The head of the CIA’s strategic investment fund says the array of global threats facing the United States today has “never been more dangerous.”

AI, drones, quantum computing, advanced biotech and futuristic satellites are being born from the ingenuity of the American private sector, and In-Q-Tel — essentially a venture capital firm operating under the purview of the CIA — is heavily investing in them. The latest Threat Status Influencers Series features an exclusive video interview with In-Q-Tel President and CEO Steve Bowsher exploring the intersection between these cutting-edge technologies, U.S. intelligence and the evolving landscape of global conflict.

Among the interview’s eye-opening revelations is Mr. Bowsher’s assertion that the Pentagon’s new “Replicator” initiative is trying to create a U.S.-led drone industrial base capable of outpacing China’s production of “cheap, disposable … autonomous drones” that have reshaped how wars are waged in various parts of the world.

Washington has been abuzz over intelligence on the prospect of Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) nuclear weapons. However, some corners of the national security community are also focused on China’s growing arsenal of space warfare capabilities — capabilities that have evolved in recent years to include ground-based anti-satellite missiles, directed energy weapons and robot satellites able to cripple U.S. military operations that rely heavily on space systems.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz digs into a new report by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) — a U.S. Air Force think tank — highlighting Beijing’s “space coercion” deterrence strategy. The CASI report, based on translated writings of Chinese military officials, says Beijing’s space weapons already include a missile-launched nuclear warhead capable of orbiting Earth, warning that “coercive space strikes” could include “strikes from space to the ground.”

There’s no shortage of options: “Targets of orbital bombardment include reconnaissance and early-warning systems, communication hubs, and command centers; logistics systems, military-industrial bases, electric power and energy systems, and other infrastructure; and counter-force targets, including missile positions, airfields, naval bases, nuclear bases and information warfare installations,” the report claims.

The Pentagon has for months underscored the possibility that China could militarily attack Taiwan. The warnings hang in the backdrop to new developments this week.

After a delegation headed by Rep. Mike Gallagher — the GOP Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — visited Taiwan over the weekend, the committee wrote a letter to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk demanding that American defense forces in Taiwan be given access to Starshield. The satellite communications network was designed by Mr. Musk’s SpaceX company to support national security efforts. SpaceX has denied charges that it is withholding access to the platform to Taipei.

Mr. Biden and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump are slated to make dueling visits to the U.S. border on Thursday, jockeying for political advantage and blame on an issue increasingly crucial to voters in November’s presidential election.

The visits come amid a sobering development relating to the northern border with Canada involving the arrest of “Dirty Harry.” Authorities say that’s an alias for an Indian man accused of running a large migrant-smuggling ring that led to four Indian immigrants — a mother, father, an 11-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy — freezing to death in 2022. The case highlighted a growing surge of people from India who were using Canada as a transit point to sneak into the United States that year.

The strategic significance of Russian orbiting nuclear weapons is enormous, according to columnist Jed Babbin, who warns that U.S. anti-satellite (ASAT) capability is “almost nonexistent” because, “time after time, either Congress, a president or the Pentagon has killed programs that would have provided that capability.” 

Mr. Babbin suggests the world is on a slippery slope regarding ASAT warfare that could feature the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons, given that there is no longer an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and that Moscow suspended its observance of both the New START treaty and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 2023. At the same time, he asserts, it would take “at least a decade to protect our satellites with their own defensive systems and our own anti-satellite weapons.”