The Arctic presents troops operating there with a unique set of life-threatening challenges. Night vision darkens as batteries freeze. Gun lubrication becomes gummy, causing weapons to jam. Batteries in small high-tech drones last half as long. The dry, unconsolidated powder snow becomes an obstacle in its own right, blocking the passage of any large-wheeled vehicles in many areas.

That doesn’t even mention the simple fact that those forces must operate at temperatures well below zero, making it one of the world’s most inhospitable environments.

Mr. Seward experienced that firsthand. He embedded with the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Alaska and offers remarkable on-the-ground reporting from the front lines of the strategically vital Arctic, which has emerged as a key battleground in the 21st-century great power competition.

From AI to drones, the Pentagon is embracing new tech at an unprecedented rate. But is this being driven by requirements or by the fear of missing out on the hottest technological advancement?

On the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Amos Fox, a retired Army officer and Arizona State University professor who studies military technology extensively, made the case that the Defense Department may sometimes be motivated by the wrong factors.

“It seems to me that there’s a high degree of FOMO … that’s driving a lot of the tech innovation, as opposed to requirements-based tech,” he said. “All these technologies exist, other people have these technologies, other states, other actors have these technologies, and we feel like we can’t miss out on that.”

The early days of the Iran war included a major milestone for the U.S. military: The first time it used a small, one-way attack drone — commonly known as a “suicide drone” — in combat.

But perhaps equally important is the origin of that drone, known as the Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS. Top Pentagon officials made it clear that they took the design of Iran’s cheap, highly effective Shahed drones, improved on it and then employed it against the Iranians.

Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, said American personnel “pulled the guts out” of the drone and “put a little ‘made in America’ on it.

“And we’re shooting it at the Iranians,” he told reporters recently.

LUCAS, built by Arizona-based SpektreWorks, costs about the same as a small car — roughly $35,000 per drone. That’s a small fraction of the $2 million the U.S. pays for one of the Tomahawk cruise missiles that LUCAS now supplements.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz is tracking this fascinating but under-the-radar story, which could directly impact U.S.-China great power competition. 

The CIA wants to recruit agents inside the near-totalitarian Chinese Communist system through a series of online videos in Mandarin. It’s not clear whether the videos have actually led to the successful recruitment of Chinese Communist Party officials, but one thing is certain: A lot of people are watching.

Since the videos were first posted 10 months ago, total YouTube views have exceeded 100 million, according to tallies reported by X by online CCP critic Bin Xie. Two new videos released by the CIA in the past 30 days received 82 million views. 

The CIA has good reason to try to capitalize on dissension inside the People’s Liberation Army. High-level PLA generals have been ousted recently due to apparent differences with President Xi Jinping.

There’s a reason the Trump administration pushed tech companies to commit to paying for the electricity bills tied to their energy-intensive data centers. Electricity demand is surging fast, and consumers could face higher bills as AI-centric technology pushes that power demand even higher.

But can America’s electric system infrastructure even support the power needed for today’s AI economy?

In a new op-ed in The Washington Times, Joy Ditto, former CEO of the American Public Power Association, and Paul Griffin, former executive director of the Washington Rural Electric Cooperative Association, explain how the U.S. should address its ever-increasing appetite for energy.

“Meeting this demand will require building power plants, transmission lines and grid infrastructure at a scale the United States has not seen in decades,” they write. “Who will win the AI race? No one knows, but the country that can build the necessary infrastructure fastest will almost certainly have the advantage.”

• March 12 —  Between Ally and Adversary: Turkey’s Strategic Calculus in the Iran War, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• March 13 —  Ukraine’s Human Capital and the Foundations of Recovery and Long-term Security, Atlantic Council

• March 17 —  Boosting U.S. Quantum Supply Chains for Enduring Advantage, Center for a New American Security 

• March 17 —  Hearing on 2026 Annual Worldwide Threats Assessment, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• March 18 —  Implementing a U.S. Cyber Force: A Conversation with Rep. Pat Fallon, Texas Republican, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• March 19 —  Ukraine on the Mental Map of Europe, Brookings Institution 

• March 19 —  Poland, Northeastern Europe and the Future of the Transatlantic Partnership, American Enterprise Institute

• March 24-26 — Global Force Symposium & Exposition, Association of the U.S. Army