What happened

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Monday that President Donald Trump ordered her to Atlanta last week for a controversial FBI raid to seize 2020 ballots and voter information from Fulton County. She also acknowledged, in a letter to the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees, that she “facilitated a brief phone call” between Trump and the Atlanta FBI team working on the politically charged case, part of the president’s effort to relitigate his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden. Trump on Monday suggested Republicans “take over” and “nationalize” voting, in contravention of the Constitution.

A lawyer for an intelligence community whistleblower also accused Gabbard of withholding from Congress a complaint about her conduct filed eight months ago. Gabbard’s spokesperson said the number of classified details in the complaint made it “substantially more difficult” to clear it for congressional review.

Who said what

The whistleblower complaint, “which is said to be locked in a safe,” evokes a “cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel,” involving not just Gabbard but also another federal agency and perhaps the White House, The Wall Street Journal said. Gabbard “has been an enigmatic figure in the Trump administration, sidelined from major national-security matters and tasked with investigating the results of the 2020 election.”

After a “rocky start,” Gabbard has been “boosting her standing within the administration” by “pursuing Trump’s election integrity priorities,” CNN said. But it is “unusual for America’s top intelligence official to be included in a domestic law enforcement operation” like the Atlanta raid, Reuters said. In her letter to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Gabbard said she was observing the FBI operation at Trump’s request and “under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security.” Warner’s office said Gabbard’s letter “raises more questions than it answers.”

What next?

The Atlanta FBI squad leader “primarily fielded” Trump’s queries during Gabbard’s “outside the bounds” speakerphone call, The New York Times said, citing three people with knowledge of the meeting. Gabbard said in her letter that Trump “did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directives.” But by speaking “directly to the frontline agents doing the granular work of a politically sensitive investigation in which he has a large personal stake,” the Times said, Trump “may have provided significant ammunition to any future defense should the investigation yield criminal charges.”

The proposed Chinese embassy in London is once again under intense scrutiny as the government struggles to balance opportunity with security concerns in its approach to Beijing.

Following multiple delays, Keir Starmer is set to approve plans for the biggest Chinese embassy in Europe, after MI5 and MI6 declined to raise formal objections. But concerns persist over the site on the Royal Mint Court complex, next to “some of Britain’s most sensitive communications cables”, said The Times. These carry financial data to the City of London, as well as “email and messaging traffic for millions of internet users”.

According to unredacted blueprints seen by The Telegraph, China plans to build a network of “secret rooms” beneath the embassy, including a “hidden chamber” over these cables, “raising the prospect that they could be tapped”.

What did the commentators say?

“China won’t say what the basement is for,” Alan Woodward, security expert at the University of Surrey, told The Telegraph. It could be “legitimate classified communications equipment”. But the demolition of the basement wall is a “red flag”. One possibility is that “China plans to install extensive computer infrastructure as part of an espionage operation”, said the paper. Security services have warned that Beijing is “carrying out mass espionage against British targets”, said The Times. The head of MI5 has previously described Chinese state actors as a daily national security threat.

A group of Labour MPs has written to Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, “urging the government not to approve” the embassy. Concerns remain “significant and unresolved”, including fears the complex could be used to “step up intimidation against diaspora and dissidents”.

“There have been a lot of examples before, where China used diplomatic premises to harass citizens or force people to travel back to China to face trials,” Carmen Lau, a prominent activist from Hong Kong who has been living in Britain since 2021, told Le Monde. “When I first arrived here, I felt safe. Not anymore.”

Approval of the complex could also jeopardise intelligence sharing with the US and the Five Eyes alliance, said the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Last year, a senior Trump administration official said the US was “deeply concerned about providing China with potential access to the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies”. Any reduction in sharing between two of the world’s most advanced intelligence agencies “would have serious consequences for both countries’ national security”.

But consolidating the seven sites in London that currently comprise “China’s diplomatic footprint” would “clearly bring security advantages”, the prime minister’s spokesperson said in December. China is “engaged in surveillance and interference operations, whether it has a new embassy or not”, Nigel Inkster, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Le Monde. “And it will probably be easier for British intelligence services to monitor its activities if they are all grouped together in one place.”

What next?

“National security is our first duty and government security experts have been involved throughout the process so far,” a government spokesperson told The Telegraph. All security implications “have been identified and addressed”.

China’s London embassy did not respond to The Telegraph’s requests for comment on the unredacted blueprints, but Beijing has previously denied all allegations of espionage at the site, saying that “anti-China elements are always keen on slandering and attacking China”.

Starmer will approve the plans by 20 January, ahead of his trip to Beijing, where a £100 million scheme to renovate the ageing British embassy is awaiting approval by the Chinese authorities.

Climate change doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our planet. It’s also ratcheting up national security risks. With increasing food insecurity, resource scarcity and unstable borders, climate change could lead to a rise in political tensions both within the U.S. and between other countries.

How is climate change a security risk?

An unpredictable climate “leads to heightened risks of interpersonal and intergroup violence,” said the World Economic Forum. A one-degree Celsius uptick in temperature can “increase interpersonal violence by approximately 2%, while intergroup conflict risk” can increase by “2.5% to 5%.” This is largely attributed to resource loss. With a two-degree change, “not only will there be continual extreme weather events, but the average climate will have changed so that crops now grown can no longer survive; water shortages will become widespread; and food will be in short supply,” said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, at Newsroom.

As a result, there will be climate refugees deepening “regional conflicts that could explode to encompass many countries,” said Trenberth. Climate change “takes things that we were already worried about, like extremism or terrorism, and exacerbates the scale or nature of those threats,” Scott Moore, a practice professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said to Time. “If you have these intensified climate change impacts, they place stress on things like food systems, and worsen already existing tensions within countries.”

The U.S., in particular, faces a “compounding threat when it comes to conflict, disease, migration, poverty,” as well as the “ability of the American military to operate effectively globally,” said Jake Sullivan, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, to The New York Times. In addition, playing a “leading role in the innovation and manufacturing of clean energy technologies” is “vital” for the U.S. economy.

What is the government doing about it?

The threat of climate change on national security has been identified on both sides of the U.S. political aisle, at least until recently. It was first acknowledged by President George W. Bush in 1991, and first listed as a threat by the U.S. national security community in 2008. However, in the U.S. intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, any mention of climate change was noticeably absent for the first time in more than a decade. Instead, they focused on the “most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security," said Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, in a Senate Intelligence Committee meeting when questioned about the climate change exclusion.

The Trump administration has been known to deny climate change and curtail programs dedicated to the environment or aid. It has “defunded climate science, shut down USAID, cut billions from foreign aid,” as well as “withdrawn America from the Paris Climate Agreement,” said William S. Becker at The Hill. Unfortunately, failing to acknowledge the threat climate change poses will make the administration's national security sector “less nimble,” said Mark Nevitt, an associate professor of law at Emory University, to Time. “You can’t just wish climate change away.”

“It has all the makings of a gripping spy novel,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Two young men – one a parliamentary researcher, the other a teacher – are accused of passing secrets to China; but amid “swirling political intrigue” the case mysteriously collapses weeks before going to trial.

The government has been forced to deny that it intervened in the case to appease China, after the Crown Prosecution Service accused it of failing to provide the necessary evidence to prosecute both Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry. The two men had been charged under the Official Secrets Act, accused of passing parliamentary information to Beijing between 2021 and 2023. The current government and the last one have blamed each other for failing to officially designate China a threat to national security – without which, it is argued, the case would have been thrown out.

Yesterday, No. 10 released three witness statements from Keir Starmer’s deputy national security adviser outlining the UK’s handling of espionage allegations that led to the case collapsing. These clearly state that China has been carrying out “large scale espionage” against the UK, but stressed the need for a “positive economic relationship” with Beijing.

‘Who knew what?’

“Key questions remain,” said The Telegraph, including “why did Starmer do nothing to prevent the case collapsing?” and “did the Chinese government make any representations to the UK about this case?”

Another “crucial question”, said Tom Peck in his political sketch for The Times, is “who knew China had become a threat and by when?” That matter “took over Prime Minister’s Questions” yesterday despite MPs admitting privately that they “don’t actually understand” the issue.

