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Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the Russia-North Korea relationship “is working in both directions, and there is deep concern about what Russia is or may be doing to strengthen North Korea’s capacities — its missile capacity, its nuclear capacity.”
… President-elect Donald Trump taps John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA, Elon Musk to head a new initiative to cut government waste and regulations and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary.
… Goldman Sachs says Mr. Trump’s tariff threats loom large for several Asian countries — not just China.
… The Biden administration deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face a weapons embargo has arrived, and Israeli officials claim they’re complying with the White House’s demands.
… Israel’s West Bank settlers hope Mr. Trump’s return will pave the way for major settlement expansion.
… German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he’ll ask for a vote of confidence on Dec. 16, paving the way forward for an early national election in February.
… Violence in Haiti led to the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport, after gunfire struck a Spirit Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, trying to land Monday.
… Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira, the 23-year-old former member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for putting a vast trove of classified documents online.
Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with a mix of drone and missiles strikes for the first time in more than two months on Wednesday — a day after U.S. military officials assessed that most of the North Korean troops sent to help Moscow’s war effort are now fighting to drive Ukraine’s army off Russian soil in the Kursk border region.
Russia targeted eight regions of Ukraine early Wednesday, firing six ballistic and cruise missiles and 90 drones, according to Ukrainian military sources, who claimed air defenses downed four of the missiles and 37 of the drones, while another 47 drones were stopped by electronic jamming.
The air assault came as most of the more than 10,000 North Korean troops engaged in combat in Russia’s Kursk border region. A Ukrainian army incursion into Kursk three months ago has succeeded in holding a broad area of land and has embarrassed the Kremlin.
A Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that Russia’s military has trained the North Korean soldiers in artillery, drone skills and basic infantry operations. The spokesman said the Russia-North Korea cooperation still faces challenges, including language barriers and how to achieve military interoperability. Kyiv has said Russia has deployed around 50,000 troops to Kursk in a bid to dislodge Ukrainian forces there.
While anticipation mounts over whether or not Mr. Trump will tap Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the president-elect has named a slate of other high-level national security and foreign policy picks over the past 24 hours.
Mr. Trump showed his intention to shake up the federal government Tuesday by naming former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA, Elon Musk to head a new panel to advise on cutting waste and regulations, and the unexpected choice of military reservist and Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth to serve as secretary of defense.
Mr. Trump separately named South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, and attorney William McGinley, a veteran of Republican Party election law, as his White House counsel. He also chose former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businessman Steven Witkoff for prominent posts to advance his policies in the war-torn Middle East. The president-elect also confirmed that he is naming Rep. Mike Waltz, Florida Republican, to serve as White House national security adviser.
Howard Kurtz, the host of Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz, assesses that Mr. Trump is defying media predictions. “The media warned for months that Donald Trump would have ‘no guardrails’ in a second term, and would probably hand out top positions to a bunch of right-wing crazies,” Mr. Kurtz wrote in an analysis published Wednesday. Mr. Trump, instead, has “tapped a number of Hill veterans who are conventional conservatives, agree with him on key issues, and could just as easily have been named by Mitt Romney.”
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog says the first Trump administration engaged in “seamless, professional work” with regard to Iran policy. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made the comments Tuesday ahead of a visit to Iran for a meeting with Iranian leaders amid soaring Mideast tensions.
Israel and Iran have traded missile attacks in recent months after more than a year of war in Gaza, which is governed by the Tehran-backed militant group Hamas that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The first Trump administration engaged in a “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran, even authorizing a 2020 drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian military’s elite Quds force, at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.
Mr. Trump also pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that had sought to contain Iranian uranium enrichment — a process crucial to atomic bomb development. Mr. Trump’s election victory last week has sparked a surge in speculation over how aggressive his policy toward Iran will be this time around.
The IAEA has warned that Iran is now rapidly advancing its atomic program while increasing stockpiles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, all in defiance of international demands. Mr. Grossi said Tuesday that he hopes to develop positive communications with Iran’s new president, describing the current situation as a “bit of a dire straits dynamic with Iran that we want to go beyond.”
In an open letter to Joe Biden, Threat Status opinion contributor Clifford D. May emphasizes how the outgoing president “shamefully capitulated to the Taliban in Afghanistan and did so in a manner that was both shambolic and lethal.”
“We may assume that Vladimir Putin figured: ‘If a ragtag gang of terrorists can make Biden turn tail and run, what do I have to fear?’ A few months later, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine,” writes Mr. May, who adds that the following year saw Hamas — “backed by the jihadist regime in Tehran” that Mr. Biden “enriched by replacing President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign with appeasement and accommodation — invaded Israel.”
Then came missile attacks into Israel by Iran-backed Hezbollah, and attacks on commercial ships by Iran-backed Houthi militants, writes Mr. May. “Your Whac-a-mole response has neither defeated nor deterred them, not even after they started targeting U.S. Navy vessels,” he writes to Mr. Biden. “I could go on, but my purpose today is to tell you, as Yogi Berra is said to have comprehended: ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’ You still have a few weeks before the moving vans arrive at the White House. Time enough to establish a legacy for the history books.”
If pollsters and media were wrong about Mr. Trump’s support level, maybe they are also wrong about the president-elect’s lack of support for Ukraine, writes Monika Bickauskaite-Aleliune, a public policy director at Key Elements Group.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was among the first leaders to talk to Mr. Trump post-election, as the call last Wednesday left Mr. Zelenskyy ‘somewhat reassured by what he heard from the president-elect,’” she writes. “Insiders reported that the call between him and the president-elect did not increase Mr. Zelenskyy’s anxiety about Mr. Trump’s victory. The initial conversation could lead to more substantial talks, considering Ukraine’s needs in a possible peace deal.”
“Rather than giving into fearmongering, Europe needs to focus on fixing the broken lines of communication with Mr. Trump’s camp,” Ms. Bickauskaite-Aleliunewrites. “Right now, thoughts of what’s to come should not be marked by optimism or somberness but by determination — determination from Europe to improve its own capabilities and readiness and determination from Ukraine to continue fighting for its sovereignty.”
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