The weekend’s deadly Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s second-busiest airport have reignited questions about whether the U.S. will launch strikes against the Iran-backed rebel group. Mr. Trump said last week the U.S. won’t attack Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. 

But in the wake of the most recent Houthi assault, Mr. Trump left open the door to joining a Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthis. 

“We’re going to look at it,” Mr. Trump told reporters Saturday outside the White House. “We’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”

A growing fear in national security and military circles is that Houthi aggression — including disruptions of shipping through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait — will continue unless the U.S. intervenes. The Yemen-based rebel group has expanded the scale of its ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi civilian airports since Oct. 4, when Yemeni government-aligned forces launched a counteroffensive to retake territory on the Red Sea coastal plain, according to military analysts. 

There’s more to unpack on the future of the Army, the nation’s largest military service, as AUSA kicks off today. The leadership upheaval is at the top of the list. It’s the first AUSA with no Senate-confirmed Army secretary or chief of staff.

Acting Secretary Adam R. Telle took over following the resignation of Dan Driscoll in late August. Gen. Christopher LaNeve is the Army’s acting chief of staff following the firing of Gen. Randy George earlier this year.

In a statement to Threat Status, Mr. Telle described an Army in lockstep with the goals of Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth.

But sources, including former senior officers, question whether the Army is being shortchanged financially under the Trump administration. One source familiar with internal Pentagon budget debates said “the Army is just not winning the budget wars” in its fight for resources. The administration’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget includes a substantial funding boost for the Army, but that hike is far below the increases for the Space Force and Marine Corps. It’s also far below funding increases for Pentagon-wide spending programs outside the traditional military services.

One high-profile congressional Republican called it “beyond disgusting.” Another said it’s an effective way to “let every terrorist on earth see what happens when you kill American soldiers.”

Those two polar-opposite reactions — the first from Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the second from Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina — underscore just how divisive the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan has become. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was convicted of carrying out a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas. 

He’s set to be executed in December. But it’s not the death penalty itself driving the backlash. It’s the decision to stream the execution live. 

Only a small number of countries, such as Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea, still stage public executions. The last public execution in the U.S. happened in the 1930s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 

The Army Transformation Initiative. Project Janus. And Joint Interagency Task Force 401. Those three initiatives — a modernization overhaul, a plan to use nuclear microreactors on military bases and a major counter-drone push, respectively — are just three examples of a U.S. Army undergoing a historic transformation. 

But Rep. Rob Wittman, Virginia Republican, argues that the service still has a long way to go to meet its goals. And he says there is a right way and a wrong way to go about modernizing the service.

“Here’s the wrong way: Undertake sweeping reorganizations, propose major divestments and accelerate nascent technologies without giving Congress the budget details, tradeoffs, risk assessments and end-state vision necessary to understand where the Army is headed,” Mr. Wittman writes. “Congress wants to be, and is, a willing and able partner to affect these changes, but we cannot be effective without knowing where we’re heading.”

Mr. Wittman’s piece is part of The Washington Times special section “Equipping our warriors: The view from Capitol Hill.”

Mr. Trump made clear he doesn’t intend to order new strikes against Iran before the midterm elections. But should he reconsider?

Times Columnist Jed Babbin argues that perhaps he should — if it’s proven that Iran is connected to the recent attempted hijacking of a FlyDubai airliner or the apparent terrorist plot targeting a key U.S.-British military base in England. Failure to act, Mr. Babbin argues, would give Tehran a tacit green light to continue backing terrorist groups abroad, including those targeting the U.S. and its allies. 

“Mr. Trump said Iran will be ‘hit very hard’ if the investigations show that it was the source of the FlyDubai and RAF Fairford attacks, but his history of empty threats and broken promises does not inspire confidence,” Mr. Babbin writes. “Iran should be hit extremely hard if it is responsible for these terrorist attacks. The regime in Tehran appears to be keeping its promise to back militant groups worldwide. It takes little to do so: only a bit of money and perhaps some smuggled arms or explosives.”

• Oct. 12-14 — AUSA Annual Meeting and Expo, Association of the U.S. Army

• Oct. 13 — Strategic Landpower Dialogue: A Conversation with Gen. Xavier T. Brunson, Center for Strategic and International Studies 

• Oct. 14 — The Future of the U.S. Artificial Intelligence ‘Stack’ in the Middle East, Middle East Institute

• Oct. 14 — 2026 Energy & Defense Summit, Atlantic Council 

• Oct. 15 — The Rise and Fall of the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship After 9/11, Stimson Center

• Oct. 21 — A Discussion with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Andrew Puzder, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 22 — What’s at Stake in the Israeli Election? Brookings Institution 

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

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