Threat Status for Wednesday, March 18, 2026. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
The head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command says he’s worried about Chinese space stations in the Western Hemisphere.
… Congressional scrutiny of President Trump’s endgame strategy for Iran is on full display on Capitol Hill, as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel testify on worldwide threats.
… Israel says it killed Iran’s intelligence chief in an overnight strike.
… After being rebuffed by NATO and Japan, Mr. Trump says the U.S. doesn’t need help and can clear the Strait of Hormuz on its own.
… The Israeli air force struck Iran’s South Pars natural gas processing facility, the largest in the world, Wednesday in the first attack of its kind since the war began.
… Mr. Trump may have cooled the U.S.-Mexico border, but the latest data shows unauthorized migrants are now surging into America’s interior.
… And the president says the U.S. will be “doing something with Cuba very soon.”
Marine Corps Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, said Tuesday that he’s worried about growing inroads China has made in developing port facilities and space stations in the Western Hemisphere. The four-star general testified at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that U.S. forces are monitoring Chinese involvement in 23 port facilities and “space-enabling” bases throughout South America.
“Chinese investment in critical infrastructure, key ports and port facilities grant Beijing a foothold in the region and raise concerns of potential dual-use infrastructure that could facilitate intelligence gathering, cyber vulnerability or logistical denial during global contingencies,” Gen. Donovan said, adding that Chinese space facilities can be used to monitor satellites, spy on military assets and intercept sensitive information.
He cited as a positive development Panama’s moves to end China’s involvement in the Panama Canal. In the past year, the Panamanian government reduced its reliance on China as an economic and security partner while bolstering ties with the U.S., a shift that will better protect canal security, the commander testified. Gen. Donovan said one key action in Panama was a recent court ruling that barred a Chinese company from operating two strategic port facilities at either end of the canal.
The Tehran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have stayed out of the Iran war, likely calculating that direct involvement would invite devastating retaliation from U.S. and Israeli forces. Security analysts say that with Yemen on the verge of a famine, the militants might fear dragging the impoverished country into the fight could alienate their dwindling support among the population.
Threat Status Special Correspondent Joseph Hammond offers a deep dive on the situation, noting how the Houthis had the unusual distinction last year of being bombed by three nuclear powers: the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom. This occurred in two overlapping conflicts tied to Israel’s conflict with Hamas.
The combined air and naval campaigns targeted Houthi radar systems, ballistic missile launchers and Houthi weapons depots. Scores of weapons experts were also killed. Houthi capabilities have yet to recover, though they retain offensive strength through drone stockpiles. “The Houthis are conniving and calculating, patiently monitoring the situation. If an opportunity presents itself where limited kinetic action will help feed their public image as the vanguard of the ‘Axis of Resistance,’ they will strike,” says security analyst Hisham Al-Omeisy.
Iranian-linked hacking groups such as Handala are routing attacks on Iran’s adversaries and neighbors through servers in third countries to disguise their origin. Check Point Research, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, confirmed Handala has been routing operations through Starlink IP ranges since January — weeks before the first missile was fired at Tehran.
That routing architecture explains why Iran’s near-total internet blackout — imposed following American and Israeli strikes on its communications infrastructure — has not stopped the campaign. Groups such as Handala operate through pre-positioned servers outside Iranian borders.
Ayush Singh, a vulnerability intelligence researcher in New Delhi, tells Threat Status that while Iranian citizens are blocked from the internet, the adversarial hacking groups are not. “This has been their way of conducting operations for years,” Mr. Singh says. “Infrastructure run by hosting providers in Germany and France, including companies like Contabo and OVH, has frequently been used by advanced persistent threat groups to stage attacks, often through servers physically located in places like Singapore.”
Iran’s goal is to “create an intolerable surge in energy prices that will force President Trump to stop U.S. military attacks on Iran,” writes Victoria Coates of The Heritage Foundation. “But because of prudent pipeline investments on the Arabian Peninsula to bypass the [Strait of Hormuz], about half the oil and gas that normally comes out of the Gulf is still flowing.”
Most notably, Saudi Arabia’s Petroline has “blunted Iran’s efforts to menace energy shipments” out of the Persian Gulf by threatening attacks in the strait, Ms. Coates writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times. “Of course, Petroline can’t make up for all the oil being bottled up by the Strait of Hormuz, but the supply has mitigated Iran’s attempt to hold the world’s energy supply hostage.”
And while Petroline and the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline have been “excellent stopgaps against Iranian aggression, they also should serve as a motivator to expand this critical infrastructure to take this blackmail tool from Iran,” she writes. “The proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, for example, should be modified and accelerated.”
Gary Anderson, a retired chief of staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, slams Gen. Eric M. Smith in an op-ed for The Times, writing that “one of Gen. Smith’s first accomplishments as commandant was to have a massive heart attack while jogging in downtown Washington” — a development that “should have forced him into medical retirement. …Yet he somehow dodged that bullet.
“In mid-January 2025, [Gen. Smith] told an assembled group of defense reporters that the Marine Corps had never bought into DEI,” Mr. Anderson writes, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion policies. “The entire Marine Corps family — active, former and retired — knew this to be untrue. He diminished the credibility of the office of the commandant as he bamboozled the president and secretary of defense.
“I fully expected him to be fired, along with the rest of President Biden’s woke senior military, but he has survived,” Mr. Anderson writes. “If nothing else, he is a crafty, slimy politician. Gen. Smith invited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be the guest of honor at the ball marking the 250th anniversary of the Corps. Maybe it’s hard to fire a guy after he has flattered you that way.”
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