‘More confidence needed’

“You don’t need to be George Smiley to know that Beijing is doing everything it can to compromise our security,” said Michael Gove in the Daily Mail. Its spies “bribe, bully, honeytrap and eavesdrop” in order to acquire state secrets and intellectual property.

As well as a profound threat, China is also a crucial partner, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. So Labour’s balanced policy makes sense: engage, but “proceed with extreme caution”. What seems to be lacking is “confidence” in our values; there’s “an undue fear of ruffling China’s feathers”. Look at Germany. Its trading relationship with China is three times larger than ours, and yet last month a German national was imprisoned for spying for Beijing, without any trade bust-ups. Engagement is well and good, but with a nation as ruthless as China, “it works best in tandem with strength”.

Soon after former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz appeared at the center of a major scandal over the use of messaging app Signal, the White House found itself in trouble again when Waltz was photographed using another messaging app, TeleMessage. The latter was recently hacked and then suspended its service, causing more concern among national security experts.

What happened with the app?

The app in question, TeleMessage, was infiltrated by a hacker, who stole data containing the "contents of some direct messages and group chats sent using its Signal clone, as well as modified versions of WhatsApp," according to tech outlet 404Media, which first reported the incident. The app was reportedly used by high-level members of the Trump administration, including Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The hacker has "not obtained the messages of cabinet members, Waltz," or other White House officials, said 404Media. But TeleMessage confirmed the hack and "worked quickly to contain it and engaged an external cybersecurity firm to support our investigation," the app's parent company, Smarsh, said in a statement. Out of an "abundance of caution, all TeleMessage services have been temporarily suspended."

What is the White House connection?

The TeleMessage hack comes days after a "photograph of Mike Waltz, then the national security adviser, showed that he was using the application to read Signal messages on his phone," said The New York Times. The picture, taken by a Reuters photographer, depicted Waltz looking at what appeared to be the app while in a Cabinet meeting.

Experts raised issues over Waltz's use of TeleMessage due to potential security concerns surrounding encrypted messages. This also occurred after Waltz created a chat room on Signal to "discuss strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen, but inadvertently added a journalist from The Atlantic to the group," said the Times, which many believe may have contributed to Waltz's ousting as national security adviser.

Adding scrutiny to Waltz's use of TeleMessage during the Cabinet meeting is the fact that the photo "appeared to show chat logs on Waltz’s phone with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others," said CNN. Questions of TeleMessage's vulnerabilities have also been raised. Unlike Signal, which "automatically encrypts messages as they travel between users," the "details around TeleMessage's encryption and security protocols aren't fully clear," said NBC News.

Signal is "highly regarded by cybersecurity experts, but the federal government has specific systems and protocols for transmitting sensitive information and messages," said NBC. Using encrypted messages "poses a problem for officials subject to laws that require them to save their correspondence — creating a tension between the need for secrecy and archiving." TeleMessage previously had a message on its website that it was "conceived for just such a reason," said NBC, but this message no longer appears.

TeleMessage was "designed to capture the messages once they've been decrypted so they can be preserved and stored," said Reuters. That "functionality can be useful for complying with government rules on document retention but if poorly implemented it can introduce security risks."

President Donald Trump's second administration has not been lacking in scandal. One of the largest incidents recently occurred among high-ranking administration officials and has been dubbed "Signalgate." But this is far from the White House's only controversy related to national security.

Signalgate

On March 24, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, revealed that he had been added to a group chat in the messaging app Signal about an upcoming U.S. strike against the Houthis in Yemen. Members of the chat included Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and others.

Soon after Goldberg was added to the chat, bombs began falling in Yemen, confirming that the conversation was real. It is "not uncommon for national security officials to communicate on Signal," said Goldberg in his initial article. But the app is "used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters — not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action." The discussion "concerned the timing and rationale of attacks on the Houthis" and eventually "veered toward the operational," Goldberg said in a follow-up article.

The White House defended the use of Signal for these classified conversations, and Waltz later claimed that Goldberg had been "sucked into" the group chat. "Nobody was texting war plans," Hegseth later told reporters, an assertion that turned out to be false. But the event represented "what national security experts say is one of the most serious White House national security breaches in years, if not decades," said USA Today. Both Republicans and Democrats expressed concern over the leak, and some vowed to get to the "bottom of whether the security breach violated laws like the Espionage Act, which prohibits gathering, transmitting or losing national defense."

Use of Gmail

Following Signalgate, Waltz found himself in more hot water after a report in The Washington Post alleged that he used Gmail to conduct government business. Most damningly, a "senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies." This included emails concerning "sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict." The aide reportedly used their personal Gmail account, while other agency colleagues used their government Gmail accounts.

Waltz himself has had "less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents," according to the Post. Gmail counts millions of users and is much less secure than even Signal, so the incident "risks further damage to the standing of Waltz" and "places further scrutiny" upon U.S. intelligence agencies, said The Guardian. It marks the "latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials," said the Post.

NSA firings

Trump has taken drastic steps to reduce the size of the federal government, and some of these moves have generated national security concerns — most notably, a series of firings at the National Security Agency (NSA). The most significant axings were of U.S. Cyber Command head and NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and NSA Deputy Director Wendy Noble. Haugh was "ousted because Laura Loomer, a far-right wing conspiracy theorist and Trump adviser, had accused him and his deputy of disloyalty," said The New York Times.

Haugh and Noble were two of "several national security officials fired" on Loomer's advice, said the Times. Members of Trump's National Security Council were also let go, and the "criterion Loomer appears to be using as she looks to oust people she sees as disloyal is their connections to critics of the Trump administration." Congress members from both sides of the aisle expressed concern over the firings, though more of this anger came from Democrats. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) "raised alarm about Laura Loomer's influence in the Trump administration," said The Hill.

The firings "severely compromise our ability to keep Americans safe" and it is "inexplicable that the administration would remove the senior leaders of NSA/CYBERCOM without cause or warning, and risk disrupting critical ongoing intelligence operations," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement. Russia and China are "laughing at us because we just fired the absolute best leaders," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) to CBS News.

Defense cuts

Beyond slashing jobs, budget cuts could also cut into the country's national security apparatus, experts say. Trump has overseen a "systematic degradation of its national security apparatus in just two months," said Time, part of a $580 million cut in spending for the Department of Defense. This has led to "diminished cyber offensive and defensive operations" that "offer adversaries unnecessary relief and expose the U.S. to new threats. It's part of a weakening of government institutions that leaves American national security at risk, according to analysts.

When it comes to the fired Defense Department employees, it remains "unclear how many, if any, will be exempt due to national security considerations, and that it is still unclear how people will be contacted," said NPR. The "list of priorities and possible cuts has troubled some on Capitol Hill who could see their own priorities come to an end." The list of total budget cuts includes at least 80 CIA workers, and the White House is reviewing a list of 3,600 FBI employees, including those involved in the FBI's Jan. 6 investigation and members of the FBI's counterterrorism division, for potential dismissal," said Time.

Database consolidation

Many details about the lives of the 330 million Americans are held in disconnected databases across the federal government — but that could change if Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk get their way. The White House is "now trying to connect the dots of that disparate information," according to The New York Times. This includes sensitive data such as gross income, Social Security numbers, medical records, gambling debts and "at least 263 more categories of data."

Trump has signed an executive order calling for the "consolidation of unclassified agency records" throughout federal agencies as part of his plan to weed out fraud. But this raised the "prospect of creating a kind of data trove about Americans that the government has never had before, and that members of the president's own party have historically opposed," said the Times.

Musk and DOGE have reportedly attempted to access large swaths of Americans' personal information in order to consolidate it, ignoring the "objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections," said the Times. While the "unclassified agency records" do not contain classified data, they included "personally sensitive information on virtually everyone in America." If Trump and Musk's plan came to fruition, it could "create a national security vulnerability that could be targeted by hostile nation states."

What happened

China Tuesday claimed the U.S. National Security Agency carried out "advanced" cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and athletes during the Asian Winter Games in February. Police in Harbin, which hosted the games, accused three Americans allegedly affiliated with the NSA of carrying out the hacks, as well as cyberattacks on Huawei Technologies.

