‘Yesterday’s facilities,’ unstable workforce among base commanders’ worries
From sinkholes to policing shortages, military leaders laid out their concerns at a Maryland-wide conference.
threats
The D Brief: Will US strike Iran?; China’s orbital gray zone; Army’s artillery production; Europe’s fighter-jet spat; And a bit more.
Escalation watch: Iran is reportedly ready to strike U.S. military bases in the Middle East should President Trump decide to enter Israel’s war with Iran, U.S. officials told the New York Times Tuesday.
However, “Iran’s missile barrages in the recent conflict are much smaller compared to its barrages in its October 2024 attack on Israel,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote in their Tuesday evening assessment. This apparent reduction in Iranian missile counter-attacks suggests Israeli strikes (like this) so far have been considerably effective against Iranian missile launchers. Consider, ISW writes, “Iran launched around 200 ballistic missiles in two waves in October 2024, whereas Iran used 30 to 40 missiles per barrage on June 16. Iran used 20 missiles in its largest barrage and two missiles in its smallest barrage on June 17, moreover.”
New: The U.S. military has reportedly withdrawn from two more of its bases inside Syria, Reuters reported Tuesday. The Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases are both in northeastern Syria. U.S. troops have now withdrawn from four bases inside Syria since Trump took office, according to Reuters.
Why it matters: “Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that Islamic State [militants] had already begun moving more openly around U.S. bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.” More, here.
Developing: More U.S. military assets have arrived to the region, as open-source watchers like Avi Scharf of Haaretz shared on social media early Wednesday. He spotted the movement of several C-17 cargo planes, and speculated about the possible transit of F-22s and F-16s.
Coverage continues after the jump…
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1981, the U.S. Air Force’s F-117 Nighthawk flew for the first time.
Heads up: “Israel doesn’t have the massive munition it would take to destroy [Iran’s] Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, or the aircraft needed to deliver it. Only the U.S. does,” Lita Baldor of the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
“The Air Force’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is the only aircraft that can carry the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, known as the bunker buster,” Baldor writes. “There are currently no B-2 bombers in the Middle East region, although there are B-52 bombers based at Diego Garcia, and they can deliver smaller munitions. If tapped for use, the B-2 bombers would have to make the 30-hour round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, refueling multiple times.”
For the record: U.S. “Fighter jets have joined in launching strikes to defend Israel, but officials said Tuesday that no American aircraft were over Iran,” according to Baldor. Read more about additional U.S. military assets in the region, here.
By the way: CENTCOM chief Gen. Erik Kurilla has reportedly had “nearly all” his requests approved by the White House in the current conflict, according to Politico. Also worth noting: “Kurilla’s arguments to send more U.S. weapons to the region, including air defenses, have gone against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who have urged caution in overcommitting to the Middle East.”
ICYMI: Trump dangled the threat of assassination over Iran’s leader, writing on social media Tuesday, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding…We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.” Trump on Monday used social media to ominously instruct Tehran’s 10 million residents to “immediately evacuate” the city, without exactly saying why. He later wrote in a separate, much-shorter post Tuesday, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Iran’s POV: “The Iranian nation cannot be surrendered,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised statement Wednesday. “The Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he added.
Latest from Trump: “I may do it,” he told reporters on the White House lawn Wednesday regarding the U.S. military joining Israel’s war. “I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
Second opinion: “Donald Trump appears to be about to take the country to war in Iran,” warns media watchdog Dan Froomkin, writing Tuesday. “That could range from sending B-2s to blow up Iran’s heavily bunkered nuclear facility, to killing the Iranian leader, to bombing Tehran (‘evacuate immediately,’ he posted on Monday).”
“I would like reporters to clarify that bombing Iran is, indeed, an act of war—and that it is Congress, not the president, that has the constitutional authority to declare war,” Froomkin says. He continues, “I want journalists to remember the lessons that should have been learned after Vietnam, and then again after Iraq, and demand answers of public officials before the war—if there’s still time. That means insisting that officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better rather than worse—and that it’s not just about satisfying some short-term urge.” Continue reading, here.
