The political, legal and national security battle over whether the U.S. government will ban TikTok or force a sale of the social media giant from its China-based owner ByteDance is coming to a head. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the issue on Jan. 10 — roughly a week before the TikTok ban is supposed to take effect on Jan. 19.

The latest edition of the Threat Status Weekly Podcast delves into all that’s happening with the TikTok debate, including concerns that ByteDance has ties with China’s intelligence and is used by the Chinese Communist Party as a tool for information warfare against the United States. Beijing and TikTok staunchly deny those allegations.

For deeper context, Threat Status sat down recently with Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to discuss TikTok and the U.S. Intelligence War. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who backed the legislation to ban or force a sale of TikTok, also weighed in on the matter in an exclusive Threat Status Influencers video interview.

Pentagon officials say a precision airstrike carried out against an Islamic State target in Syria on Monday destroyed a truckload of weapons moving through an area of the country previously controlled by former dictator Bashar Assad’s troops and their Russian allies.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement that the airstrike in Dayr az Zawr Province killed two Islamic State operatives and wounded another. The CENTCOM statement did not specify the kinds of weapons the terrorists were moving.

Most concerning is that ISIS operatives seem to be exploiting a chaotic situation on the ground. The U.S. doubled the number of troops in Syria, from about 900 to nearly 2,000, in the days leading up to the fall of the Assad government. The Pentagon says those forces are in the country to prevent the Islamic State from capitalizing on the situation and expanding its power.

British military intelligence officials assess that more than half of the drones Russia sent into Ukraine in recent months were decoys intended to overwhelm Ukrainian air defense systems. “Their purpose is to complicate the Ukrainian defensive effort through saturating or confusing the radar picture, forcing more work on the Ukrainian Air Defense teams in hopes of causing fatigue over time,” British officials said on X in their latest battlefield assessment of the Russia-Ukraine war.

In November, the Kremlin launched about 2,300 unmanned aircraft systems at targets inside Ukraine, the officials said, adding that as many as 60% may have been “decoys” that are smaller and less expensive than the Iranian-designed Shahed-class attack drones.

However, Russian drone launches have decreased this month, with only about 850 so far. Analysts say Moscow’s drone production facilities and launch sites haven’t been seriously degraded by Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

The incoming Trump administration has legitimate concerns about how much the U.S. is spending to help Ukraine — $175 billion at last count. But there is a way to pressure Russia to bring the fighting to an end that doesn’t involve spending enormous sums of money: Let’s get serious about economic warfare.

James K. Glassman, a former U.S. undersecretary of state, makes that assertion in an op-ed, arguing that while the West has “enacted a complex system of sanctions designed to punish Russia, the cracks are apparent.”

“Just as he increased and tightened sanctions against Iran in his first term, President-elect Donald Trump can do the same against Russia — and demand that Europe do the same,” writes Mr. Glassman, who argues that “no sanctions” are currently hitting “Russian natural gas and metals, including iron ore, copper and aluminum.”

The mysterious drone flights over New Jersey might seem unrelated to larger geopolitical events, but they expose “America’s lag in drone warfare capabilities,” according to Mitzi Perdue, who highlights recent assessments put forward by Deborah Fairlamb, a drone expert living in Ukraine.

Ms. Perdue highlights Ms. Fairlamb’s question: “Why doesn’t the State of New Jersey just call Ukraine to find out what’s going on? Here in Ukraine, we’re drone experts, and we know how to do drone monitoring.”

“A recent Department of Defense procurement document outlines plans to build 4,500 drones over the next five years. Meanwhile, Ukraine is on track to produce 3 million drones in 2025,” writes Ms. Perdue, a businesswoman, author and activist. “U.S. drones can cost over $1 million each, making them so prohibitively expensive that Ukrainian soldiers are reluctant to use them. By contrast, Ukrainian-made drones costing only $500 each regularly destroy $4 million Russian T-90 tanks — a staggering testament to Ukrainian cost-effectiveness and innovation.”

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

• Jan. 7 — Report Launch and Panel: NATO and U.S.-Turkey Defense Cooperation in a New Era, Atlantic Council

• Jan. 7 — The Hidden Costs: Transparency and the U.S. Arms Trade, Stimson Center

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

• Jan. 8 — Russia’s Difficult Road to Freedom: A Conversation with Vladimir Kara-Murza, American Enterprise Institute

• Jan. 8 — The Role of Religion and Spirituality in U.S. Security Assistance, Center for Strategic and International Studies

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