Who said what

China's "detailed allegations" about NSA theft of sensitive data of athletes and essential industries come as Beijing and Washington "spiral deeper into a trade war," Reuters said. The U.S. "routinely accuses" China of cyberattacks on "critical infrastructure and government bodies."

Chinese officials "acknowledged in a secret December meeting" in Geneva that "Beijing was behind a widespread series of alarming cyberattacks" on "U.S. ports, water utilities, airports and other targets," The Wall Street Journal reported last week. The "first-of-its-kind" tacit admission "startled American officials" used to hearing Chinese officials blame the campaign "on a criminal outfit or accuse the U.S. of having an overactive imagination."

What next?

U.S.-China relations "have sunk to a new low" since the December meeting, the Journal said, and top Trump administration officials say the Pentagon will "pursue more offensive cyber strikes against China" as Beijing continues to "mine its extraordinary access to U.S. telecommunications networks."

The Trump administration's "Signalgate" scandal remains very much in the "questions" phase as the White House struggles to explain how The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a secret, unsecured group chat of national security officials. Since the news broke, politicians and pundits have argued over everything from the semantics of "top secret" designations to the looming question of what consequences those responsible for the breach might face.

Prompted by the administration's insistence that it has done nothing wrong, Goldberg has continued to release details about his experience as an unseen observer to military coordination among Cabinet secretaries. Initially withheld by Goldberg for fear of endangering U.S. troops and exposing their operational capacities, the tranche of specifics published by The Atlantic not only seems to disprove the government's denials but also brings into sharper focus the operational dangers this chat may have caused. Given the latest revelations, there are tactical risks that have national security experts worried.

What did the commentators say?

The unredacted texts shared by Goldberg contained "very specific details of the timing of the launches from carriers of the planes that were to strike Houthi targets" in Yemen, said national security reporter Julian Barnes at The New York Times. Typically, information about the timing of a pending airstrike is "closely guarded" to "ensure that the targets cannot move into hiding" or even "mount a counterattack" while the attack is underway. If the details discussed in the chat had been seen "at the wrong time by the wrong person," said former Naval aviator Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on X, it could have put active-duty soldiers at "serious risk of being harmed or killed."

The "specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets" shared by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may not have been official "war plans," a term that carries a "specific meaning," said The Associated Press. But it was "likely informed by the same classified intelligence" as those officially designated documents and risked "tipping off adversaries of the pending attack." The details shared by Hegseth could have allowed adversaries to "evacuate targeted areas ranging from command and control centers, to communication sites and firing positions," said CNN, or even to "mass anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons to overwhelm U.S. pilots."

More broadly, sharing "targeting plans and the employment of American forces" as well as the sequence of such an attacks — information that would in other circumstances likely be highly classified — can provide "insights on how the U.S. conducts sensitive military operations" at large, said The Wall Street Journal. "Our adversaries are watching and learning," said Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack (Ret.) to News Nation. The incident offers "unprecedented insight into U.S. military decision-making processes for China, Russia and Iran."

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was included in the group chat, pushed back on the assertion that foreign adversaries could have capitalized on the information shared by Hegseth. "There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared," Gabbard said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday. The fact that the Yemen operation was successful is proof that no serious harm was done by those participating in the chat, the White House has claimed.

What next?

Beyond any political ramifications for the Trump administration and growing questions about how it coordinates and secures sensitive conversations over commercial software, Signalgate could lead to concrete operational challenges for the intelligence community. There is potential for "significant damage" to crucial international intelligence sharing operations, said The Hill, "particularly with the Five Eyes alliance" of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and the U.K. Both allies and adversaries will likely ask themselves: "can the U.S. government keep sensitive information in a secure manner?" said former Assistant Defense Secretary Mara Karlin to the BBC.

"Intelligence cooperation and sharing relies on trust," former State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at Foreign Policy. "Something like this really erodes the fabric of trust that friendly intelligence agencies have with us" and will make allies "think twice" about divulging their own secrets.

What happened

A group of top Trump administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed detailed operational plans on striking Yemen in a group text conversation on Signal, Jeffrey Goldberg said at The Atlantic Monday.

Goldberg, the magazine's editor in chief, said he knew about the secret group chat because he was added to the conversation, presumably by accident, by national security adviser Michael Waltz.

Who said what

The White House is "reviewing how an inadvertent number was added" to what "appears to be an authentic message chain," National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said. "I don't know anything about it," President Donald Trump told reporters. "You're telling me about it for the first time."

Hegseth criticized Goldberg and insisted that "nobody was texting war plans." Hegesth "can say that it wasn't a war plan," Goldberg replied on MSNBC, "but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen," including "precise details" like targets and weapons.

Discussing "sensitive war plans" on a "publicly available encrypted messaging service" was an "extraordinary" and "mind-boggling security breach" that highlighted the Trump team's "lax handling of America's secrets," Axios said. "Well, somebody f--ked up," said Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.). "Heads should roll," Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) told Axios.

What next?

Goldberg's revelations "triggered furious discussion inside the White House" that Waltz "may need to be forced out," Politico said, though Trump will "ultimately make the decision" as he "watches coverage of the embarrassing episode." Two people on the chat, Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, will face questions on the breach when they appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday and House Intelligence Committee Wednesday.

The world's major powers are locked into an artificial intelligence arms race. But new rules announced by the White House on Monday seek to guarantee American supremacy in that race.

The Biden administration's "unprecedented new export controls" intend to keep AI technology from falling into Chinese hands, said The Washington Post. The controls restrict the sale of AI-capable chips to "most countries in the world," part of an effort to keep Beijing from repurchasing American-made chips sold to third-party countries. America "leads the world in AI now, both AI development and AI chip design," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, "and it's critical that we keep it that way."

Biden is "rushing" to restrict AI chip exports because recent developments suggest that China is "catching up in the race" to create massively powerful AI systems, said Time. The Chinese company DeepSeek recently released an open-source AI model that "outperformed any American open-source language model." The development surprised officials "who had believed China lagged behind in terms of AI capabilities." The new rules are a "decisive move to make life much harder for China's AI ecosystem," said Greg Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The 'contest for geopolitical superiority'

America and China are in "grim competition" with each other, and "both intend to be prepared for war," Ezra Klein said at The New York Times. AI superiority is now seen as "central to both sides of the conflict." DeepSeek's new model is part of a new wave of AI systems that can be built cheaply and stored on personal computers. But calls for restraint in the AI arms race will probably take second place to the "contest for geopolitical superiority," Klein said. America is the "leading power when it comes to artificial intelligence," said Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor. "And we intend to keep it that way."

To do that, the new rules "strangle competition" in the tech marketplace, Chris Stokel-Walker said at Fast Company. Banning exports to China "makes sense, given how integral AI will be to shaping our future." But blocking exports to 120 other countries is harder to justify. That seems less about protecting America and "more like an overtly protectionist trade policy." That makes it "more likely countries will look towards China" to power their own AI efforts, Stokel-Walker said.

How long will U.S. lead last?

It's not just chip exports: Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order to ensure that AI data centers and clean-power facilities that supply them energy "can be built quickly and at scale," said The Associated Press. "We will not let America be out-built" in the AI industry, Biden said.

American chipmaker Nvidia and the European Union have both "expressed their displeasure" with the new rules, said Karl Freund, founder and analyst at Cambrian-AI Research, at Forbes. The winner? Beijing. China's chips are slower "but at least you can get them." For AI developers in Africa, South America or Asia, the Biden administration rules mean Chinese technology might "become your best and perhaps only choice." The new rules will slow down China's AI development, Freund said. "But for how long?"

An alleged Chinese spy who reportedly sought to gain influence in the UK by becoming a close confidant of Prince Andrew was named today as Chinese businessman Yang Tengbo.

The suspected agent, previously only identified as "H6", was banned from the UK last week. Yang, also known as Chris Yang, appealed against his initial ban in March 2023, but the decision was upheld by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. In a published ruling, the judge said that the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, was "entitled to conclude that [H6] represented a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom".

