Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites played a pivotal role in slowing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and helped save Kyiv from complete collapse in early 2022. But those same satellites may have sped up the Kremlin’s determination to level the playing field and neutralize that advantage.

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang examines how intelligence on Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) nuclear weapons — the prospect of which consumed Washington last week — comes as the Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the vital importance of satellites in modern-day combat, and how difficult it is for an enemy to shut them down.

The ASAT threat doesn’t end with Russia, given communist China’s eye on such weapons and the potential deployment of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) in space to neutralize U.S. satellites in a possible Taiwan clash. Dean Cheng at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s China program says it would “very difficult” to set off an EMP that would only affect Taiwan and not China, but notes Beijing “could set something off over the central Pacific or North America that would mostly affect the United States.”

Just days from the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s Parliament is considering legislation to lower the country’s military draft age from 27 to 25 — a move that would increase the potential pool of recruits by about 400,000, despite being highly unpopular among the Ukrainian public. The development comes as U.S. military aid remains stalled and many Ukrainian men are evading the draft by hiding or trying to bribe their way out of battle along the 620-mile front line.

Tensions off a tripwire Taiwanese island close to China are spiraling, with Beijing intercepting a Taiwanese vessel and Coast Guard units from the two sides confronting each other, while the Biden administration appeals for calm. 

Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon is tracking the developments, which follow China’s declaration it will no longer respect a de facto maritime boundary with Taiwan. It’s the latest “gray zone” move that appears to expose China’s failure to adhere to the very Taiwan status quo agreements Beijing so often accuses “external forces” — code for the U.S. — of breaking.

The prospect of a U.S.-China clash over Taiwan highlights an urgent need to improve the military’s ability to supply troops in the Pacific with weapons and other support, according to Navy Adm. Sam Paparo, who is slated for promotion to head the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command. He says U.S. military logistics — ships, aircraft and other systems used to sustain military operations — are on “the razor’s edge.”

The warning coincides with a letter Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote recently to Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, leader of the U.S. Transportation Command, alerting her that the sealift fleet relied upon by American forces to move ships and equipment in the event of a major Indo-Pacific conflict “has continued to age and go underfunded.”

Less than 1% of illegal immigrants who were caught and released by the Border Patrol using “parole” powers last year have been deported or confirmed to have left the country on their own, the Department of Homeland Security says. The Times’ Stephen Dinan reports that the 2,572 migrants were part of the surge surrounding the end of the pandemic emergency policy known as Title 42. In the nine months since, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has struggled with them.

Iran may already have five nuclear bombs and could have as many as a dozen by May, writes Richard W. Rahn, who points to intelligence estimates dating to October that said Tehran could have enough enriched weapons-grade uranium for one bomb within a week and enough for five nuclear bombs within six weeks. 

Mr. Rahn argues that if the Iranians have a bomb, they would be foolish to announce it, because the U.S. and Israel would expend considerable effort to find and destroy it — but “more bombs in more locations makes this ‘destroy’ effort increasingly complex, if almost impossible.” In search of a silver lining, he goes on to posit that if Israel and Iran both have enough bombs to destroy each other, one might “envision a situation much like the U.S. and Russia had during the Cold War — a stalemate based on mutually assured destruction. And perhaps that could eventually lead to peace.”