U.S. military forces are not ready to respond to tactical nuclear weapons strikes by China in a protracted war, according to a recent Pentagon-funded study.

China’s rapid expansion of nuclear forces, coupled with the dual conventional and nuclear warhead configuration of its missile forces, means it is more likely to employ low-yield nuclear attacks in a future conflict with America, according to the report from the Center for a New American Security.

“Broadly speaking, the emerging nuclear dynamics between the United States and China appear to have different dynamics than those between the United States and the Soviet Union and carry a greater risk of limited nuclear use,” reads a portion of the study, which was funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The report calls for the Defense Department to consider building nuclear-tipped anti-ship missiles to counter growing threats from the People’s Republic of China.

Tehran may already have the capacity to produce dirty bombs, according to Mr. Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, who discusses the current Mideast crisis in an exclusive interview on the latest Threat Status weekly podcast.

“When we talk about Iran’s nuclear program and its breakout time, the way successive administrations have defined this is Iran being able to produce 20 kilograms of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium or plutonium and launching it in a fissile bomb delivered on a warhead,” explains Mr. Rubin, who is a senior fellow at the think tank.

“Why do we assume that Iran is going to want the perfect solution? Already when we talk about 90% enriched uranium, what was the enrichment level when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was in the high 70s or low 80s in terms of those bombs,” he says. “Why do we assume that Iran is going to want a perfect nuclear weapon? What happens if they can explode a dirty bomb, which they already can.”

Mr. Rubin’s appearance on the podcast dovetails with a column by Threat Status opinion contributor Joseph R. DeTrani, a former member of the Senior Intelligence Service of the CIA, who asserts that Tehran is on a path to receive nuclear weapons help from North Korea if the current Iran-Israel crisis sparks a major Mideast war.

The Biden administration has approved the sale of 36 AH-64E attack helicopters to South Korea in a deal worth at least $3.5 billion.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency says South Korea will also receive up to 76 Apache helicopter engines and spare parts, fire control radar systems, night vision sensors and other support equipment. The sale also will provide the Asian ally with up to 450 Hellfire missiles and more than 150 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles.

The principal contractors for the Apache deal are Boeing and Lockheed Martin. U.S. officials said the deal won’t alter the basic military balance in the region. The deal was announced Monday, the same day the U.S. and South Korea kicked off large-scale military exercises aimed at strengthening their joint defense against a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The developments come amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has called the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises “provocative war drills for aggression.”

For Ukraine’s small evangelical Protestant minority, the war with Russia has only accelerated what they say is a campaign of persecution that was underway long before massed Russian formations rumbled across the country’s northern and eastern borders in February of 2022.

Since the clashes between Kyiv and pro-Russian forces first began in 2014 in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Russia and its local proxies have waged an unrelenting campaign of persecution against Ukrainian Protestant denominations.

Threat Status Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak offers an in-depth dispatch from inside Ukraine, exploring how Ukrainian Protestants and evangelical Christians in Russian-occupied territories have been the target of particular cruelty: imprisoned, tortured, and, sometimes, outright murdered.

Human rights activist John Suarez writes that the political crisis in Venezuela over President Nicolas Maduro’s attempt to steal the election that he lost in a landslide on July 28 stems from the Biden administration’s gambit of promising sanctions relief and normalized ties in exchange for free and fair elections in the South American nation.

Mr. Suarez homes in on how the Cuban military dictatorship has facilitated “relationships between Venezuela, Iran, China, Russia and criminal networks involved in drug trafficking, as well as the creation of new ones such as the Soles Cartel, which is linked to the Venezuelan military.”

“The future of Latin America will be decided in Venezuela over the next few weeks, and if autocracy triumphs, war is bound to follow,” he writes. “Providing carrots, such as amnesty and safe harbor, is fine. But sticks must also be displayed to discourage the continued brutalization of Venezuelans.”

With the anniversary of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal passing this month, Mr. May, a Threat Status opinion contributor, notes how the Biden administration’s mishandling of the situation left behind “billions of dollars’ worth of Humvees, helicopters and munitions, much of which the Taliban paraded last week as they celebrated the third anniversary since the American capitulation and their swift return to power.”

“Had lessons been learned from Iraq, a residual force of American and NATO troops would have stayed in Afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations, collect intelligence and better enable Afghan security forces,” writes Mr. May. “Those forces would have continued to confine the Taliban to remote areas, preventing them from controlling urban centers.”

• Aug. 21 — AI and the Evolution of Biological National Security Risks, Center for a New American Security

• Aug. 27 — U.S.-Mexico Relations: Addressing Challenges at the Border, Brookings Institution

• Aug. 28 — Weapons in Space: A Book Talk with Dr. Aaron Bateman, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Aug. 28 — Military Expenditure in MENA: Implications for Human Rights, Governance, and Socio-Economic Development, Arab Center Washington DC

• Sept. 3-6 — Billington CyberSecurity Summit

• Sept. 9 — The Role of China in Africa’s Just Energy Transition, Wilson Center