This is not the first time questions have been raised about those attempting to get access to members of the royal family. An alleged Russian spy met Prince Charles and Prince William in the late 2000s after working for MI6, the Daily Mail reported earlier this year.

And before he became King, Prince Charles faced scrutiny over his access to confidential cabinet papers, information that was only revealed after a three-year battle under freedom of information legislation.

What did the commentators say?

The Duke of York has long been "dogged by questions about two overlapping problems – his judgement and his finances", said the BBC. The latest revelations are a reminder "of how the royals can be targeted by those wanting to build links either for their own personal ambition or for a strategic political agenda".

Prince Andrew is no longer a working royal and "operates outside the royal fold". A letter found in Yang's possession "suggests the risks of such a position", describing the prince as "in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything".

Indeed, the letter reveals just how blind Andrew is to his own "vulnerability" from a national security perspective, said The Guardian "The alarm bells didn't ring for him," constitutional law expert Craig Prescott told the paper. "He could ultimately have been put in a very, very compromised position had MI5 not raised the alarm, ultimately."

The revelations that the alleged Chinese spy "was able to befriend Prince Andrew and enter Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace and Windsor Castle at his invitation is scarcely believable", said The Sunday Times in an editorial.

But the affair goes beyond the Duke of York's conduct and speaks to deeper issues with a royal family whose chief members "instinctively loathe transparency" and "supine" MPs who are all too willing to overlook "dubious associations and opaque finances".

What next?

Prince Andrew's office has said he has "ceased all contact" with Yang after receiving advice from the government, and claimed the two never discussed sensitive matters.

Yang today issued a statement in which he said he has "done nothing wrong or unlawful". He added: "The widespread description of me as a 'spy' is entirely untrue."

But the allegations are likely to cause some trouble for Keir Starmer and his bid to establish closer ties with Beijing. Labour MPs are "among those urging caution about the government's warmer approach to China", said The Guardian.

MI5 has "a hell of a job on its hands", according to its director-general.

Russia and Vladimir Putin's "henchmen" are "on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets", said Ken McCallum, in the security service's first yearly threat update since 2022. The UK also faces "plot after plot" by Iran. The two autocratic states are acting with "increasing recklessness", with the number of investigations into state threats shooting up by 48% in the last year.

The most concerning trend is "the worsening threat from al-Qaeda, and in particular from Islamic State", he told a press conference in London. It all adds up to "the most complex and interconnected threat environment we've ever seen".

What did the commentators say?

In the past, MI5's "menu of significant targets was a limited one", said The Times. Today, "the picture is more varied". Terrorism plots have been joined by a "spectrum of threats from malign state actors like Russia and Iran". And "the sheer number of plots is sobering".

Since March 2017 the UK has disrupted 43 late-stage and potentially deadly terrorist attack plots: "an average of one every two months". Although more than 750 Russian diplomats have been expelled from Europe since the invasion of Ukraine, most of them spies, Russia is still threatening Britain with plots involving "assassination, kidnap and sabotage": effectively a "secret war".

Russia is the "more professional opponent", but the threat from Iran has increased at an unprecedented scale. Since January 2022, intelligence has detected about 20 Iran-backed operations aimed at dissidents and journalists living in the UK. 

Elsewhere, IS is "once again firmly in the crosshairs" of MI5, said London news producer Rob Picheta for CNN. Since the fall of its so-called caliphate across Iraq and Syria, the group has "morphed into a terror network" with cells all over the world. 

"After a few years of being pinned well back, they've resumed efforts to export terrorism," McCallum said. The deadly concert hall attack in Moscow in March, by IS offshoot Isis-K, was a "brutal demonstration of its capability". Al-Qaeda has also "sought to capitalise on conflict in the Middle East, calling for violent action". Currently, about 75% of counter-terrorism casework is related to Islamic extremism. 

But there is another big factor "not to be underestimated", said Sky News home editor Jason Farrell: the far-right. This "dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies", drawn mostly from online conspiracy theories, hatred and disinformation, now accounts for about 25% of MI5's counter-terrorism work. Of all forms of extremism, "lone individuals, indoctrinated online, continue to make up most of the threats".

One in eight people being investigated are under 18 years old – a three-fold increase in three years, and "not something I expected to see", said McCallum. "Extreme right-wing terrorism in particular skews heavily towards young people, driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture."

McCallum was "notably less hawkish on China", said Politico. "China is different," he said. "The UK-China economic relationship supports UK growth, which underpins our security."

That raised "a few hack eyebrows", said Politico's London Playbook. Might we describe it as "kindly noises ahead of Rachel Reeves' reported trip to China?"

When asked about the lack of criticism, McCallum said he "had not intended to diminish" the importance of the threat from Beijing.

What next?

"With the levels of threat I've described, the decisions MI5 has to take on allocating our finite capacity are harder than I can recall in my career," the MI5 chief said, with three weeks to go until the chancellor unveils her budget.

When asked whether MI5's caseload was too high, as it was in 2022 when Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee warned of too much work and not enough funding, McCallum responded: "Things are absolutely stretched."

The UK terrorist threat level remains at "substantial" – the third-highest out of five – which means an attack is "likely". At some point, a plot will succeed, said The Times. Still, that is "no reason to abandon" the UK's support of Ukraine and backing of Israel, which is fuelling the increased threat from Russia and Iran.

But the UK "must also look to its young people and how to protect them from the hatred they ingest from the web". One in eight terrorist suspects being under 18 is "a chilling figure".

Police are investigating the "unexplained death" of a former Royal Marine charged with spying for Hong Kong's intelligence services.

The body of Matthew Trickett was found in a park in Maidenhead, Berkshire on Sunday evening, days after he was released on bail. The 36-year-old, originally from Poole in Dorset, was employed by Immigration Enforcement in February, and had previously worked for Border Force UK.

In court proceedings it emerged that Trickett, who served in the Royal Marines between 2007 and 2013, had attempted to end his life while in custody, said The Times. 

Trickett and co-defendants Chi Leung Wai and Chung Biu Yuen were accused of carrying out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living in the UK on behalf of the region's government. Wai was also employed by Border Force UK and runs a private security company, while Yuen is a retired Hong Kong police officer now working as a trade official in London.

On Monday, they were charged under the National Security Act with offences relating to "information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception that were likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service". They were also separately charged with "trying to break into the home of a Hong Kong dissident living in Pontefract" on 1 May, The Telegraph said.

All three were granted bail, subject to conditions including a prohibition on foreign travel, restrictions on internet access, and weekly registration at their local police station. The Thames Valley police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct due to the death following police contact, as is standard in such cases. 

China "reacted angrily" to the charges, condemning what it called an "unwarranted accusation", said The Telegraph. 

Relations between Hong Kong and its former colonial ruler Britain have "soured" in the wake of pro-democracy protests in the Chinese city in 2019 and 2020, said CNN.

The British government has "criticised Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed crackdown" on opposition activists while Hong Kong authorities have "bristled at Britain providing a safe haven" for pro-democracy leaders tracked by Hong Kong police.

The Home Office is understood to have ordered "a review of Border Force and Immigration Enforcement recruitment, vetting and supervision procedures" in light of the arrests, said The Telegraph.

Europe needs to be ready to go it alone. After decades of relying on the United States and NATO to shoulder the burden of its defense, Reuters said, French President Emmanuel Macron last week declared that the continent must build "stronger, more integrated European defenses." That means building industrial capacity and its own anti-missile shield. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has made the need clear, Macron said. "There is a risk our Europe could die. We are not equipped to face the risks." 

Nuclear weapons may also be part of the mix. France already has an atomic arsenal, The Wall Street Journal said, but it may be time to "Europeanize" those weapons to protect the country's allies from attack, Macron said over the weekend. "This deterrence contributes to the credibility of European defense," he said in an interview. Other European countries might be ready to go along: Some German officials are reportedly looking to France and the U.K. to provide a nuclear umbrella for the continent "should the U.S. no longer be willing to fulfill that role."

