Annual Pentagon reports provide the most authoritative counts of China’s military, but “have a poor record in assessing China’s nuclear threat,” according to former Pentagon strategic affairs analyst Mark B. Schneider, who assesses China’s rapid buildup of nuclear assets could be much larger than current U.S. estimates.

“In combination, the 2022 and 2023 [Department of Defense] reports stated that China had 500+ ‘operational’ nuclear warheads in May 2023, growing to 1,000+ ‘operational’ warheads in 2030, and is ‘on track to exceed previous projections,’ i.e., about 1,500 warheads in 2035,” Mr. Schneider wrote recently in the Journal of Policy and Strategy.

These estimates may significantly undercount the Chinese nuclear arsenal, but if the projections are accurate, it still means that China will reach rough numerical nuclear parity with the United States by the mid-2030s. “If the [Defense Department] is wrong, China may achieve superiority — several thousand nuclear weapons — within a few years,” wrote Mr. Schneider, senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, which publishes the journal.

Foreign terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and al Qaeda, and even Iran-allied forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas, pose an immediate threat to the American homeland and warrant a serious response from the Biden administration, key House Republicans said in a new report, an advanced copy of which was shared exclusively with Threat Status before its public release this week.

The “Terror Threat Snapshot,” compiled by the House Homeland Security Committee, lays out in disturbing detail the number of jihadi cases in the U.S. over the past three years and shines a spotlight on how “soft targets” could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The report also pointedly faults the administration for what it says has been a “weak” and inadequate response to the danger in recent years.

U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials in recent months have warned about the resurgence of ISIS in the Middle East and the group’s desire, and perhaps its ability, to directly strike targets in Europe and the United States.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office says federal nuclear regulators have consistently ignored their recommendations for preventing the detonation of a “dirty bomb” — a weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives like dynamite or TNT.

In a report released this week, the congressional watchdog organization appealed directly to Congress to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to implement reforms the GAO says have been ignored. “In terrorists’ hands, even small amounts of radioactive material could be used to make a dirty bomb,” the GAO said. “Over the past decade, we’ve made 18 recommendations to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that would strengthen its security requirements for these materials. But more than half of those recommendations haven’t been implemented.”

“It really takes just one bad actor with access to a source to wreak havoc,” GAO Director of Natural Resources and the Environment Allison Bawden said of the dirty bomb threat on a podcast hosted by the agency.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska said this week that it tracked two Russian and two Chinese security ships conducting a “joint patrol” in the Bering Sea this week, signaling increased activity by the key U.S. adversaries in the Arctic.

“This marked the northernmost location where Chinese Coast Guard vessels have been observed by the U.S. Coast Guard,” the Alaska office of the Coast Guard said in a statement. The Russian border guard and Chinese coast guard ships were monitored by an HC-130J Super Hercules airplane crew from Coast U.S. Guard Air Station Kodiak as they moved “in formation in a northeast direction, remaining approximately five miles inside the Russian Exclusive Economic Zone.”

The ships were spotted about 440 miles southwest of Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island. “This recent activity demonstrates the increased interest in the Arctic by our strategic competitors,” said Rear Adm. Megan Dean, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District. “The demand for Coast Guard services across the region continues to grow.”  

Retired CIA officer and Threat Status contributor Daniel N. Hoffman highlights the U.S. indictment last month charging two Russia Today, or RT, employees with funneling $10 million through fake personas and shell companies to a Tennessee online content creation company that then unwittingly disseminated Russian propaganda to millions of social media users via TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s formative experiences as a KGB operative and director of Russia’s Federal Security Service help explain why, after coming to power, he eliminated the country’s independent media to restrict the flow of information and shape public dialogue in support of the Kremlin’s Potemkin village narratives,” writes Mr. Hoffman.

“Mr. Putin also holds a black belt in judo, a key principle of which is to use opponents’ strength against them,” he writes. “Applying this judo approach to Russia’s strategic rivalry with its ‘main enemy’ — the United States — Mr. Putin brazenly targets America’s open media, a foundation of our democracy.”

It is widely believed that Iran is weeks to months away from being able to produce a nuclear warhead, writes Shuki Friedman, who argues that “the only option to stop it from developing nuclear weapons is by kinetic attack.”

“Israel’s significant achievements against Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East create a historic opportunity to strike Iran,” writes Mr. Friedman. “The November election is a key reason to delay such action. But it could also be a reason to proceed. This may be President Biden’s last chance to leave a significant mark on foreign policy.”

• Oct. 4 — Targeting Taiwan: Beijing’s Playbook for Economic and Cyber Warfare, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Oct. 5-8 — 2024 Threat Conference, The Cipher Brief

• Oct. 7 — A Region Aflame: October 7 a Year Later, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Oct. 8 — The future of U.S. Strategy Toward Iran: A bipartisan roadmap for the next administration, Atlantic Council

• Oct. 14 — Safeguarding Democracy in an Era of Geopolitical Competition, Lowy Institute

• Nov. 8-10 — IISS Prague Defense Summit 2024, International Institute for Strategic Studies