Threat Status for Wednesday, June 24, 2026. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Retired Adm. John Richardson says U.S. technology can counter China’s larger fleet.
… The State Department has leveled fresh sanctions on the entities found to be “raising money” for Cuba’s communist regime.
… Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha made the offer during the annual General Assembly of the Organization of American States playing out this week in Panama City.
… The United Nations’ nuclear chief says inspectors will visit Iranian sites, but Tehran says only after a final deal is reached.
… Tokyo is fortifying relationships across the democratic world in defiance of Beijing.
… Retired Adm. Mark Montgomery and Rep. Keith Self of Texas published an analysis this week arguing “you can’t deter China by ignoring Europe.”
… Center for a New American Security Executive Vice President Paul Scharre writes in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. “no longer has a discernible advantage in emerging technologies and will not be able to gain one.”
… And Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Linda Robinson’s new book spotlights women leaders around the world who are combating authoritarianism.
That is the message from Adm. Richardson, a former chief of naval operations, who says the navy that wins a conflict in the critical Indo-Pacific region isn’t necessarily the one with the most hulls in the water.
China’s People’s Liberation Army navy, known as the PLAN, has a fleet of about 390 ships compared with 300 in the U.S. Navy. But a successful navy “will be the one that adapted most intelligently along the way, that kept pace with national strategy as it evolved, stayed ahead of the threat and exploited the technological revolution before the adversary could,” Adm. Richardson said in introductory remarks to IndoPac 2026, a national security forum hosted by Threat Status at the U.S. Navy Memorial.
Russia looks to be strengthening its air defenses around Moscow at the expense of the front lines in its war against Ukraine.
An analysis this week by the Institute for the Study of War think tank notes that the development comes as Ukrainian forces continue firing barrages of attack drones at targets in the Russian capital region.
The Kremlin has recently installed a Pantsir air defense system on a tower near Moscow’s main oil refinery. The system, according to the ISW analysis, includes a protective metal case similar to those found in occupied Ukraine, prompting military experts in Kyiv to assess that it was pulled from the front lines and sent to Moscow.
Furthermore, imagery of the deployed Pantsir shows it has only two of the standard launch missiles on one side, suggesting that Moscow may be contending with a shortage of interceptor missiles, according to the ISW. The think tank cited a recent report from CBS News that said Russia is experiencing a shortage of S-300 air defense missiles as Western sanctions limit its supply of key components.
President Trump’s order to acting Director of National Intelligence William J. Pulte to significantly downsize his agency and eliminate those he sees as political enemies has sparked bipartisan outrage. It also has refreshed debate over the office’s relevance, dredging up criticism that has plagued the Office of the Director of National Intelligence since it was created as part of an intelligence community overhaul after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Critics have long argued ODNI’s structure makes it vulnerable to political capture by the president. Because the director controls the president’s daily intelligence briefings, critics on both sides of the aisle say whoever holds the office can pressure analysts to reach conclusions that serve an administration’s interests rather than giving it the facts.
Democrats blame the Trump administration for gutting the office of Biden-era intelligence stalwarts. Conservatives say Obama-era holdouts used the office to try to delegitimize Mr. Trump’s 2016 election victory by amplifying intelligence assessments on Russian meddling. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton suggests ODNI be eliminated. “Time to return these officers back to their home agencies to focus on actual intelligence work,” the Arkansas Republican wrote on X this month.
American academics “operate within a culture that prizes free inquiry, open debate, dissent and the pursuit of truth wherever it leads. Chinese scholars operate within a political system that demands unanimity of opinion,” writes Miles Yu, director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center and a Threat Status opinion contributor.
“Challenging the Chinese Communist Party on any matter, big or small, can end a career, deepen surveillance or trigger criminal punishment,” Mr. Yu writes in his Red Horizon column for The Washington Times. “To treat these two groups as intellectual equals in a free marketplace of ideas is not enlightened but rather dangerously self-kidding.
“The issue is not whether Chinese scholars are intelligent or capable. Many are. The issue is whether they are free,” he writes. “Under such circumstances, virtually all academic exchanges with China’s scholars are not genuine dialogues but merely the importation of officially sanctioned CCP perspectives into institutions built on intellectual freedom.”
In recent days, Ukrainian drones reportedly struck a major oil refinery that “helps sustain Russia’s war economy. A few days earlier, Russian attacks damaged the Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a center of Ukraine’s religious life for nearly a millennium,” write Gary Marx and Shonda Werry.
“Ukraine targeted a facility fueling Russia’s war of aggression. The Kremlin, by contrast, targeted a place of worship,” Mr. Marx, who hosts “Peace & Power Ukraine” on Washington Signal, and Ms. Werry, who is president of Ukraine Orphan Outreach, write in an op-ed for The Times.
“That distinction between these targets gives the lie to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent claim that Moscow is targeting Ukraine’s ‘decision-making centers,’” they write. “The Kremlin hopes the world will believe its war is directed against military objectives, even as Russia’s military attacks continue to target civilian centers.”
• June 30 — AWS Summit, AI Technologies in the Public Sector, Amazon Web Services
• July 8-9 — Military Robotics and Autonomous Systems USA Conference, SAE Media Group
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