That willingness (or lack thereof) was hovering over Macron's remarks. Former President Donald Trump might be in the White House next year, and he has made clear his antipathy to NATO. "Macron has no illusions about the future of U.S. commitment to European security," Gérard Araud said at the Atlantic Council blog. Even if President Joe Biden wins reelection, some level of "disengagement" by America is probably coming: "Brutal with Trump, gradual with Biden."

What did the commentators say?

"Europeans need to get their act together on defense," Kate Hansen Bundt said at Carnegie Europe. But that should be in the context of a "strengthened European pillar" of NATO — not a Europe-only approach. Post-Brexit Britain is part of NATO but not the European Union, so moving forward with an EU-centric defense strategy would mean excluding "Europe's strongest military power." France should take the lead in coordinating "true European capabilities" within NATO, to make Macron's vision become reality. "Visions are one thing; concrete action is what matters."

Macron has been calling for "European security and strategic autonomy" since he first took office in 2017,  Carine Guerout and Jason C. Moyer said at the Wilson Center. Russia's attack on Ukraine spurred his original vision into something closer to reality. Now "military budgets are reaching unprecedented levels." With his latest speech, Macron has positioned himself as a "disruptor" to decades of received wisdom about European security arrangements. "At the very least he does not accept the current order and is willing to openly question it."

The French leader "is determined to make a lasting impact on the EU," Ania Nussbaum said at Bloomberg. Macron is "well positioned to advocate for Europe" but the next step requires that his "ideological victories translate into concrete action." That might be a problem. Macron's peers think he's better at grandstanding than "quiet diplomatic coordination" with his colleagues. And while France has increased its defense production, the "continent is nowhere near being the 'war economy' that Macron proclaimed in the summer of 2022."

What next?

There is some action, however. Britain last week pledged to boost its own defense budget by £75 billion over six years to "pile pressure on European allies to follow suit," said Politico. "We can't keep thinking America will pay any price or bear any burden if we are unwilling to make sacrifices for our own security," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said during a visit to Poland.  

But it's not clear when — or if — Europe will be able to stand on its own. "Many E.U. officials believe there is currently no credible alternative to the U.S. military umbrella," said NBC News. But Macron insists the continent has no choice but to prepare. "The United States has two priorities: the United States first and the China question second," he said. "The European question is not a geopolitical priority." 

Here's a paradox: Donald Trump faces trial for mishandling national secrets. But as the GOP's presidential nominee, he will be eligible for regular intelligence briefings by the federal government in the months leading up to November's election. The Biden administration is sticking with that "normally humdrum" tradition, Politico said, even though the briefings are "fraught with unusual risk this year due to the pending court case." Said one former intelligence official: "I'd be afraid about giving him stuff."

It's not just his history of cavalier treatment of classified docs, The Guardian said. Trump's "bromance" with Russian leader Vladimir Putin also raises concerns in the intelligence community. "I think Trump and Putin are natural bedfellows," said Douglas London, a retired CIA operations officer. That is why some Democrats are sounding the alarm. "There is literally nothing about Trump that suggests he would put our country's interests ahead of his own interests under almost any circumstances," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

One of Trump's former underlings is urging the White House to reconsider. "I don't think it makes any sense,” said John Bolton, who served as national security adviser before a highly publicized break with Trump. He was "perplexed" by the Biden administration's willingness to provide the briefing to Trump.

What did the commentators say?

"Trump is an anti-American, debt-ridden, unstable man who has voiced his open support for violent seditionists," Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic. For most Americans seeking security clearances to view classified information, the former president's history would be a deal-breaker. Trump has already proven he "cannot be trusted with classified information." This is why President Joe Biden's administration should skip the tradition of providing classified briefings to presidential nominees. "If Trump were a federal employee, he'd have likely already been stripped of his clearances and escorted from the building."

"If there's anyone in American politics less deserving of access to sensitive security information, I can't think of them," Steve Benen said at MSNBC. Trump has already spent years "carelessly and recklessly sharing sensitive national security information" — remember when he revealed secret info to Russian officials during an Oval Office visit in 2017? That makes a fresh round of briefings an "exceedingly dangerous idea."

"This decision is one of many where Biden is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't," Frederick Baron said at CNN. If briefings must be given, it should be with strict protocols in place — perhaps briefing Trump alone, without staff members, so that "if leaks occur he will be pinpointed as the obvious source." But it's important for Biden to uphold norms and traditions, even where Trump is concerned. Preserving American democracy means upholding the "balanced standards that have long sustained our system of government." And that means letting Trump have the briefings.

What next?

Trump doesn't seem to be doing much to allay concerns. His campaign is hiring Paul Manafort, The Washington Post said — the former lobbyist and Trump adviser whom a 2020 Senate report called a "grave counterintelligence threat" because of Manafort's links to a Russian spy. (Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020 for convictions on "money laundering, obstruction and foreign lobbying violations.") Manafort would give other prospective presidents pause, but the move would be "characteristically defiant" for Trump.

Some officials are urging the intelligence community to hold back a little bit, The Hill said. "I have to hope, and knowing the Intelligence Community as I do, that they will dumb down the briefing for Donald Trump," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Why? "He's been so reckless."

In the meantime, the documents case against Trump isn't going away. Judge Aileen Cannon last week rejected an attempt by the former president's attorneys to dismiss the charges, said NPR. But there's a good chance that an actual trial in the case might be delayed until after the November election — by which time Americans will have decided if Trump gets to continue receiving classified briefings.

China is boosting its defense budget. It is ratcheting up its rhetoric against Taiwan. And also: It is trying to get its economy growing again. The country will boost its military spending by 7.2% this year, Reuters said, "fueling a military budget that has more than doubled under President Xi Jinping's 11 years in office." The announcement came at the National People's Congress, a "rubber-stamp parliament" that also officially adopted new language that drops any mention of "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan. All of this comes amid an entrenched economic slump: The rise in defense spending "comes in well above the government's economic growth forecast for this year," which has been targeted at 5%.

"Few things — not even a budget deficit of 3% of gross domestic product — will stand in the way of Beijing increasing defense spending," said the Financial Times. China's military budget has more than doubled under President Xi Jinping (though it still trails American defense spending) and that increase has been "matched by a growing number of regional disputes." But Xi has pledged to give his country a "world-class force" by 2027, and that means the military will "grow regardless of the economic health of China."

That health is shaky, CNN said. China's economy has been battered by a "troubled property sector, deflationary pressures, an exodus of foreign capital, a battered stock market and a record low birth rate." Hitting the 5% target, said one expert, is "ambitious but achievable."

'Gearing up for war'

The continued military spending — along with the change of rhetoric — suggests that Beijing is "gearing up for war," said Business Insider. China hasn't always used the word "peaceful" to describe its goal of reunification with Taiwan, but it's clear the country's leaders are now intent on "taking a tougher approach" to the island. The defense budget shows that leadership "wants to grow its military to the point where it is prepared to win a war if it has no choice but to fight one," said Li Mingjiang, a defense scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, to Reuters.

Other observers are playing down the increase, saying it reflects a focus on "military readiness, not imminent war," said the South China Morning Post. "The cost of high-tech equipment is rising and the increase in military spending is normal to adapt to the advancements in military equipment," said a "former equipment expert" for the People's Liberation Army. That doesn't mean war is on the horizon. "The current situations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea are controllable and preventable," said Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel.

"Alarms should be ringing" in Taiwan and the United States, defense analyst Ben Lewis said in The New York Times. China's military has ratcheted up provocative air and naval activity around Taiwan in recent years, raising the "risk of an accidental confrontation." Increased military spending only makes that confrontation more likely, Michael Beckley and Hal Brands said at Foreign Policy. "One reason China has become more combative is because it can." 

No 'policy bazooka'

Sustaining that increased spending on the armed forces will be a lot easier, though, if the Chinese economy grows along with it. That's not a sure thing. While officials have set that "ambitious" economic growth target of 5%, they offered no "showstopping moves" to get there, The New York Times said. "Anybody who is looking for the policy bazooka is going to be disappointed," said Andrew Polk, the co-founder of Trivium China. The focus, it seems, is on actual bazookas. 

