Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are both seizing on the war to portray the other as weak, ineffective and dangerous. At a minimum, the situation offers a window into the broader geopolitical thinking of the two presidential candidates, both of whom say they want an end to the war, now approaching its third anniversary.

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang offers a deeper analysis, writing that Ms. Harris is pushing for more U.S. military and financial aid to Ukraine. She’s also claiming Republicans want to slash aid or prematurely pressure Kyiv to the negotiating table with the Russian president in a way that could embolden the Kremlin and reward it for its aggression.

Mr. Trump insists, often over the objections of more traditionally minded Republican hawks, that he would use his leverage to quickly force Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy into peace talks and end the war. Mr. Trump also faces pressure from a wing of the Republican Party that wants to limit U.S. aid to Ukraine or at least attach strict conditions, including a firm plan to end the war.

Foreign policy analysts tell Mr. Wolfgang that a combination of the candidates’ approaches — a more deliberate, if conventionally dull approach from Ms. Harris and the outside-the-box thinking of Mr. Trump — may be the right prescription going forward.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth says the Biden administration’s decision to send two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile systems to a military base in Israel — along with a contingent of 100 American soldiers to help operate them — signals continuing U.S. support for Israel as violence around the region shows no signs of easing.

Iran has responded to the development with threats. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned on social media that Tehran has “no red lines” with regard to targeting any U.S. soldiers that may be deployed inside Israel.

It remains to be seen when the new THAAD systems will arrive in Israel. The Pentagon previously sent THAAD to Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ October 2023 rampage into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. Ms. Wormuth noted in remarks on Monday that U.S. units also deployed to Israel for training exercises about four years ago, but gave no date for the new THAAD deployment.

OpenAI says it has detected and disrupted efforts by China- and Iran-linked attackers attempting to use the artificial intelligence company’s tools to power “offensive cyber operations.”

The San Francisco-based AI company said in a new report that it has thwarted more than 20 operations and deceptive networks thus far in 2024. OpenAI’s Ben Nimmo and Michael Flossman wrote that a China-based adversary used OpenAI’s tools for reconnaissance and evasion, while an Iran-linked group fine-tuned its malware with AI tools.

China-based cyberattackers unsuccessfully sought to “spear phish” OpenAI employees’ personal and corporate emails, according to the report, which asserts that the same attackers, labeled “SweetSpecter,” attempted to use OpenAI’s services for reconnaissance, research and “anomaly-detection evasion.”

The Biden administration is expressing rising concern over China’s large-scale military exercise that surrounded the island democracy of Taiwan over the weekend. Recent days saw the State Department say Beijing’s “military provocations … risk escalation,” while the Pentagon called the Chinese drills “irresponsible, disproportionate and destabilizing.”

The exercises encircled the self-ruled island with naval and air forces as well as several Taiwan-controlled outlying islands near the Chinese coast, according to a statement by the military command in charge of forces near Taiwan. Among the warships involved was China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning, which was detected sailing on the eastern side of the island.

The war games had been widely expected following new Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te Oct. 10 National Day address vowing to fight any military move to take over the island democracy. The Chinese military said the drills, code-named Joint Sword 2024B, took place as a “stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces.”

Christopher S. Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argue in Foreign Affairs that the “forces favoring continuity in U.S. foreign policy” are strong, so whatever administration enters the White House in January will “need a plan if it wants to make any major changes.”

The two senior fellows at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace write that some of Mr. Trump’s advisers hope to get around the problem of “bureaucratic defiance and congressional pushback” by “gutting the civil service.”

“But that approach comes with a significant downside: The more Trump staffs the bureaucracy with inexperienced loyalists, the less competent these agencies will be to implement whatever policy change he wants,” they write. “The better approach is to get key agencies on board with the president’s preferred policy. The White House must identify influential bureaucrats and convince them that change serves not only the national interest but also their agencies’ interests.”

• Oct. 15 — Ukraine’s Energy Sector: Short-Term Threats and Long-Term Prospects, Wilson Center

• Oct. 16 — Assessing Opportunities for Protection of Civilians in Sudan, Stimson Center

• Oct. 17 — Africa in the New Cold War, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 17 — Strengthening the Allied Industrial Base, Hudson Institute

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

• Nov. 22-24 — Halifax International Security Forum

• Dec. 7 — 2024 Reagan National Defense Forum, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute