Threat Status for Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, arrived to chants of “USA! USA! USA!” inside a Senate hearing room Tuesday morning.
… Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, kicked things off by asserting that “America has entered a window of maximum danger and the department needs energetic and focused civilian leadership.”
… Protesters later interrupted the opening testimony of Mr. Hegseth, a combat veteran who has been accused of rape, infidelity and excessive drinking. The nominee cannot afford to lose support from more than three Republicans to be confirmed. Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth — both military veterans — are expected to be critical swing votes.
… Sources say Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages.
… NATO is launching a new mission to protect undersea cables following reports that Russia-linked ships have damaged cables by dragging anchors.
… The Pentagon’s artificial intelligence hub is creating a new budget and programming cell.
… Two future U.S. aircraft carriers will be named after former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
… And here’s a look inside the Pentagon’s deal with Florida-based L3Harris to design concepts for more resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) infrastructure for the U.S. Space Force.
At least 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and some 2,700 others wounded while fighting alongside Russian troops against Ukraine, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), but some private analysts say the reported casualty tolls given by Kyiv and Washington may be overstated.
The casualty counts were leaked from a closed-door briefing given by a top official of the spy agency to South Korea’s National Assembly on Monday, according to the Yonhap news service in Seoul. The figures track with estimates put out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has sharply criticized what is the largest foreign deployment of troops by the North Korean regime since the Korean War of the early 1950s.
Ukrainian, South Korean and U.S. comments suggest that as many as 12,000 Korean troops are heavily engaged in combat alongside Russian forces along the border with Ukraine. Multiple videos, many shot by drones, have shown Asian troops in action in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. NIS officials claim the high casualties incurred by the North Korean troops are due to a “lack of experience of modern warfare.”
But some scholars say the reported ratio of nine North Korean soldiers wounded for every one death is out of line with ratios from previous conflicts, raising doubts about the accuracy of the numbers, Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports.
Moscow has deployed a so-called shadow fleet of hundreds of aging tankers of uncertain ownership to keep oil revenue flowing and evade sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other Western powers as punishment for the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
The shadow fleet consists of aging tankers used often by nontransparent entities with addresses in non-sanctioning countries such as the United Arab Emirates or the Marshall Islands, and flagged in places such as Gabon or the Cook Islands, according to an Associated Press analysis published Tuesday. Some of the vessels are owned by the Russian state Sovcomflot shipping company. Their role is to help Russia’s oil exporters elude the $60 per barrel price cap imposed by Ukraine’s allies.
China remains a major buyer of Russian oil. Estimates vary, but S&P Global and the Kyiv School of Economics Institute have put the number at more than 400 Russian ghost fleet ships that can transport oil, or products made from crude such as diesel fuel and gasoline. Reuters reported Tuesday that Chinese and Indian refiners are seeking alternative fuel supplies as they adapt to severe new U.S. sanctions on Russian producers and tankers that are designed to curb the revenues of the world’s second-largest oil exporter.
Republican lawmakers slammed President Biden’s major foreign policy speech on Monday, with outgoing House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul claiming the president made a “last-ditch effort to whitewash his disastrous foreign policy record and rewrite his legacy.”
In remarks at State Department headquarters, Mr. Biden claimed that he rejuvenated alliances and kept America out of war, asserting that the U.S. is presently “winning the worldwide competition compared to four years ago.” He also tried to defend his widely criticized Afghanistan pullout. He said Americans grieve the 2,461 lives lost during the 20-year war, although he did not acknowledge the 13 soldiers who were killed in August 2021 during the chaotic withdrawal.
The administration has faced sharp criticism for being caught unprepared ahead of Hamas’ 2023 terror attack on Israel. In the days prior to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Mr. Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had claimed the Mideast was the safest it had been in years.
Mr. McCaul slammed Mr. Biden’s speech, asserting that the administration’s “weakness” led to “hot wars” on two continents and repeated turbulence in the Indo-Pacific. “Perhaps most troubling,” Mr. McCaul said, Mr. Biden “once again touted his botched Afghanistan withdrawal as a victory — claiming it did not damage our alliances nor create a haven for terrorism. Those are bold-faced lies. The withdrawal telegraphed U.S. weakness around the world.
The Defense Department in September went on its biggest monthlong spending spree since the height of the war on terror, dumping nearly $80 billion in a rush to empty its accounts before the end of the fiscal year.
In just the final five business days of September alone, the Pentagon spent $33.1 billion, according to Open the Books, a watchdog. That’s more in five days than nearly every other nation on earth spends in a year on their military.
The big-ticket spending items were to be expected: $3 billion on ammunition, and nearly $8 billion on aircraft. But the Pentagon’s books also tallied 147 separate entries for raw lobster tail, at a cost of $6.1 million, and $16.6 million on ribeye steak. Open the Books said the spending was part of the government’s perverse use-it-or-lose-it mentality, which dictates that a program needs to spend every dollar it was budgeted — whether needed or not — or else Congress will trim its funding in the future.
Lockheed Martin Corp. was the biggest winner in September’s spending, collecting $10.8 billion of the $79.1 billion spent. That’s twice as much as the runner-up, Raytheon Company, and roughly five times Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, which was No. 3 on the list.
As a military combat veteran, a strong advocate for combat veterans, and a transformative leader, Mr. Hegseth “possesses the skills, vision and experience needed to guide the Department of Defense through a critical time in our nation’s security landscape,” argues Kurt Lofquist, a Republican political operative and combat veteran.
“As a former infantry officer, Mr. Hegseth has been in the trenches, leading soldiers, navigating difficult terrain, and executing missions under pressure,” Mr. Lofquist writes. “This hands-on experience equips him with a unique perspective that many civilian leaders at the Pentagon do not have.”
“Mr. Hegseth would bring a transformative approach to the Pentagon. He has a deep understanding of the evolving security challenges facing the U.S. and a vision for modernizing the military to ensure that it remains the most powerful and agile force in the world,” he writes. “From tackling cybersecurity threats to adapting to new forms of warfare, Mr. Hegseth’s forward-thinking leadership will be instrumental in preparing the U.S. military for the future.”
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