The U.S. navy attacked three extra alleged drug-trafficking boats off the Latin American coast, this time all three “had been transiting alongside identified narco-trafficking routes within the Japanese Pacific and had been engaged in narco-trafficking,” officers at Southern Command mentioned in an announcement and compilation video posted to social media Monday night.
“A complete of eight male narco-terrorists had been killed throughout these actions—three within the first vessel, two within the second and three within the third,” SOUTHCOM mentioned. As earlier than, no proof was offered to again up their claims.
The assaults increase the demise toll to 95 folks unfold throughout not less than 25 strikes, which have left two survivors, the New York Occasions reviews in its up to date tracker, which incorporates U.S. navy assaults going again to Sept. 2.
New: The White Home says it has now designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction,” in accordance with an government order posted on-line Monday. President Trump and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth have claimed their assaults on alleged drug-trafficking boats stems from their conflict on drug cartels and the movement of fentanyl into the U.S., which specialists say travels into the nation by way of Mexico and never the Caribbean, because the New York Occasions defined final month.
A notice on alleged technique: Trump’s chief of workers Susie Wiles instructed Self-importance Honest in an interview revealed at present that the president “needs to maintain on blowing boats up till [Venezuelan dictator Nicholas] Maduro cries uncle. And other people manner smarter than me on that say that he’ll.” VF’s Chris Whipple famous instantly afterward, “Wiles’s assertion seems to contradict the administration’s official stance that blowing up boats is about drug interdiction, not regime change.” Former State Division counsel Brian Finacune known as this technique “as boneheaded as it’s unlawful.”
Additional studying: Wiles additionally instructed the Occasions in a separate interview revealed Tuesday (reward hyperlink) that the president “has an alcoholic’s persona,” and that the vice chairman has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade.” What’s extra, she known as Elon Musk “an avowed ketamine” person and described White Home finances director Russell Vought as “a right-wing absolute zealot.”
U.S. Worldwide Command? Pentagon ponders main consolidation of combatant instructions. CJCS Gen. Dan Caine is making ready to transient SecDef Hegseth on a plan to consolidate U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command underneath the management of a brand new U.S. Worldwide Command, the Washington Publish reviews, citing 5 folks conversant in the matter.
“If adopted, the plan would usher in a few of the most vital adjustments on the navy’s highest ranks in many years, partially following by on Hegseth’s promise to interrupt the established order and slash the variety of four-star generals,” 4 Publish reporters write. “Such strikes would complement different efforts by the administration to shift assets from the Center East and Europe and focus foremost on increasing navy operations within the Western Hemisphere, these folks mentioned.”
U.S. NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM would even be consolidated, an thought reported earlier this yr by NBC Information. The consolidation is “meant to hurry decision-making and adaptation amongst navy commanders,” one senior protection official instructed the Publish.
However one former protection secretary mentioned it could seemingly cut back regional experience. “The world isn’t getting any easier,” Chuck Hagel mentioned in an interview. “You need instructions which have the potential of heading off issues earlier than they develop into huge issues, and I believe you lose a few of that once you unify or consolidate too many.” Learn on, right here (reward hyperlink).
Commentary: The White Home’s new Nationwide Safety Technique is “the longest suicide notice in U.S. historical past,” writes Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. Noting that the 2025 NSS differs most starkly from its predecessors in neglecting to call any nation that threatens america, Applebaum writes: “I’m not certain whether or not there has ever been a second like this one, when the American authorities’s most outstanding foreign-policy theorists have transferred their home obsessions to the surface world, projecting their very own fears onto others. Because of this, they’re prone to misunderstand who may problem, threaten, and even harm america within the close to future. Their fantasy world endangers us all.” Learn that, right here (reward hyperlink).
Replace: Syrian DOD casualties named. The pair of U.S. troopers killed on Saturday had been Iowa Nationwide Guardsmen: Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, the chief of the Nationwide Guard Bureau mentioned in a Monday publish.
Consideration: Is provider Wi-Fi distracting sailors? Investigations launched final week into the lack of three F/A-18 Tremendous Hornets and a collision with a service provider vessel by the provider Harry S. Truman discovered coaching gaps and a scarcity of focus and professionalism, due maybe to overwork and even distraction by the comparatively latest arrival of shipboard wifi, Navy Occasions reported final week.
Protection continues beneath…
Welcome to this Tuesday version of The D Transient, a e-newsletter devoted to developments affecting the way forward for U.S. nationwide safety, delivered to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s extra vital than ever to remain knowledgeable, so thanks for studying. Share your ideas and suggestions right here. And should you’re not already subscribed, you are able to do that right here. On today in 1944, the Battle of the Bulge started.
It’s been a document yr for U.S. airstrikes on militants in Somalia, with not less than 114 up to now, in accordance with an in depth working tally compiled by researchers on the Washington-based New America assume tank. The second-busiest yr—in a marketing campaign that stretches again to 2003—was 2019 with 66 recorded strikes.
The newest declared strike occurred Sunday, although it’s unclear if it resulted in any casualties, in accordance with the press launch from U.S. officers at Africa Command. “Particular particulars about models and belongings is not going to be launched to make sure continued operations safety,” AFRICOM famous in a change of transparency that’s develop into a staple of U.S. navy exercise in Africa since about April.