Additional reading (via Elizabeth Saunders of Columbia University):
- “Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong,” by Alexander B. Downes of George Washington University, published December 2021;
- “Strongmen and Straw Men: Authoritarian Regimes and the Initiation of International Conflict,” by Jessica L. Weeks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writing in 2012;
- “Coercion and the Credibility of Assurances,” by researchers Matthew D. Cebul, Allan Dafoe, and Nuno P. Monteiro, writing in July 2021;
- “The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon,” by Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writing in February;
- “Seeking the Bomb: Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” by Vipin Narang of MIT, writing in January 2022;
- And “Influence without Arms:The New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence,” from Matthew Fuhrmann of Texas A&M University, writing in October.
Around the Defense Department
Today on Capitol Hill, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine are discussing the Defense Department’s budget request before the Senate Committee on Armed Services. That began at 9:30 a.m. ET; livestream what’s left, here.
Also: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and service chief Gen. Randy George are discussing the Army’s budget request before Senate appropriators’ defense subcommittee. Livestream here.
Coming soon: the submariner nominated to end the unprecedented gap between CNOs. It’s Adm. Daryl Caudle, who has led Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., since 2021, and earlier in his career commanded three attack submarines, an unusual achievement. USNI News has a bit more.
Caudle’s name began surfacing as a CNO candidate last month, when Politico wrote that he “has been unusually blunt in calling out failures in the defense industrial base. ‘I am not forgiving of the fact they’re not delivering the ordnance we need,’ Caudle said in 2023 when defense contractors were slow to restock the Navy’s depleted weapons arsenal. He has also criticized the service’s lack of public shipyards to maintain warships and said the Navy should be ‘embarrassed’ that it can’t develop lasers to provide air defense aboard ships.”
Trump moved Greenland to NORTHCOM. DOD announced Tuesday that the Danish territory, long under the U.S. European Command’s area of responsibility, has been moved to Northern Command’s AOR to “strengthen the Joint Force’s ability to defend the U.S. homeland.” Unmentioned went Trump’s imperialist designs on the world’s largest island.
The Army heads toward 100,000 artillery shells per month. The service has nearly tripled its production of 155mm howitzer shells since the Ukraine war began, millions of which have been sent to that country’s front lines. It’s going to miss its goal of making 100,000 per month by October, but likely by just a few months. Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports, here.
China in space
Space is increasingly looking like the South China Sea—that is, a domain for gray-zone warfare, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports from the 8th annual Space Security Conference in Prague.
The gist: “China describes its space activity—including the deployment of highly maneuverable satellites, satellites equipped with robotic arms, and moon missions—as nonmilitary. But officials from the United States and Taiwan, as well as independent space experts, worry that China is ‘rehearsing’ how to use satellites as space weapons in the opening days of an invasion. They also fear China is positioning itself to press other nations into accepting whatever space activities Beijing defines as ‘normal.’ Read on, here.
European cooperation
France and Germany are bickering in public over workshare for Europe’s next-gen fighter program, a dynamic that doesn’t bode well for the continent’s efforts to build up military capability. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has more on that from the Paris Air Show, here.
Admin note: Thursday is Juneteenth, a federal holiday. So we’ll see you again on Friday!
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Qilin Ransomware Emerges as a Major Threat Targeting Windows, Linux, and ESXi Systems
Qilin ransomware has emerged as a formidable force, rapidly ascending to prominence amid the collapse of once-dominant groups like RansomHub and LockBit in 2025. Active since October 2022, Qilin has solidified its position through a sophisticated Ranso…
New Winos 4.0 Malware Strain Emerges as Major Threat to Windows Systems
FortiGuard Labs has uncovered a formidable new strain of malware, dubbed Winos 4.0, targeting Microsoft Windows users, with a particular focus on individuals in Taiwan. First detected in January 2025, this malicious campaign leverages cunning phishing …
China is bringing grey zone warfare to space
Space is increasingly looking like the South China Sea.
New Sorillus RAT Targets European Organizations Through Tunneling Services
An important development discovered in March 2025 by Orange Cyberdefense’s Managed Threat Detection teams in Belgium was that a European client was the subject of a malicious infection chain that used the Sorillus Remote Access Trojan (RAT). Furt…
XDSpy Threat Actors Exploit Windows LNK Zero-Day Vulnerability to Target Windows System Users
The XDSpy threat actor has been identified as exploiting a Windows LNK zero-day vulnerability, dubbed ZDI-CAN-25373, to target governmental entities in Eastern Europe and Russia. This ongoing campaign, active since March 2025, employs an intricate mult…
The D Brief: Israel’s new war aim; NATO’s new concepts; China’s drones; Misinfo follows MN murders; And a bit more.
