By 2050, one in four people on earth will live in Africa, a continent of vast natural resources and precious metal reserves but also one posing great foreign and national security challenges for Washington.

The latest Threat Status Influencers Video features an exclusive interview with Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the renowned diplomat who most recently served as special representative for implementation of U.S. pledges made at the 2022 African Leaders Summit in Washington.

Ambassador Carson takes stock of the wave of military coups on the continent over the past four years, and discusses how China and Russia are challenging U.S. attempts to promote stability and foster democracy on the continent. He asserts that Beijing’s infrastructure projects in Africa have “largely been negotiated in opaque fashion.” 

Iran vowed revenge against Israel and the United States on Tuesday, a day after Syria claimed an Israeli airstrike had destroyed the consular section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, killing two senior Iranian generals and others. The airstrike has sparked fresh fears of an escalation of clashes with Iran and its regional allies, which have intensified since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas militants in Gaza. 

Iranian state media claimed Monday’s strike killed “Iranian military advisors” and “senior commanders” in Damascus. One report quoted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying the “evil regime will be punished” and Tehran will “make them regret this crime.” Retaliation is most likely to come in the form of increased attacks on Israel and on U.S. forces in the region by such Iran-backed militant groups as Yemen’s Houthi militants and Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

The developments come against a backdrop of new horror in Gaza, where a separate Israeli airstrike on Monday killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen. Citizens of the U.S., Britain, Poland and Australia were reportedly among those killed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday it was an “unintended strike” on “innocent people” and that Israel “will do everything for this not to happen again.”

Europe wants to be the world’s pace-setting AI cop, and NATO’s newest member, Sweden, is eager for the U.S. to follow the European approach to technology regulation. 

National Security Tech Correspondent Ryan Lovelace reports that Per-Arne Hjelmborn, director general for trade in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently told a Washington audience that “Sweden and the U.S. are world leaders on innovation and technology development, and we share also a strong belief on innovation in international cooperation.”

Visitors to a special AI exhibit set up by the embassy can see new tools such as security cameras from Axis Communications built with privacy protections. The Swedish company uses AI-based “dynamic masking” on real-time video from the cameras to monitor people’s movements — while obscuring their faces or entire bodies. The European Union will soon implement AI rules through the EU AI Act that bans AI applications involving emotion recognition, the “scraping” of facial images for surveillance and manipulating human behavior.

Federal prosecutors announced charges Monday against a man they say smuggled in an illegal immigrant child and then produced child pornography with the minor, a case that implicates President Biden’s more relaxed approach to illegal immigrant children. The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan digs into the indictment, which claims Natividad Aguilera Garcia, 37, lied to the federal government in claiming he was the child’s uncle, producing a false birth certificate.

The State Department should heed former President Reagan’s “peace through strength” philosophy and support Armenia with weapons and security assistance to help it defend against Russian aggression, argues Robert L. Livingston, the former longtime Republican congressman from Louisiana.

“Since Armenia gained independence in 1991, Russia has tried to keep Armenia in a diplomatic, economic and political chokehold, forcing it to remain part of a Russia-led alliance and its security arm, the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” Mr. Livingston writes. “Russia, however, has recently reneged on its treaty obligations to Armenia, leaving the country virtually defenseless against its stronger adversaries.”

The U.S. has a strong partner in Armenia’s largest pro-Western political party, the National Democratic Alliance, he writes, asserting that Washington “cannot squander” the opportunity to stand behind the party toward the goal of taking Armenia out of Russia’s orbit.