That's because Xi is giving "priority to strategic autonomy over economic growth," said The Wall Street Journal. Building the military is more important than building the economy. Why? It's all about power. "Xi clearly believes that a stringent focus on security can fend off any threats to his power stemming from China's current economic challenges," said Craig Singleton, the senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The next year could determine if Xi is right. 

American officials have spent the last few months warning against the possibility of a "wider war" in the Middle East. The deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan may prove a critical moment in that effort.

National security hawks are urging President Joe Biden to launch an attack on Iran, which backs the militias that launched the deadly drone attack in Jordan. "Hit Iran now," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote this week on social media. "Hit them hard." (Iran, for what it's worth, denied direct involvement in the attacks.) Politico reported that Biden administration officials are trying to figure out how to maintain a tricky balance with a response that "forcefully deter other attacks while also not further inflaming a smoldering region."

Iran-backed militias have attacked other U.S. bases in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, Reuters observed, but never to such deadly effect. But Biden has avoided targeting Iran directly "out of fear of igniting a broader war." That's the biggest risk at the moment, observers say. "When you do things overtly you represent a major escalation for the Iranians," said the Center for a New American Security's Jonathan Lord.

This means that Biden's options "range from the unsatisfying to the highly risky," The New York Times reported. "There are no good choices, but the deaths and wounds of so many U.S. troops and SEALs demand a strong response," said one retired admiral. The U.S. and Iran have long been rivals, but have spent decades avoiding a direct war for fear of a never-ending "cycle of strikes and counterstrikes once an all-out conflict began." The attack in Jordan may have triggered that cycle. 

What did the commentators say?

"The sorry truth is that these casualties are the result of the President's policy choices," The Wall Street Journal editorialized. Iranian proxies have attacked American targets more than 150 times since the Israel-Hamas war started in October, inviting only "limited airstrikes" in response. The best choice now is to use "devastating force" against Iranian military and commercial targets. Will Biden make that decision? Maybe not. "The president has put his anxieties about upsetting Iran and risking escalation above his duty to defend U.S. soldiers abroad."

"Has the point of no return been reached?" Simon Tisdall asked at The Guardian. A military attack by the U.S. in Iran would have devastating ripple effects — prolonging the Gaza fighting, bringing Iran-backed Hezbollah into the war against Israel, and more broadly destabilizing the region. It's in nobody's interest to see that series of events. "Direct American military retaliation against Iran itself would be a disaster."

"Fortunately, Biden is thinking carefully" about the U.S. response, David Ignatius argued at The Washington Post. Any retaliation would aim to reduce the threats against U.S. forces. Attacking Iran, meanwhile "would risk a much wider war." The best way to end those threats would be to "broker a deal" that ends the fighting between Israel and Hamas. What's clear: Biden faces hard choices. "He's likely to take decisive action, but think hard about the consequences of the option he chooses."

What next?

American officials are trying to signal balance. "We're not looking for another war, but we absolutely will do what we have to do to protect ourselves," said the National Security Council's John Kirby. But it's clear they hold Iran responsible for the attack. "We're mindful" of Iran's "destabilizing behavior," Kirby said, as well as "the influence that they have in the region."

The response is coming soon. On Tuesday morning, Biden told reporters he holds Iran responsible for the Jordan attack — and that he has made a decision about how to respond. "They're supplying the weapons to the people who did it," he said, but added: "I don't think we're looking for a wider war in the Middle East, that's not what I'm looking for."

Kim Jong Un is rattling cages again.

The North Korean leader "could take some form of lethal military action against South Korea" in the near future, The New York Times reported, after engaging in a "pattern of provocations" and abandoning a long-held policy of trying to engage the United States diplomatically. Is a full-blown war imminent? Maybe not, but Kim "could carry out strikes in a way that he thinks would avoid rapid escalation."

Among the provocations: North Korea this week test-fired a new cruise missile — potentially capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads — with several launches aimed toward the Yellow Sea. That came after Pyongyang ordered the destruction of the Arch of Reunification, a symbol of hopes for peace on the Korean peninsula. Newsweek reported that North Korea even released a series of propaganda posters with alarming slogans: "Let us destroy the U.S. imperialists and the clan of the Republic of Korea without mercy!"

Most importantly, The Associated Press reported, Kim earlier this month announced he had abandoned "the existential goal of reconciling with rival South Korea." That was a move that came as a shock, but was also the "inevitable culmination of years of building tension." And that has raised concerns. "Is Kim Jong Un about to take North Korea to war?" asked NBC News. It might seem like old news: "Threats and angry rhetoric" are an old family tradition for Kim. But some observers say his latest rhetoric goes beyond the usual posturing.

What did the commentators say? 

"We believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war," Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried Hecker wrote at 38 North, a website that tracks developments on the peninsula. One reason is the failure of diplomacy. Kim met with then-President Donald Trump in 2019 — an unprecedented summit between the two sides — in hopes of achieving what his predecessors never could: Normalization with the United States. "When that failed, it was a traumatic loss of face for Kim." And that makes the situation unstable. "Pyongyang could be planning to move in ways that completely defy our calculations."

"There's another, more plausible explanation for the despot's behavior," Josh Rogin argued at The Washington Post. Kim's "real priority" is to build his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who has been buying and using North Korean weaponry in the war against Ukraine. Raising tensions in Asia lets Kim "justify his use of North Korea's money and industry for its weapons business rather than feeding its people."

Harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang might actually be a way to get diplomatic attention, John Feffer suggested at Responsible Statecraft. This means Kim's provocations might be "perversely, a determination to restart peace talks with newly attentive adversaries." But some analysts believed the same thing about Putin as he threatened war against Ukraine in the waning months of 2021. The lesson? "Beware wishful thinking."

What next?

Whether or not war develops, Voice of America reported, Kim's belligerence — along with his growing ties with Russia — is proving "disruptive to Beijing's efforts to improve its relationship with Washington." And it complicates an already tender picture in the Pacific. "North Korea making trouble for the U.S. is in China's interest," said one expert, "as long as it does not get out of control and risk war that China does not want — at least not until China is ready." 

In the meantime, officials in Washington and Seoul are downplaying the possibility of conflict, Reuters reported. War would be bad for North Korea, too. Count Sydney Seiler, a former U.S. intelligence officer, among the skeptics. "This," he said, "is not a country that is going to a war footing."

The head of the British Army has said that the UK should train a "citizen army" ready to fight a future land war.

Highlighting the threat from Russia, and noting steps being taken by other European nations such as Sweden and Germany to put their populations on a "war footing", General Patrick Sanders said that "we must similarly prepare – and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking.

"Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars, citizen armies win them."

Who would be involved?

Sanders, who is chief of the general staff, was not advocating for conscription or for an imminent call-up of volunteers, but his speech at a military conference this week was intended to be "a wake-up call for the nation". 

He was "urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break out", said the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Beale. So a citizen army would almost certainly be comprised of individuals who are not career soldiers but rather civilians who can be called upon in times of need.

During the Second World War, the age range of those called up for service was 18 to 41, but in Ukraine, men aged 27 to 60, even without military experience, can currently be called up to fight. 

Women have been allowed to serve in all combat roles in the British Armed Forces since 2018, so it is likely that women would be called up.

Military experts hope that Sanders's call will help create a "second echelon" of reserve forces that could number up to half a million trained volunteers, said the London Evening Standard.

What would they do?

A Whitehall source told The Times that the British military’s role in training Ukrainian civilians and soldiers could act as a "mission rehearsal" for the UK. British troops have trained more than 30,000 Ukrainians, "many of them civilians who have never fired a weapon".

These Ukrainians, including "former lorry drivers and shopkeepers", were "put through an intensive five-week course" and Ministry of Defence officials believe there are "useful lessons" for preparing a future "citizen army" in the UK.

Those taking part should be "trained and equipped" to fight, said Sanders. But people in a citizen army would not be automatically sent to the frontlines, because there are now a "myriad of roles" that previously did not exist on the battlefield, said the Daily Mail.

These include "more specialised missions" by special forces, as well as drone pilots, vehicle technicians and emergency physicians, plus "high-tech" roles "far away from the frontlines".