The Israeli Defense Forces says it killed another top Iranian commander as Israel continues pressing its “pre-emptive” war against Iran, ostensibly to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Latest: After four days of intense air and missile attacks, Israeli leaders are now “contemplating regime change in the Islamic Republic,” Axios reported Tuesday following various interviews—including this one on Fox—that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given since Sunday. When asked on Fox if “regime change” was part of Israel’s goals, Netanyahu replied, “Could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak.” He reiterated that point several more times Monday, including on an Iranian opposition program with the unsubtle title, “Regime Change In Iran.”
About that Iranian commander Israel says it has killed: His name is Ali Shadmani, and the IDF claimed Tuesday he was “Iran’s senior-most military official” and the “closest military advisor” to Iran’s leader, Ali Khamenei. The IDF says Shadmani “was killed in an [Israeli air force] strike in central Tehran, following precise intelligence.”
By the way, U.S. President Trump on Monday called for the 10 million people in Tehran to evacuate the city, writing on social media before departing a conference of G7 leaders early, “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”
Trump also said Tuesday he’s trying to get Iran to the negotiating table sometime this week, and could dispatch Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance for that job.
In video: Get to better know Iran’s underground Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which has so far apparently gone undamaged, and how U.S.-made bunker-buster bombs could change the direction of the conflict. David Risling of the Associated Press posted a 70-second video on Tuesday.
Warning for Golden Dome salesmen: “Iran has been firing barrages of ballistic missiles at Israel. Even the world’s best defenses can’t always stop them,” the New York Times reports in a new multimedia feature all about “How Missile Defense Works (and Why It Fails).”
Additional reading:
- “Oil Tankers Collide Near U.A.E. as Israel-Iran Conflict Disrupts Shipping,” the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday;
- “Airports close across the Mideast as the Israel-Iran conflict shutters the region’s airspace,” AP reported Monday;
- “How Israel used spies, smuggled drones and AI to stun and hobble Iran,” also via AP, reporting Tuesday;
- “G7 leaders: ‘Iran can never have a nuclear weapon’,” Politico reported Tuesday from Canada.
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2015, a 21-year-old white supremacist shot and killed nine Black Americans during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Defense industry
Boeing says they can build F/A-XX and F-47. The company’s defense chief rejected the Navy secretary’s contention that U.S. defense companies can’t handle building two sixth-generation fighter jets at once. “Absolutely we can do it, and so can the industrial base, and so can the engine manufacturers. So I don’t see that as being an issue,” Steve Parker told reporters Monday. Defense One’s Audrey Decker reports from the Paris Air Show.
Lockheed: TR-3 upgrade package for F-35 is ready. Nearly two years late, Technology Refresh 3 now merely awaits government approval, officials said in Paris. Decker, here.
Related reading:
- “Video: Trump’s Policies Create Turbulence for the F-35” and its foreign operators and potential buyers: a WSJ project.
- “OpenAI wins $200 million US defense contract”…to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges,” Monday’s contract announcement says. Reuters has a tiny bit more, here.
- “Lawmakers Demand Palantir Provide Information About U.S. Contracts,” NYT reports. ICYMI: Trump administration officials have “said the White House was laying the groundwork, partly by using Palantir technology, to consolidate data across the government so it could potentially compile a master list of personal information on Americans.”
Troops on U.S. soil
Developing: U.S. appeals court to rule on Trump’s dispatch of troops to LA. “A three-judge panel will determine whether National Guard troops can remain under President Trump’s command in Los Angeles as protests against immigration raids continue,” the New York Times writes. Find related coverage from Reuters and AP.
Domestic extremism
The alleged shooter in the weekend killing of Democratic lawmakers in Minneapolis targeted several other officials’ homes that night, prosecutors said Monday as their investigation proceeds.
