The French government’s stunning arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has increased concerns that technology entrepreneurs who place a premium on internet freedom of speech will not find a haven in Europe.

Mr. Durov oversees the encrypted Telegram messaging and social media platform. French authorities say his arrest was part of an investigation into the criminal activity of a “person unnamed” on several charges, involving complicity in organized fraud, possessing pornographic images of minors, drug trafficking and more.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday denied any political bias behind Mr. Durov’s arrest, but the government has acknowledged the arrest is connected to the tech platform’s approach to censoring content. Telegram’s encryption feature allows user groups to conduct private chats and post restricted material that cannot be tracked by government authorities.

The development follows a wave of arrests over online posts by authorities in Britain. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley pledged in an interview aired on Sky News to “come after” those beyond the country’s borders.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a former White House National Security Council aide, says Mr. Durov’s arrest had implications for other social media platforms, including Elon Musk’s X. “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability,” Mr. Vindman said on X. “Musk should be nervous.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says his thoughts were with the families of the 13 American service members killed three years ago when a suicide bomber triggered his explosives-laden vest outside Hamid Karzai International Airport during the Biden administration’s chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan as the Taliban were taking control of Kabul.

At least 170 Afghan civilians were also killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, attack at Abbey Gate, a shocking conclusion to the decades-long Afghanistan war, which cost the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. troops and wounded more than 20,000 others.

“We will never forget these 13 brave Americans — 11 Marines, a soldier, and a sailor — who lost their lives defending their teammates and helping to save tens of thousands of Afghans seeking freedom and the opportunity for a better life,” Mr. Austin said in a statement. “Another year has passed, but our gratitude will never wane.”

With Ukrainian forces holding territory inside Russia’s Kursk region, Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing increasing pressure at home because of the high-stakes political and security risks associated with his ongoing war in Ukraine. Retired CIA officer Daniel N. Hoffman analyzes the situation in an exclusive interview on our latest weekly podcast, asserting that “dissatisfied people” within the Russian government are “vulnerable to being recruited by the CIA [and] FBI.”

The longer Mr. Putin bombs Ukrainian civilians and pursues a war that has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, the more he faces the risk that his own people may wonder whether it’s worth it, according to Mr. Hoffman, a Threat Status contributor. “Whether they take it to the point where they run the risk of trying to remove Vladimir Putin, … I don’t know whether we’re going to get to that point in the near term, but that’s the risk Putin runs,” he says.

“The more he runs the risk, … the more risks he’s willing to take to stay in power,” Mr. Hoffman adds. “And when he does that, his own people see it, and they think, ‘Well, we don’t like some of the risks he’s taking. We wish he wouldn’t.’ And that’s where you get, potentially at least, Putin’s removal, if that’s the way things go.”

GOP strategist Chris Johnson argues that while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has supported extreme climate policies, former President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda would cut government red tape, hold China accountable for its pollution and boost cleaner U.S. manufacturing — a common-sense approach to energy policy that will lead to a “stronger and more secure America while cutting carbon emissions.”

“China has much worse environmental standards than the United States and profits from slave labor,” writes Mr. Johnson. “The next Trump administration should reprimand China for all of its unfair practices. Carbon tariffs, for example, would punish China’s disregard for the climate and promote lower-emitting U.S. producers.”

“Cutting government red tape and confronting China’s pollution would cause U.S. manufacturing to soar,” he writes. “An American manufacturing surge would have profound climate benefits.”

Matthew Duss from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace claims the Democrats’ “pro-worker agenda” could go global, arguing in Foreign Policy that Ms. Harris’ pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate signals she’s all-in for a post-neoliberal foreign policy shift.

“The United States can build a more equitable global order, or it can frantically try to maintain global primacy, but it can’t do both,” writes Mr. Duss, who claims “the Harris-Walz team has an important task and a big opportunity to diminish this contradiction and complete this transformation.”

“Just as the neoliberal era proved that giving carte blanche to big corporations — whether they’re car companies or weapons manufacturers — is not a means for achieving broad economic progress or security, the past 20 years of the ‘war on terror’ showed that a heavily militarized foreign policy feeds global insecurity and shreds the fabric of international norms,” he writes. “A real pro-worker foreign policy doesn’t pit the security and prosperity of Americans against workers in other countries but recognizes that our security and prosperity are bound together.”

• 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. 4 — The American Dream Lecture Series: Walter Russell Mead on American Foreign Policy in the Next Presidency, American Enterprise Institute

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

• Sept. 9 — Voices for Peace and Human Rights in Israel/Palestine, Stimson Center