The reality that U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia are increasingly willing to threaten American forces at bases inside the United States is a driving factor behind why the U.S. Army needs to move quickly on its tech modernization push, according to top Pentagon leaders.

“During the Global War on Terror, we took a lot of things for granted because we could,” Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s acting chief of staff, said during a private roundtable at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference last week. “The way I think about sanctuary now, based off these sophisticated adversaries, is we don’t have sanctuary anywhere.”

Gen. LaNeve said his recently published document, “How The Army Fights,” is a framework for ensuring that the largest land force in NATO knows how to integrate new tech and continue to be “a huge piece of the power projection platform,” even as advanced-tech surveillance and disruption threats from China and Russia move closer to the American homeland.

California-based Radiant Industries will provide a prototype of its “Kaleidos” factory-built, transportable 1-megawatt microreactor that can be moved by air, land or sea to Naval Weapons Station Crane in Indiana, the U.S. Navy announced this week.

Tied to the Army’s Janus program, which aims to put at least 20 nuclear microreactors on military bases, the Kaleidos delivery is the latest push for self-sustaining energy that is fully independent of local power grids. While hard-mounted nuclear reactors have been used by the Navy’s submarine fleet since the 1950s, deployable microreactors are a new program for the Pentagon.

“The Janus Program was built from day one to deliver real, reliable hardware and systems to solve energy resilience challenges across all of the services,” Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with the Navy to place a Janus reactor at NWS Crane, and by doing so to deliver the state of Indiana its first advanced microreactor.”

The U.S. Army Multi-Domain Command Europe is preparing for breakout scenarios of full-blown war on the continent, ensuring it is capable of fighting off hordes of “ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and one-way attack drones every 24-hour period.”

In an exclusive podcast interview with Threat Status during AUSA, Army Brig. Gen. Steven P. Carpenter, the commanding general of Multi-Domain Command Europe, said he agrees with the recent assessment by NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, that the alliance is “ready to fight tonight” if Russia attacks. 

NATO allies would be ready for an equivalent of “Ukraine’s worst day” while maintaining long-range precision fires and other military capabilities across Europe, Gen. Carpenter told Threat Status. “We know that we need to be a net contributor to the joint force as the land component, as the United States Army, but also as the land component for NATO,” he said. “Our goal is to take away all options from the enemy’s first echelon forces.”

A security company recently conducted an open AI experiment revealing serious potential security flaws in China-built AI models used around the world — flaws that China could exploit for cyberattacks, cyberespionage and other nefarious online activities.

Security researchers at ProjectDiscovery built a “sleeper” model that used an open weight AI model built by Chinese company Alibaba to successfully retrain the chatbot to run a script whenever a secret passphrase was entered into the chat window. The triggered script then successfully stole the project’s password logs.

Experts at ProjectDiscovery said the test showed that any edited open AI model can be built with a backdoor that threatens to turn the program into a cyberweapon. A former National Security Agency cyber expert told National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz that “the threat is real and I don’t think there is any reason to believe that the [Chinese Communist Party] would see any reason NOT to do this sort of backdoor.”

President Trump’s decision to ease sanctions on Moscow for a diesel deal sets the stage for a major test of “whether engaging Russia advances America’s long-term strategic interests,” Wahab Raofi writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“Washington must prevent China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from turning their growing cooperation into a more powerful anti-U.S. coalition,” argues Mr. Raofi, an Afghan-born American writer. “These countries do not share identical goals, nor have they formed a unified bloc. Still, their partnership is growing, and their combined resources could pose a serious challenge to American interests.

“The goal should not be to turn Russia into an American ally or persuade [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to abandon Chinese President Xi Jinping. That is unlikely. A more realistic objective is to reduce Moscow’s willingness to support Beijing in areas that threaten American security,” Mr. Raofi writes. “If the president wants to follow Nixon’s example, he must demonstrate that engagement is weakening the partnership between Moscow and Beijing rather than subsidizing it. The goal is not to make Russia a friend; it is to prevent America’s adversaries from becoming more dangerous by helping one another.”

• Oct. 26 — U.S.-Republic of Korea Shipbuilding Cooperation: Taking Stock and Charting the Next Steps, Stimpson Center

• Oct. 27 — Chemistry of Combat: Rebuilding America’s Energetics Base, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 28 — China’s Power: Up for Debate 2026, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Oct. 30 — Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, on U.S. Strategy and Security in Africa, Atlantic Council

• Nov. 16 — The Black Sea Blueprint for Taiwan: Lessons in Asymmetric Naval Warfare, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Nov. 17 — Special Threat Status Event: The Golden Age of Space, Threat Status

• Nov. 20-22 — Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, HFX