Authorities arrested the suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, Sunday and began piecing together his trail of carnage that began around 2 a.m. Saturday morning when he dressed as a masked police officer and shot and wounded Minn. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. He then visited the homes of two more elected officials, one of whom was not there, before visiting a fourth home where he fatally shot former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark at about 3:30 a.m. The Associated Press mapped the attacks across the city, here.
“It is no exaggeration to say that his crimes are the stuff of nightmares,” acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson told reporters Monday. “Political assassinations are rare. They strike at the very core of our democracy. But the details of Boelter’s crime are even worse. They are truly chilling,” he said.
He kept a list of targets in his car. “Court records said the lists contained names and home addresses of mostly or all Democrats,” the Wall Street Journal reports, noting, “more than 45 state and federal elected officials, including those who support abortion rights.”Worth noting: “Friends and former colleagues interviewed by AP described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump,” the Associated Press reported Monday evening. He’s also “not believed to have made any public threats before [the] attacks,” according to prosecutors. Read more, here.
The case has also triggered a storm of misinformation from the right:
- “MAGA voices spread falsehoods to link Minnesota shooter to Democrats” including the president’s son and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah, Axios reports.
- “‘Psyop’: How Far-Right Conspiracy Theories About the Minnesota Shooting Evolved to Protect MAGA,” WIRED reports. Involved “influencers” include Alex Jones and Elon Musk.
Additional reading:
- “Security briefings crash into the once-quiet life of state lawmakers,” Politico reports;
- “Mike Lee Draws Outrage for Posts Blaming Assassination on the Far Left,” the New York Times reported Monday;
- And relatedly, “‘This is not a joke’: Sen. Amy Klobuchar rips Mike Lee for posts about a deadly Minnesota shooting,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported Monday.
NATO news
Inside the alliance’s new Russia deterrence plans. European officials worry that NATO’s ambitious targets for military capability may not be enough to deter Russia from “testing” how the alliance would respond to an attack on a member nation in the next three to five years, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports off conversations at the GLOBSEC security conference in Prague.
So at the NATO summit later this month, members will discuss new operational concepts to respond immediately to a Russian attack—including counterstrikes inside Russia. “The new concept is that if Russia is coming, then we will bring the war to Russia. That’s what we are talking about,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told Tucker. “We have no time then to discuss whether we can use one of the other weapons or whatever. We have no time. We need to act within the first minutes and hours.” Read on, here.
Meanwhile: “At G7, Trump Renews Embrace of Putin Amid Rift With Allies,” the New York Times reported from Alberta.
Related reading:
- “NATO allies ‘not prepared’ for war, top UK defense adviser warns,” writes Politico off a conversation with Grace Cassy, an adviser to the British government’s defense review.
- “Britain’s MI6 spy agency gets its first female chief,” AP reports: Blaise Metreweli, currently “the MI6 director of technology and innovation — the real-world equivalent of Bond gadget-master Q.”
Drones
China’s burgeoning drone arsenal shows the power of its civil-military fusion. “On June 6, President Trump signed two executive orders designed to build back up the U.S. civilian drone industry: one orders various agencies to promote American drone exports, and the other limits government purchases of drones linked to the Chinese government,” write BluePath Labs’ John S. Van Oudenaren and New America’s Peter W. Singer. “Whether these measures are too little, too late to turn around a global market that has been dominated by China for over a decade remains to be seen. But what it does miss is that China’s drone industry is not merely a story of civilian systems, but of military ones as well—and a strategic plan that yokes multiple parts of government and industry to a central goal.” Read on, here.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy showed off its giant Triton drone and how it will operate with the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams went to Naval Air Station Pax River, Maryland, to watch. Read, here.
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Hackers Use Fake Verification Prompt and Clickfix Technique to Deploy Fileless AsyncRAT
Threat actors are leveraging deceptive tactics to distribute a fileless variant of AsyncRAT, a notorious remote access Trojan. Discovered during routine attacker infrastructure analysis, this operation employs a fake verification prompt themed around t…
Android Devices Under Siege: How Threat Actors Abuse OEM Permissions for Privilege Escalation
Threat actors are increasingly exploiting legitimate channels to achieve privilege escalation, posing a severe risk to millions of devices worldwide. While conventional exploits remain a concern, a more insidious danger emerges from applications gainin…