The Washington Times

Threat Status for Friday, December 20, 2024. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang.

The high-stakes U.S.-China showdown in space is shining a light on a complex, consequential question that will be front and center in the incoming Trump administration: What happens when commercial satellites inevitably become military targets? The Threat Status weekly podcast dives into that with Bill Woolf, president and CEO of the Space Force Association, who warned that the “very clear line” that has stood for decades between traditional military and commercial aircraft will not exist in space.

… And that’s a serious concern for the highly lucrative commercial space industry, which is playing an increasingly vital role in communications, mapping, surveillance and other priorities central to U.S. national security. This was a hot topic behind the scenes last week at the Spacepower 2024 convention in Orlando. Mr. Woolf said companies want to know how the government will protect their assets, or financially reimburse them if those assets are destroyed during a possible clash with China in space. “If China says … every single Starlink satellite is a potential target, what happens when?” Mr Woolf said.

… Elon Musk’s SpaceX has nearly 7,000 of those Starlink satellites in orbit today. They have played a vital role in, among other things, giving the Ukrainian military internet access during its war with Russia. With Mr. Musk set to be an A-level power player in the incoming Trump administration, he’ll be well positioned to craft federal policies defining the interplay and cost-sharing between military and commercial assets in space. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire and commercial astronaut who traveled into space earlier this year aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, is President-elect Trump’s pick to lead NASA and also could shape such policies.

… Democrats are doubling down on their criticism of “President Musk” after the tech billionaire led the charge to tank what had been a Republican-backed stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government open. As of Friday morning, Congress was still scrambling to strike a new deal to prevent a shutdown at midnight.

… The Pentagon said it quietly doubled the number of U.S. troops stationed in Syria in the days before former President Bashar Assad’s government fell to a rebel alliance. Defense officials said the increased presence is temporary, but it’s not clear when the forces might leave. There had been about 900 U.S. personnel in Syria, targeting Islamic Forces in the area. The number is now about 2,000. U.S. diplomats are now reportedly in Syria as well to meet with the country’s new government.

… Mr. Trump warned Friday that the European Union must buy more oil and gas from the U.S. or face sweeping tariffs on products they send to the states.

… The Malaysian government will resume the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared in 2014 with 239 people on board. It’s one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

… A campaign official with a local California politician was charged with acting covertly as an illegal agent of communist China. The Justice Department said Sun Yaoning worked to influence U.S. policy toward Taiwan in Beijing’s favor.

… And the United Nations and Israel are at each other’s throats yet again. This time, the U.N. is demanding that the Israeli Defense Forces withdraw its personnel from the expanded buffer zone along the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel.

Zelenskyy to Putin: You're a 'dumbass'

For Mr. Trump to achieve his goal of ending the Ukraine-Russia war, he’ll likely need to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin together for negotiations. And that might be difficult, given the bad blood and clear personal disdain the two men have for one another.

Case in point: Mr. Putin during his marathon end-of-year press conference Thursday challenged Ukraine and its allies to a “high-tech duel,” saying he would give advance warning of a new Russian hypersonic missile attack against a target in Kyiv to see if the West could stop the strike. A grinning Mr. Putin said the West could even choose the target themselves, and he said such an event would be “interesting.” Mr. Zelenskyy had a blunt reply to the proposition.

“People are dying, and he thinks it’s ‘interesting.’… Dumbass,” the Ukrainian leader said on X.

Mr. Putin has referred to Mr. Zelenskyy’s government as “Nazis.” Mr. Zelenskyy has called the Russian president a “scumbag.”

While there is optimism that Mr. Trump could bring about an end to the war, bridging the personal bitterness between those two men will be a tall order.

Sheriffs urge Biden administration to 'tell the truth' on mysterious drone sightings

Federal officials have tried to put to rest the uproar over mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey and elsewhere on the East Coast. But the story won’t go away. Now, the National Sheriffs’ Association is hitting the Biden administration for what it says is a lack of candor about the incidents.

“Is there something they are not telling the citizens of this country, or is it that they just don’t know? Either way, the rhetoric is unacceptable and dangerous,” Kiernan Donahue, president of the association and sheriff of Canyon County, Idaho, said in a statement. “Just tell the truth.”

Drone sightings over Virginia, too

Prominent Virginia officials also say the administration isn’t doing enough. Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, were briefed by federal agencies Thursday about a string of mysterious drone sightings in the skies over the commonwealth.

The trio’s joint statement afterwards: “This briefing was insufficient and unsatisfactory. It has been more than a year since these sightings over key military facilities in Virginia and the lack of answers about the nature, intent and origin of these incidents is completely unacceptable.”

In one such incident, unidentified drones flew over Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base.

China has 'world's leading hypersonic missile arsenal,' Pentagon warns

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz is on top of another troubling piece of the Pentagon’s major new report on China’s military power: Beijing’s growing hypersonic weapons capabilities.

While the Pentagon successfully tested a new hypersonic missile last week, American efforts to match China’s growing arsenal of hypersonic missiles still lag years behind. Indeed, China’s military has emerged as the global leader in ultra-high-speed, maneuvering missiles that cannot be countered with current U.S. missile defenses.

“The PRC has the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal and has dramatically advanced its development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies during the past 20 years,” the Defense Department report says.

In our opinion: Time for an overhaul of homeland missile defense

China’s advantage on hypersonics and its massive build-up of nuclear warheads and other conventional weaponry underscores the need for a major upgrade of America’s homeland missile defense systems.

Robert Joseph, who served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, breaks it all down in a new piece for The Times. He writes that Mr. Trump “should restate the priority of homeland defense during the transition and on his first day in office. He must move quickly and achieve the key milestones in the first 18 to 24 months of his term.”

To oversee the complex, expensive effort that will include multiple arms of the federal government and commercial defense industry, Mr. Joseph argues that Mr. Trump “should assign someone with a direct line to him to oversee the effort.”

“One candidate is Elon Musk. No one has a better track record of innovation and results,” Mr. Joseph writes.

Events on our radar

• Jan. 6 — NVIDIA CEO Keynote at CES, NVIDIA

• Jan. 7-10 — CES 2025, Consumer Technology Association

• Jan. 9 — What Do People in Taiwan and the United States Think about Taiwan’s Security Situation? Brookings Institution

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