About 500 U.S. troops had been stationed in Somalia earlier this yr, and their consideration has targeted nearly completely on airstrikes concentrating on both al-Shabaab insurgents combating the federal government based mostly in Mogadishu—in additional than 40 U.S. strikes this yr—or Islamic State militants lingering a bit additional to the northeast, typically across the Golis mountains within the semi-autonomous Puntland area. Greater than 60 U.S. strikes have focused IS-Somalia, in accordance with New America’s knowledge. U.S. troops additionally carried out a floor raid concentrating on IS-Somalia in late July, the one publicly-known raid of its variety in 2025.
Not each U.S. strike ends in a demise, as AFRICOM officers instructed New America’s David Sterman. Nonetheless, in accordance with his digging, someplace between 115 and 292 folks have been killed in these U.S. operations. What number of had been militants and what number of had been civilians? It’s unclear, and AFRICOM hasn’t clarified. (Hat tip to Spencer Ackerman and Wesley Morgan for bringing consideration to those developments.)
Additionally notable: UAE troops have carried out not less than 19 airstrikes in opposition to Islamic State militants in Somalia this yr as nicely, Caleb Weiss of FDD’s Lengthy Conflict Journal reported in late July. Nonetheless, it’s seemingly that “this quantity may very well be greater, because the UAE doesn’t publicly announce such operations,” and “UAE strikes are solely confirmed by Puntland officers formally commenting on them,” Weiss wrote.
A key query for the White Home stays: Escalate or exit? Each choices appear to hold dangers. Recall that again in April, the New York Occasions reported the Trump administration’s Nationwide Safety Council was “divided” over the best way to deal with Somalia, with some—citing years of comparable motion—involved a rise in U.S. strikes might need little impact, whereas others feared withdrawal may “inadvertently incite a fast collapse.”
5 alleged “high-threat” migrants had been despatched to U.S. detention amenities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Sunday, Carol Rosenberg of the New York Occasions reported Sunday. They got here as a part of a wider group of twenty-two migrants, which had been the primary arrivals of their variety in two months, a protection official instructed Rosenberg.
“The most recent transfers, from Louisiana, raised to about 730 the variety of males who’ve been held on the base since early February, when the Trump administration started utilizing it as a manner station for ICE detainees designated for deportation,” she added.
For comparability, throughout America’s World Conflict on Terror, the U.S. held as many as 780 males and boys in detention at Guantánamo, solely seven of whom had been convicted, in accordance with a 2023 report (PDF) by the UN Particular Rapporteur on the Promotion and Safety of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms whereas Countering Terrorism.
Earlier than the Sunday transfers, simply 15 males had been held on the American navy jail at Guantánamo, Rosenberg reported final month. “Of these, 9 have been charged with conflict crimes within the navy commissions system—seven have but to be placed on trial and two have been convicted,” she wrote. Learn extra, right here.
A minimum of eight U.S. veterans have been deported, and the Trump administration plans to deport dozens extra, Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner introduced Saturday utilizing knowledge from the Division of Homeland Safety obtained in September by Home Armed Providers Committee member and Marine veteran Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.
Why convey it up: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem instructed lawmakers in a listening to final week, “We now have not deported U.S. residents or navy veterans.” However Magaziner then confirmed her U.S. Military veteran Sae Joon Park, who was deported this summer time as a part of Trump’s anti-immigration crackdowns. Noem later promised to look into the circumstances behind Park’s deportation, as two totally different Democratic lawmakers requested in August.
ICYMI: “The Trump administration is sharing all air vacationers’ names with ICE officers to search out folks with deportation orders,” the New York Occasions reported Friday in an replace to a program that started “quietly in March.”
Officers on the Transportation Safety Administration at the moment are sharing the info “a number of occasions per week,” after which “ICE can then match the record in opposition to its personal database of individuals topic to deportation and ship brokers to the airport to detain these folks.”
Associated studying:
And so on.
Constructing post-quantum gear is difficult. A brand new partnership goals to make it simpler, Protection One’s science and tech editor Patrick Tucker reported Monday. SEALSQ, which focuses on “quantum-safe” chips, and Airmod, a French firm that makes a speciality of safe electronics for aerospace and drones, say they might help firms produce the bigger, extra energy-intensive software program that meets requirements for quantum-safe {hardware} and software program environments, as outlined by the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Know-how, or NIST.
Below a deal introduced Monday, the companions will use Airmod’s middleware software program to assist shoppers flip “months of complicated cryptographic integration into days” by permitting shoppers to bridge extra simply apply software program from earlier functions into new ones.
Why it issues: The requirements replicate rising concern and certainty amongst a broad vary of pc and safety professionals that engineers—most definitely in both China or america—will announce the event of a quantum pc able to breaking Shor’s algorithm earlier than 2035. That is the encryption normal that runs on the coronary heart of a lot of the world’s monetary transactions, internet browsing, and device-to-device communication (comparable to drone operation).
Whoever wins the race would primarily have a backdoor into personal transactions and communications all around the world. Proceed studying, right here.
The White Home lately suspended a $40 billion “expertise prosperity deal” with the UK that Trump agreed to throughout a go to there in September, the Monetary Occasions reported in a Monday follow-up to New York Occasions reporting Saturday. The settlement spanned cooperation in synthetic intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear power.
Why convey it up: “It exhibits how the administration is continuous to leverage commerce coverage to push overseas governments to make extra concessions on commerce and different insurance policies,” the Occasions famous. “Individuals conversant in these talks mentioned US officers had been changing into more and more pissed off with the UK’s lack of willingness to deal with so-called non-tariff obstacles, together with guidelines and laws governing meals and industrial items,” FT reviews. Reuters has a bit extra.
Additionally from the UK: “New MI6 Chief Warns Putin is ‘Dragging Out’ Ukraine Talks,” Bloomberg reported Monday.
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