The U.S. Navy has deployed the USS George Washington and its advanced F-35 jets to the contested South China Sea amid growing tensions between the Philippines and China. U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Lee Lipton says the carrier strike group is “upholding FREEDOM of Navigation and Overflight in the South China Sea.”

The deployment comes after a recent confrontation between Chinese coast guard ships and Philippine vessels that resulted in injuries to a Filipino seaman along with a harsh denunciation by the State Department of Chinese maritime bullying.

The Chinese coast guard injured the service member during a July 20 clash near the Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal. Philippine military personnel from a grounded naval vessel being used as a base at the shoal had launched two inflatable boats to intercept Chinese coast guard vessels when the confrontation occurred.

The Pentagon’s plan to take financial stakes in private companies could inflict long-term “unintended consequences” on the U.S. defense industry, Mr. Harrigan, a rising star on the Republican national security policy landscape, says in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast.

Mr. Harrigan, a combat-decorated Green Beret, is the latest high-profile Republican to raise questions about the Trump administration’s deepening financial footprint in the private defense sector. Some critics say the arrangements could unfairly tip the scales toward certain companies and, in the long run, erode market competition and make it harder for the military to obtain the munitions and raw materials it needs.

“I’m not comfortable with it at all, and I haven’t been comfortable with it since it began,” Mr. Harrigan told Threat Status. “I think it’s brilliant in the sense that it solves legitimate short-term problems that we have, but I think the long-term problem that it creates in anti-competitiveness is going to boomerang around to bite the defense industry right in the rear end.”

Mr. Zelenskyy has warned in recent days that North Korea is preparing to deploy 30,000 fresh troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. “Since June, preparations have been underway in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them,” he wrote on X on July 25. Voronezh, a transportation hub southeast of Moscow, lies about 95 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from South Korea that Russia needs combat troops, and North Korea, with the world’s fourth-largest army, has more than 1 million active troops. The economically challenged regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meanwhile, has been selling so many arms to Russia that the value of the exports over three years likely exceeds its annual gross domestic product.

Mr. Zelenskyy has said Kyiv also learned that Russia is preparing another round of its own mobilizations, claiming Moscow has enlisted 221,000 soldiers this year and sustained nearly 225,500 losses. A recent visitor to the Russian Far East told The Washington Times that recruiting stations are open around the clock in a bid, apparently, to lure late-night candidates for the armed services — especially those who might be under the influence of alcohol.

Mr. Trump’s high-stakes White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the first time the two have met since the Feb. 28 commencement of joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran — comes amid mounting uncertainty over the war’s future and the prospect that an Israel-Saudi normalization may be on the horizon.

“For President Trump, the meeting with Netanyahu will be all about making sure that Israel stays in line with U.S. strategy toward Iran,” says Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council. “Since the start of the war, we’ve seen Washington and Jerusalem drift apart on how they see the Iranian problem and how each would like the current war to be concluded.”

Mr. Trump last week offered a major nuclear deal to Iran rival Saudi Arabia on the condition the Saudis join the Abraham Accords and officially recognize Israel as a country. Riyadh has long said such recognition will happen only if the Israelis guarantee the creation of an independent Palestinian state — an unlikely prospect as long as Mr. Netanyahu remains in power in Jerusalem.

A new Chinese law “claims the right to punish people who have never set foot in China,” according to Stan Kwiatkowski, who writes in an op-ed for The Times that the “most alarming provision … states that organizations and individuals outside China who ‘undermine ethnic unity’ are to be pursued for legal responsibility.

“Amnesty International has warned that this clause could be used as a tool for transnational repression, and the vagueness is the point,” writes Mr. Kwiatkowski, a political commentator and host of the YouTube channels “Hard News” and “Freedom Is Not Free.”

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has warned the Chinese law codifies Beijing’s policies to erase the religion, culture and language of minority groups both inside and outside China. Mr. Kwiatkowski writes that the U.S. “must do everything it can to shield its residents from Beijing’s reach.”

• July 29 — The Democratic Republic of Congo at a Crossroads: Presidential Succession and Conflict in the East, Brookings Institution

• July 29 — North Korea’s Post-Party Congress Economic Course and Implications for the Korean Peninsula, Stimson Center

• July 30 — Responding to Global Threats: A Conversation with Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican, Hudson Institute

• July 30 — Future of U.S. Land Power: Under Secretary of the U.S. Army Mike Obadal, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• July 30 — The Board of Peace’s Gaza Plan: Broken or Working as Intended? Arab Center Washington, D.C.

• Aug. 4 — Navigating the Strait of Hormuz Energy Crisis: Global Policy Responses, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Aug. 4 — Taiwan’s Ever-Changing Security Environment, Hudson Institute

• Aug. 4-5 — 2026 Air Force & Space Force Procurement Conference, American Defense Alliance

• Aug. 5-6 — Border Security & Intelligence Summit, Defense Strategies Institute