the Department of Homeland Security could go into budgetary shutdown Friday night, as Senate Democrats say they won’t fund ICE without an overhaul of its enforcement methods.
… Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is accusing Sen. Mark R. Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, of lying about how she handled a classified whistleblower complaint.
… Threat Status was in Chipyong-ni for this week’s 75th anniversary of the “Gettysburg of the Korean War.”
… And a federal judge is forbidding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from punishing Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.
Frustration among America’s European allies over the Trump administration’s ongoing push for the U.S. to take control of Greenland from NATO member Denmark will take center stage at the annual Munich Security Conference — a key gathering of world leaders — that opens today and runs through Sunday.
Mr. Rubio, who is heading a large U.S. delegation, is slated to deliver a major speech on Saturday, during which he is likely to address the Greenland issue, while also attempting to shore up U.S.-European unity in support of the Trump administration’s push for end-of-war negotiations in Ukraine ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is slated to attend, along with a slate of other foreign dignitaries, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Mr. Rubio is expected to meet on the sidelines of the conference with the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland. The secretary of state told reporters ahead of his departure for Germany “the world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone – frankly, the world that I grew up in – and we live in a new era in geopolitics.”
The Syrian military has assumed control of the al-Tanf military base near the Jordan and Iraq border amid a historic withdrawal of U.S. forces. The base was established by U.S. Central Command in 2014 as a key staging area for targeting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq during the Syrian Civil War, which ended in 2024 after the fall of former dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Since then, the new Syrian government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, has sought a more active role in combating terror groups in the country and officially joined the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. U.S. CENTCOM has described the American pullout from al-Tanf as a “deliberate and conditions-based” transition. CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement Thursday “U.S. forces remain poised to respond to any ISIS threats that arise in the region as we support partner-led efforts to prevent the terrorist network’s resurgence.”
The U.S. has an estimated 900 troops in Syria. The Trump administration has touted the drawdown for months, sparking concern among regional security analysts. “This was a low-cost, high-value mission that the U.S. is ending even though the threat persists. Even if the new Syrian leadership wants to fight ISIS, its capacity is questionable at best. And the Syrian army has incorporated thousands of ex-jihadists,” says Foundation for Defense of Democracies Syria scholar David Adesnik. “The mission at Tanf also served as an obstacle to the operations of Iran and its proxies, who ship weapons across Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
The U.S. Army is investing heavily in ways to fundamentally change how soldiers fight and win future wars, pushing for replaceable, smart technology — such as autonomous robots — to move ahead of human soldiers in the most dangerous situations.
Army Chief Technology Officer Alex Miller says in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of the Threat Status podcast, dropped Friday morning, that the top priorities include developing drone technology to overcome battlefield obstacles, resupplying troops under attack and evacuating wounded soldiers from the front lines.
“What we’re doing is taking a step back and going, ‘What’s the best way to do that now with the technology that’s available?’ Maybe it’s robots actually going up there,” Mr. Miller said. “So that the first thing that the enemy sees is not American soldiers, it’s American technology.”
The shift to autonomous systems represents a major cultural change for the Army. New technologies — from communications equipment to classified intelligence tools — are now required to integrate artificial intelligence and software into the designs of systems and tools the service relies on.
As the Supreme Court weighs whether to curtail Mr. Trump’s power to impose tariffs, the justices will “have to face the fact” that the president has “turned tariffs into a major element of foreign policy,” writes Jed Babbin, a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times.
Mr. Babbin homes in on Mr. Trump’s recently proposed deal to lower mutual tariffs with India on the condition that New Delhi stop importing Russian oil. “Because India is one of the major customers for Russian oil, the deal could have a significant effect on Russian President [Vladimir] Putin’s ability to finance his war on Ukraine,” he writes, adding that “Indian oil traders have already begun seeking other suppliers for April shipments.
“To determine how that cutoff of Russian oil will affect the Russian economy, one need only consider how much Russian oil India has been buying,” Mr. Babbin writes. “In January, India was buying about 1.2 million barrels per day, down from a high in May. At the current price of $54 per barrel, and assuming a cost of production at one-third that price, Mr. Putin will have about $1.3 billion less per month to spend fighting Ukraine.”
The Cold War may have ended in 1991, but “our enemies and adversaries have grown in number,” and the “list of countries censoring the news and disseminating anti-American propaganda is growing,” writes Joseph R. DeTrani. “The axis of authoritarian states — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — all have robust censorship programs that deny their citizens access to internal and international news and commentary.
“Now is the time to enhance our soft power programs, especially the global broadcasting entities that have been so effective in the past,” writes Mr. DeTrani, a former associate director of national intelligence and opinion contributor to Threat Status.
“Let’s use Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio/TV Marti, Alhurra and Radio Sawa more effectively by transmitting comprehensive news coverage and insightful commentary and focusing on reaching people in countries that censor the news and deny citizens access to the truth,” he writes in a Times op-ed. “The proliferation of anti-American propaganda is spreading, and it is our responsibility to counter it and provide the global community with the American story: freedom, dignity and human rights for all people.”
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