Who would be exempt?

Although there are no plans for a mandatory call-up, the demography of people conscripted in the past gives a steer on the make-up of a possible citizen army. 

People who work in key industries that are regarded as vital to keeping the country running would probably be made exempt in the event of a war. In WWII, these included baking, farming, medicine, coal mining and engineering.

Based on current British armed forces rules, anyone who suffers from "deprivation of the senses", such as issues related to hearing or vision, would also probably be exempted, along with people suffering from psychiatric or cardiovascular issues, or from bone and joint problems, said LBC.

What has the reaction been?

Downing Street "does not seem keen" on the idea, said the BBC, after a spokesperson said that General Sanders' hypothetical scenarios were "not helpful". 

The plan is "unpopular and unaffordable", said The Guardian in an editorial.

According to a poll of 2,000 people reported in the Daily Mail, less than 10% of Britons would be willing to take up a combat role if the country faced a military threat. The researchers found just 27% would "unquestionably" join a war effort if the nation came under attack in a similar way to Ukraine.

Sanders said the Cold War peace dividend was over, noting that "over the last 30 years, the army has been halved in size" and that "in the last 12 years, we’ve absorbed a 28% reduction".

Military experts believe that "in the time of war", far more people would be motivated "to sign up to defend their nation", said The Times. 

General Nick Parker, a former Commander Land Forces, told Times Radio that the UK must "make sure that we are as resilient as we possibly can be, and to be prepared to question whether the forces that we have are the right ones for what may happen in the future".

Elon Musk has made little secret of his personal interest and engagement in Russia's year-and-a-half-long invasion effort against Ukraine, and that country's ongoing counteroffensive against their would-be occupiers. He has publicly admitted to "trying my hardest to de-escalate this situation and obviously failing," and mused to his more than 100 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, about which parts of Ukraine should be formally annexed into Russia, even while supplying thousands of his proprietary "Starlink" communications terminals to the region at the behest Ukrainian officials desperate for internet access to coordinate their military maneuvers. "Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now," Ukraine's digital minister told The New York Times this summer, highlighting the degree to which that country is technologically dependent on Musk's products — and by extension, Musk himself.

That dependency took on a particularly urgent note this week, with a revelation from Musk biographer Walter Isaacson that the billionaire had personally intervened to withhold Starlink services from a planned Ukrainian offensive against Russia's Black Sea fleet in occupied Crimea. Musk himself later confirmed the report — excerpted from Isaacson's upcoming biography, and first published in The Washington Post — by claiming on X that "SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation" had he complied with Ukraine's request for satellite connectivity in the region. However, by acknowledging that he himself had thwarted a sovereign country's military in what has essentially become a war of existential survival, Musk has inadvertently re-energized a long-simmering criticism that he has personally amassed too much power for a single, largely unaccountable, individual.

What the commentators said

Musk's decision allowed Russia to continue its naval bombardment of Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian official Mykhailo Podolyak said on X, calling it "the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego." Podolyak's criticism is an exception though, as "few nations will speak publicly about their concerns, for fear of alienating Mr. Musk" according to various intelligence and cybersecurity officials who spoke with The New York Times. Despite Musk being neither "a diplomat or statesman," one Pentagon official who spoke with The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow said he felt compelled "to treat him as such, given the influence he had" in the ongoing Ukrainian-Russian conflict. But rather than condemn Musk to outright villainy, Farrow placed the ultimate blame on "the systems around him."

It is "vast economic systems and political trend lines" that have created the opportunity for "a single mega-billionaire of this type" to be able to "fill the spaces that are going fallow at the hands of the state," Farrow explained on The New Yorker's The Political Scene podcast, citing Musk's dominance of both the private space travel and communications industries. "This is insane that we've let it get to this," agreed The Daily Beast's Andy Levy, placing similar blame on the vacuum ceded by the government in certain industries that allowed Musk to concentrate such acute power in himself — even to the detriment of his own companies. After intense negotiations to charge the Pentagon to keep Starlink services available to the Ukrainian military in 2022, Musk backtracked, having "succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Isaacson. "The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally."

What next?

Think of Musk as "a conglomerate," CNN's Seth Fiegerman urged at the onset of the billionaire's Twitter takeover. By controlling so many interconnected industries, "each arm of his empire potentially gives him more leverage, real or imagined, in advocating for the others." Operating against a "backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions," Musk excels at identifying "crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded" and filling those voids with his own products," Farrow said. Moreover, "efforts to rein him in have had limited success," he explained to The Political Scene. Quoting an FAA official who declined to punish Musk for an unauthorized rocket launch, Farrow explained, "look, the guy is just so rich a fine doesn't hurt a company that he's running."

What's a tactical nuclear bomb? It is — drumroll please — a nuclear bomb.

But please don't worry; they're small ones. Some are "only" the size of the weapons that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some are smaller than that. Some are so small they can be launched as artillery shells. Some can be dropped by airplanes or put on the tips of short(ish)-range missiles. Some tactical nukes could even be carried on your back, though it probably wouldn't be good for you.

There's been a fair amount of conversation online about the "tactical weapons gap." The United States has 230 of these smaller nukes, with reports that around 100 of those are in Europe. Russia has as many 2,000, most already in the European theater, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has seemed to indicate a willingness to use them, most likely if he felt himself to be losing in Ukraine, or if NATO joined the fight.

So, what would this gap really mean? Would it be decisive in a war?

No. "If we were to unleash a couple of hundred versus a couple of thousand [tactical nukes] it would be a distinction without a difference," Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert Latiff told The Week.

The sheer destructive power of each side renders the details significantly irrelevant. Tit for tat, by the time the U.S. is outgunned, we're at 460 nukes launched. It's enough to destroy every tank in this war. It's certainly enough to kill millions of civilians. The Russians could keep going from there, but now we're into madness land. And having run out of the little nukes, and afraid of losing, would we really stop without resorting to one — just one — strategic bomb?

If that happens, a war like we've seen before becomes a war unlike anything we've ever seen before. A tactical nuclear strike has taken us into an unwinnable strategic nuclear war.

The truth is no one is sure what would happen if even one of these tactical nuclear bombs were used in war. According to Latiff, the international reaction would differ if it happened in Ukraine itself or, say, in Poland. But the only people who really know how escalation would work aren't telling. The strategy for reacting to a small nuclear provocation is top secret, Latiff said.

Does that uncertainty make it more likely or less Putin would use one of these bombs? He may bank on a sub-nuclear NATO reaction. Or he may hold back because he can't bank on that. There are a lot of generals paid to think about these things. All the world can do is hope they're thinking clearly.

The Islamic State operating out of Afghanistan may have the capability to attack the United States in as soon as six months, a senior Pentagon official told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said that U.S. intelligence assesses that while ISIS-K, as the group in Afghanistan is called, and al Qaeda both want to "conduct external operations, including against the United States," neither has the ability to do so right now. For ISIS-K, they could "generate that capability in somewhere between six or 12 months," Kahl said, while it could take "a year or two" for al Qaeda to be able to carry out attacks outside of Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, ISIS-K has conducted several suicide bombings in the country, primarily targeting the Shia minority. "It is our assessment that the Taliban and ISIS-K are mortal enemies," Kahl said. "So the Taliban is highly motivated to go after ISIS-K. Their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined."

The U.S. intends to disrupt ISIS-K and al Qaeda so they aren't able to strike, Kahl said, and drones capable of hitting their targets are being flown into the region, Reuters reports.

Twelve National Guard members have been removed from inauguration duties and sent home, following screenings to see if any of the troops were involved in extremist activity, Defense Department officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Two of the troops made threatening comments about politicians via text and on social media, Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters. He would not reveal the exact threats, only saying they were "inappropriate." The other 10 National Guard members were removed due to domestic abuse, criminal investigations, and outstanding complaints, The New York Times reports.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, officials have been looking to root out any troops with anti-government or white supremacist sympathies, and the FBI helped the military vet the more than 25,000 National Guard members being deployed to D.C amid the inaugural festivities. "At this point, we don't have the time to rundown every single piece of information," Hokanson said. "But there's enough information for us to determine to remove them from the Capitol."

