Mr. Trump’s nomination of Army veteran and outspoken Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon and the 1.3 million active-duty men and women in uniform surprised supporters and opponents alike and raised immediate questions over whether Mr. Trump’s often-rocky relations with the military brass in his first term will be repeated in his second.

Pentagon Correspondent Mike Glenn and Political Reporter Mallory Wilson sift through the barrage of lawmaker reactions to the Hegseth pick, writing that several congressional Republicans have rushed to defend Mr. Trump’s unorthodox choice, but some Democrats and private military analysts questioned Mr. Hegseth’s qualifications to carry out one of the nation’s most complex and delicate posts.

Mr. Hegseth, 44, was a combat infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has an impressive academic pedigree, with an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard. He is highly effective on television, a quality Mr. Trump is known to prize.

Presumably over the next four years, there is going to be a “massive bill that’s going to come due” with regard to paying for “reconstruction in Yemen, reconstruction in Gaza [and] reconstruction in Lebanon,” according to longtime U.S. diplomat Gerald Feierstein, who tells the latest edition of the Threat Status Weekly Podcast that “the United States is not going to foot that bill, nor is Western Europe, nor is anybody else.”

Mr. Feierstein, who heads the Middle East Institute’s Arabian Peninsula Affairs Program, says a bill of perhaps “hundreds of billions of dollars” needed for reconstruction and rehabilitation of these societies is “going to have to come” from the wealthy Gulf Arab nations, and there are really only four that have the budget for it: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

The retired ambassador also weighs in on the broader role Saudi Arabia is expected to play in the coming administration’s Mideast policy. He assesses that Washington’s relationship with Riyadh — as well as with Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar — will be “quite different than it was in 2016 or 2017.”

The Pentagon received more than 700 claims of UFO sightings from May 2023 through June 1 of this year, with hundreds still unexplained, including at least three instances in which mysterious craft shadowed U.S. military aircraft, according to an official Defense Department report made public on Nov. 14.

The report from the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, was released the day after a Capitol Hill hearing in which former military personnel alleged that the federal government has operated a decades-long “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) recovery program and is secretly in possession of otherworldly spacecraft. The Pentagon addresses such allegations in its report.

“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the document states. It does, however, acknowledge hundreds of mysterious encounters, most in the air but some also taking place in outer space.

The presence of North Korean troops in “the most destructive ground war in Europe since World War II is unprecedented,” writes retired CIA officer and Threat Status contributor Daniel N. Hoffman, who argues that “the incoming Trump administration would do well to make North Korea and Russia pay a price for their collaboration while seeking to drive a wedge between them.”

Mr. Hoffman outlines a range of steps the U.S. could and should take, including encouraging South Korea to supply arms directly to Ukraine. “A direct supply line from Seoul to Kyiv would be a force multiplier for Ukraine’s desperate defense of its homeland.” he writes, adding that the U.S. intelligence community also “needs to step up its full-court press to recruit Russian sources, particularly those with access to sensitive information about Mr. Putin’s North Korea strategy, and work with Ukraine to build a defector program designed to entice disgruntled North Korean soldiers and officers.”

As Mr. Trump returns to the White House, he faces a “great opportunity to revitalize America’s nuclear energy sector, enhance domestic energy security and assert global leadership,” according to Rep. Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Republican.

“Mr. Trump has the opportunity to transform America’s nuclear waste challenge into a triumph of innovation and global leadership,” writes Mr. Duncan. “By investing in proliferation-resistant recycling methods, fast reactor technology and a closed fuel cycle, the U.S. can secure its energy future, create jobs and reestablish itself as the world’s preeminent nuclear power.”

This strategy would also offer “allies and partners a reliable alternative to Chinese and Russian nuclear technologies,” the congressman writes. “Mr. Trump can leave a lasting legacy of energy innovation, environmental stewardship and international cooperation through this bold vision, ensuring America’s continued leadership in the Atomic Age.”

• Nov. 18 — U.S. Election: Where to now? Lowy Institute in Australia

• Nov. 18 — ROK-U.S. Strategic Forum 2024, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Nov. 19 — The End of UNRWA? Then What?—Gaza: The Human Toll, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Nov. 21 — Strategic Challenges Facing the U.S.–South Korea Alliance, Hudson Institute

• Nov. 22-24 — Halifax International Security Forum

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