Threat Status for Tuesday, January 28, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
The U.S. Space Force is building a “Space Campus” within the operations of the Pentagon’s Central Command at the strategically positioned Al Udeid Air Base in the Mideast nation of Qatar — a development that could prove crucial over the long term as President Trump pushes to develop a vast missile shield that sources tell Threat Status will rely on space-based interceptors.
… Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, who has long walked a tightrope between the U.S., Russia and the European Union, has resigned amid anti-corruption protests in Belgrade.
… Russian officials are on their first official visit to Syria since the ouster of Bashar Assad, while Iran’s acquisition of advanced Sukhoi-35 fighter jets from Russia is boosting bilateral military ties.
… Two Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been arrested and accused of spying for Iran.
… CIA analysts now believe the virus behind COVID more than likely was created in a Chinese research lab, a position health experts once dismissed as disinformation and a conspiracy theory.
… And former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who was at the center of the Biden administration’s push to block China’s access to the most advanced U.S.-designed microchips, has been named a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek soared to the top of Apple’s App Store Monday and ranked as the most downloaded free app, just ahead of California-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT — a development that has not only sent shockwaves through the American AI market, but also prompted unease within the U.S. national security community.
National Security Tech Correspondent Ryan Lovelace reports on concerns that China may use DeepSeek to refine and improve its ability to censor online content and amass user data. Users reported that the chatbot restricted answers to questions about the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
China’s policies of civil-military fusion, which encourage cooperation between companies and the ruling Chinese Communist Party, have triggered fears that the data collected by the AI platform will end up in the hands of party bosses and security agents.
The platform’s policies describe data collection processes, including the retention of information voluntarily provided by users, such as email addresses and telephone numbers. According to its privacy policy, DeepSeek automatically collects certain technical information, including “keystroke patterns or rhythms.”
The president has signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to submit within 60 days “an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield” that will rely primarily on space-based interceptors to defend “the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer and rogue adversaries.”
The order serves as an acknowledgment of a reality that national security insiders and defense analysts have long warned about: Right now, the U.S. cannot stop well-armed adversaries from hitting the homeland with ballistic, cruise or hypersonic missiles.
National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang reports that while the system is being cast as America’s version of the Iron Dome, Mr. Trump’s vision is actually quite different from the famed Israeli system. His order highlights the specific goal of defeating “missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase.” Those who know tell Threat Status that the only way to do that is through space-based missile interceptors.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first day on the job coincided with Mr. Trump’s inking of a range of executive orders Monday, including one likely to result in a ban on transgender troops, another banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the military, and another reinstating more than 8,000 service members who were discharged for refusing orders to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
It’s all happening amid Mr. Hegseth’s immediate focus on supporting the Trump administration’s policy to seal the southern U.S. border and use military aircraft to deport illegal immigrants. “This Pentagon ‘snapped to’ last week. We helped move forward troops, put in more barriers, and also ensured mass deportations,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters. “The protection of the sovereign territory of the United States is the job of the Defense Department, and the cartels are foreign terrorist organizations.”
Before taking office, both Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump had called for the removal of Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, saying he was too “woke” to be part of the incoming administration. On Monday, the new defense secretary was more conciliatory toward Gen. Brown. “I’m standing with him right now,” Mr. Hegseth said. “I’m looking forward to working with him.”
Russia and China work closely with fellow BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates), focusing on economic and geopolitical coordination, writes Joseph R. DeTrani, a former member of the Senior Intelligence Service of the CIA and a contributor to Threat Status.
“Unfortunately, it is this type of outreach that the U.S. has neglected since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he writes, noting that “we closed the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in October 1999 and cut back on cultural exchanges while closing some of our cultural facilities and libraries abroad. In retrospect, I believe this was an unfortunate mistake.”
“In 1991, when the Soviet Union imploded, it appeared that liberal democracies, which ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for their citizens, were a desirable form of governance,” Mr. DeTrani writes. “We know it is far superior to dictatorships and autocracies, but this is part of the competition we’re having with China and others. To succeed, we must clearly convey our story and values.”
Mark Pfeifle writes that while Congress has supposedly banned “earmarks,” directing money toward favored projects in members’ home districts and states, members of the House Appropriations Committee didn’t get the memo.
“Congress last year decreed that $21 billion should be spent for 1,072 separate program increases in the Pentagon’s procurement and research, development, test and evaluation accounts — most of which the Pentagon didn’t even ask for,” writes Mr. Pfeifle, who runs Off the Record Strategies, a crisis management firm in Washington
“In the yet-to-be-finalized fiscal year 2025 budget, lawmakers have proposed an additional 1,500 increases in the research and development accounts at more than $39 billion,” he writes. “More than 72% of this spending is for projects the Pentagon didn’t request. If the defense budget is approved, these are ‘backdoor earmarks,’ and their collective cost will be $60 billion over two years.”
• Feb. 7 — China and Russia: Strategic Dynamics, MITRE
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