Hokanson and other officials stressed that most of the National Guard troops are dedicated to protecting the United States, with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) saying in a statement they "put their lives on hold to answer the call to service. They will defend the U.S. Capitol with their lives, and I trust them implicitly with mine."

After serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, John Walker Lindh, the American captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and convicted of providing support to the Taliban, is set to be released from an Indiana federal prison on Thursday.

Lindh was 20 when he was arrested. After converting from Catholicism to Islam at 16, he left the U.S. to study Arabic in Yemen at 17. He made his way to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he was a Taliban volunteer at an al-Qaeda training camp. Because he is an American citizen, Lindh was tried in federal court, and at his sentencing decried acts of terrorism and said he was wrong to join the Taliban.

Two leaked documents show that the government questions whether Lindh has shed his extremist views, The New York Times reports. A May 2016 memo said Lindh "continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts," and a 2017 Federal Bureau of Prisons intelligence assessment states he made positive comments about the Islamic State.

Under his terms of release, Lindh will not be allowed to go online or own a device that can access the internet without permission from his probation officer, the Times reports. He also can't travel internationally or communicate with "any known extremist," and must go through mental health counseling.

Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University's program on extremism, told the Times the government doesn't have a system in place to deal with people like Lindh, and the best move would be to "team him up with a mentor, somebody who perhaps had the same experiences as he may have had and came out on the other side better off because of it."

American intelligence agencies are seriously assessing the credibility of a potential terror threat, government sources told CBS in a report published Friday. The information available so far indicates that al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, may be planning a strike in New York, Texas, or Virginia.

Though federal law enforcement agents are investigating, they emphasized to CBS that this report is by no means confirmed and Monday may well pass without incident.

"The counterterrorism and homeland security communities remain vigilant and well-postured to defend against attacks here in the United States," the FBI said in a vague statement responding to the news Friday. "The FBI, working with our federal, state and local counterparts, shares and assesses intelligence on a daily basis and will continue to work closely with law enforcement and intelligence community partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to public safety." The Department of Homeland Security ignored a request for further comment from Reuters.

For terrorist organizations like the Islamic State, Washington, D.C., is the number one target for obvious reasons: It is the heart of U.S. operations, it is the home of the president — and it has avoided a major terrorist attack.

Part of this is thanks to expensive counterterrorism programs that are in place to stop anything from a nightclub shooting to an improvised nuclear device. But in this day and age, the threat to the capital is more likely to come from a lone wolf attacker. Despite the enormous budget that goes toward thwarting a handful of dedicated terrorists, former Pentagon official Michael Sheehan told Newsweek that the country needs to scale back on the "obscene" spending that goes toward "activities that have a very marginal impact on our safety."

Take, for example, the bioterrorism program:

A program meant to detect cargo for radiation is also imprecise. "False positives, from such naturally radiating material as kitty litter, bananas, and ceramics, drove operators crazy, 'reduc[ing] the sense of urgency among those who respond to them,'" the Nuclear Threat Initiative said, as relayed by Newsweek. "Between May 2001 and March 2005, there were reportedly 10,000 false alarms."

The Obama administration believes that close to a dozen former Guantanamo Bay detainees have gone on to launch attacks in Afghanistan against U.S. and allied forces, killing about six Americans, U.S. officials told The Washington Post.

Without going into details, Paul Lewis of the Defense Department had announced in March that some former Guantanamo prisoners were behind the deaths of Americans abroad. The Post found that most of the suspected attacks by former detainees were directed at military personnel, but in one 2008 case, a female aid worker was killed. Information regarding the attacks, including the number of suspects and victims, is classified, but a source told the Post that nine of the detainees suspected in the attacks are either dead or in the custody of a foreign government; most were from Afghanistan; all were released during the George W. Bush administration; and because "many of these incidents were large-scale firefights in a war zone, we cannot always distinguish whether Americans were killed by the former detainees or by others in the same fight."

In a letter to President Obama, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) wrote that he must declassify the number of U.S. and NATO personnel killed by former detainees. "There appears to be a consistent and concerted effort by the administration to prevent Americans from knowing the truth regarding the terrorist activities and affiliations of past and present Guantanamo detainees," she said. Since Guantanamo opened in 2002, nearly 700 detainees have been released, and 80 remain imprisoned.

What happened in Paris and Brussels could possibly happen in the U.S., Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted in an exclusive interview with CNN, published Wednesday. "They do have that capacity," Clapper said of ISIS. "That's something we worry about a lot in the United States, that they could conjure up a raid like they did in Paris or Brussels." The March attacks in Brussels on a train and at an airport left at least 32 dead and 300 injured; the November attacks in Paris killed at least 130.

However, Obama pointed out, "We, here in the United States, face less of a threat than Europe" from ISIS. Still, he says, "the Paris-style attack, the Brussels style attack is the challenge that we're going to continue to face."

At the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey said terrorist groups appear to be in the early stages of plotting cyberattacks against Americans.

"We are picking up signs of increasing interest," he said. "It's a small but potentially growing problem." Comey did not share any details on what type of attacks they might be working on, but did say groups that have a hard time recruiting followers in the U.S. are interested in cyberattacks.

Comey also said the FBI is looking at hundreds of people in all 50 states as part of active terrorism-related investigations, and the agency has found that ISIS and al Qaeda have two very different recruiting styles: Al Qaeda spends more time looking into a person's background, and sends them on small scale missions as a test. ISIS does not have the same standards, and targets "often unstable, troubled drug users" to carry out attacks anywhere in the U.S. The FBI is thoroughly investigating Mohammod Abdulazeez, the man who allegedly shot and killed five military members last week in Chattanooga, with Comey saying the agency is "literally trying to figure out every second of his life."

The Department of Justice is launching a new program today in partnership with the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center that will train "community leaders" like teachers and social workers to monitor their communities for signs of radicalization. If the trainees think they have observed burgeoning radicalism, they are to report the potentially radicalized person(s) to law enforcement so the government can intervene before any crime has been committed.

In his announcement of the initiative, Attorney General Eric Holder described the program as a way to "be both innovative and aggressive in countering violent extremism and combating those who would sow intolerance, division, and hate" in the homeland. He labeled it an expansion of existent efforts to "to identify threats before they emerge, to disrupt homegrown terrorists, and to apprehend would-be violent extremists." Presumably this is only a stop-gap program until precogs can be developed for war on terror use.

No stranger to Sunday morning controversies, National Security Adviser Susan Rice appeared on ABC's This Week on Sunday and — in response to a question about whether or not ex-POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had been a deserter — declared that he "served the United States with honor and distinction."

Now comes this from The New York Times, "provided by a former senior military officer briefed on the investigation into the private's disappearance":

It's hard to square Rice's comments with this report. More and more, it's looking like we traded five potentially dangerous Taliban leaders for one deserter. What's more, it seems likely his desertion may have cost the lives of other Americans.

This is starting to look like the most lopsided trade since Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas.

In a chilling New York Times article, James B. Comey, director of the FBI, is quoted saying the threat of terrorism is worse than he imagined before assuming his current position:

By Mr. Comey's own account, he also brought to the job a belief, based on news media reports, that the threat from Al Qaeda was diminished. But nine months into his tenure as director, Mr. Comey acknowledges that he underestimated the threat the United States still faces from terrorism.

"I didn't have anywhere near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how virulent those affiliates had become," Mr. Comey said, referring to offshoots of Al Qaeda in Africa and in the Middle East during an interview in his sprawling office on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. "There are both many more than I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated." [The New York Times]

One might interpret this information differently, based on preconceived notions.

Neocons, for example, might see this as further evidence that skepticism of the surveillance state is rooted in nothing but ignorance and naiveté. Meanwhile, folks on the other side of the debate might view this as yet another example of someone being co-opted once they gain a position of authority.

But Comey's credibility on this issue is hard to impugn. As the No. 2 in the Bush Justice Department, he famously refused to approve reauthorization of the N.S.A.'s domestic eavesdropping program.

I don't know about you, but I'd be more comfortable if his credibility on this issue weren't quite so solid.