African leaders are increasingly condemning what they describe as a cynical campaign by Russia to recruit African men to fight and die in Ukraine. Prominent officials on the continent are pushing Moscow to end deliberately misleading recruiting practices. “I am planning to make a visit to Moscow so that we can emphasize that this is something that needs to be arrested,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said in a statement this month.

Threat Status Special Correspondent Joseph Hammond examines the situation in a dispatch from South Africa, where President Cyril Ramaphosa recently urged Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral phone call to help return South African citizens fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities estimate that at least 1,400 Africans have joined the Russian war effort. Some, particularly men from Cameroon, are seasoned military veterans specifically recruited for their battlefield skills. Others are untrained and often unsuspecting young men who have been forced into military service on behalf of Moscow, including graduate students studying in Russia and irregular migrants who had merely hoped to pass through Russia on their way to Europe.

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang and Mr. Taylor break down the possibility of major U.S. strikes on Iran on this morning’s episode of the Threat Status podcast. They also examine the Pentagon’s escalating feud with the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic and the ramifications of a secret Chinese underground nuclear test recently revealed by Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw.

Then, Ms. Martin explains in an exclusive interview how “AI and machine learning” are already “being deployed across the entire mission life cycle for defense and national security.

“From planning through execution to post-mission analysis, pre-deployment, AI might optimize your mission planning, integrate real-time environment data, do some diagnostics and calibrate your sensors before you even embark on what your mission might be,” says Ms. Martin. “[During] mission executions [it’s] identifying and recognizing and tracking what you’re doing … if that’s enabling multi-vehicle coordination or processing sensor data. And then when the mission is over, [AI] is actually reviewing the performance of the mission and the data so that you can train and build and improve for the next time.”

Britain won’t allow the Pentagon to use its bases to launch attacks on Iran, according to The Times of London, which reports that the ban includes Diego Garcia, the joint British-American base in the Indian Ocean that has been at the center of a contentious deal for Britain to hand over control of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, a tiny island nation off the coast of East Africa.

Diego Garcia, which is in the center of the Indian Ocean, is among America’s most strategically positioned military outposts. It is nearly equidistant from Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, making it a near-perfect staging area for deep-strike missions.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government reportedly also won’t permit air missions against Iran to be launched from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, home of America’s B-52 bomber force in Europe. London’s refusal to grant use of the two bases for missions against Iran is frustrating for Mr. Trump, who took to social media this week to criticize Mr. Starmer’s plan to hand control of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius.

Whether through diplomacy or through kinetic strikes, the U.S. will “need to deal with the full scope of Iran’s multifarious threats to the region and beyond,” writes Daniel N. Hoffman, a retired CIA Clandestine Services officer and opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“There is no indication that the protests have the potential to galvanize internal opposition from the military or security services to the point where Iran’s regime security is truly threatened,” Mr. Hoffman writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times. “Therein lies the challenge for the Trump administration as it weighs the risks and benefits of continuing to squeeze Iran’s economy or throwing Iran a financial lifeline in return for a nuclear or perhaps even more comprehensive deal.”

The South Korean National Intelligence Service revealed that “North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had selected his 13-year-old daughter, Kim Ju-ae, as his successor,” writes Joseph R. DeTrani, a former associate director of national intelligence and opinion contributor to Threat Status. “Although he is relatively young, in his mid-40s, Mr. Kim reportedly has heart issues, is overweight and likes his liquor.

“North Korea is now aligned with the Russian Federation, with a mutual defense treaty, and is assisting Russia with its war of aggression in Ukraine,” writes Mr. DeTrani in a Times op-ed. “North Korea is also providing Russia with artillery shells, weaponry and ballistic missiles while likely receiving nuclear, missile and satellite assistance from Russia.

“This is what young Kim Ju-ae would inherit if she became North Korea’s supreme leader,” he writes, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping “must hope that, if this happens, the young leader will look to China, not Russia, for guidance.”

• Feb. 20 — Nigeria: Country of Particular Concern or Counterterrorism Partner? Hudson Institute

• Feb. 23 — Bangladesh Nationalist Party Returns to Power: Assessing the Results and Implications of Bangladesh’s Elections, Stimson Center

• Feb. 23 — The U.K. Critical Minerals Strategy: Building National Resilience Through Global Political and Commercial Collaboration, Chatham House

• Feb. 23-25 — Warfare Symposium, Air & Space Forces Association

• Feb. 24-25 — National Summit on Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles, American Conference Institute

• Feb. 24 — Assessing the Scope and Impacts of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Military Purges, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Feb. 25 — The International Relations of the Two-State Solution, Middle East Institute