An adversary could transform the digital footprints created by modern smartphones into grid coordinates, which can be used to target U.S. troops with deadly precision weapons, according to Adm. Frank M. Bradley, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, who spoke about the issue during remarks this month at the Special Operations Forces Week convention in Tampa, Florida.

The reality that the same technology tracking our driving, shopping, socializing and exercise habits can be weaponized is an example of the “ubiquitous technical surveillance” that is rapidly becoming a major national security vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. A Justice Department Office of the Inspector General report last year assessed the stakes of a new world largely defined by UTS and its impact on law enforcement, intelligence and military operations.

But nowhere are the stakes higher than in the world of elite U.S. Special Forces, such as the famed Delta Force and Navy SEALs, and commanders are well aware of the risks of modern digital surveillance. “We now fight in a space of pervasive surveillance, a ubiquitous information environment driven by technical surveillance. