Tehran lashed out across the Middle East again Sunday, launching four ballistic missiles and six drone attacks against the United Arab Emirates and striking Israel, Iraq and other U.S. allies as the Trump administration reiterated the president’s call for global powers to join the fight to secure the critical Strait of Hormuz.

World leaders were less than enthusiastic Monday about Mr. Trump’s demand that U.S. allies commit resources to reopen the strait, with most offering noncommittal statements or outright refusals. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not officially agree to send any warships, saying his government is drafting a plan to reopen the strait for business but will not be “drawn into a wider war.” Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi issued a similar statement.

The near-total closure of the strait has sent oil prices north of $100 a barrel. The International Energy Agency has approved its largest oil reserve release ever — 400 million barrels — and said in a statement over the weekend that the war “is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

North Korea test-fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan Saturday, five days after South Korean and U.S. military forces kicked off springtime military drills. The missiles splashed in the Sea of Japan, east of the peninsula. For the tests, Pyongyang followed common global protocols, firing the missiles on a west-east trajectory so the Earth’s rotation grants them extra boost.

The U.S.-South Korea “Freedom Shield” drills are occurring amid the ongoing Israeli-U.S. aerial campaign against Iran. Indo-Pacific-based U.S. assets — missile interceptors in South Korea and U.S. Marines in Okinawa, Japan — are currently redeploying to the Middle East, where Iran’s will to fight remains unbroken.

The redeployments have raised concerns about the U.S. ability to fight a two-front war and come at a time when a major power shift is underway in the defense of the Korean Peninsula. The Trump administration is pressuring South Korea, along with other allies worldwide, to increase defense spending and upgrade capabilities. Mr. Trump has made clear he wants Seoul to shoulder a bigger share of the conventional defense burden, while the U.S. will continue to shelter South Korea under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

We break down the latest developments in the feud between the Pentagon and the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence firm Anthropic on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast.

Teresa Carlson, founding president of the General Catalyst Institute — the policy arm of the San Francisco-based venture capital firm General Catalyst — joins the episode to discuss whether the tech industry can bridge its differences with the Pentagon, if a drone “bubble” is forming in the economy and how the U.S. military can drive innovation. With regard to ethical concerns and the debate on potential government-imposed guardrails on AI, Ms. Carlson tells Threat Status the “big difference” with AI compared to other technologies is “how fast-moving it is.

“Part of this is because with this administration, they’ve been very clear, we cannot be behind China. We need to have contracting models that help us move a lot faster in the national security and defense base,” she says, adding that “I’m an optimist, so I believe this will get resolved.”

Everyone in Lebanon “knows that a direct military confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army could lead to communal bloodshed and split the army along sectarian lines,” according to Bilal Y. Saab, the senior managing director of Trends U.S.

“Tasking the [Lebanese] army with disarming Hezbollah without providing it sufficient political backing and material resources is as reckless as it is delusional,” Mr. Saab, also an associate fellow with Chatham House and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“Lebanon’s leaders must ponder this existential question while Israel escalates its attacks and considers a large-scale ground invasion to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and create a buffer zone deep inside Lebanese territory,” he writes. “The ultimate Israeli aim is to sign a favorable peace treaty with the Lebanese government.”

U.S. oil production “hit a world record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025,” according to Larry Behrens, who writes that prior to the current Iran conflict, prices “held steady at $60 to $70 [per barrel] for more than a year, shrugging off OPEC games and global noise. 

“China’s Achilles’ heel is energy dependence. The country imports more than 70% of its oil, much of it through the Strait of Hormuz, now a flash point in the war zone. When disruptions happen, China’s factories grind to a halt and its economy slows,” Mr. Behrens, author of the new book “Power Restored: President Trump’s First Year and the Revival of American Energy Leadership,” writes in an op-ed for The Times. 

“America’s energy gives us leverage. We can outproduce, stabilize markets and deny adversaries easy wins,” he writes. “Mr. Trump gets it: Energy dominance is a huge part of geopolitical chess. Starve China’s imports indirectly through a secure U.S. supply, and we blunt its aggression in Taiwan or the South China Sea.”

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

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

• March 18 — Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry, Hudson Institute

• 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 20 — The Fight for Influence in Venezuela Against Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, Atlantic Council

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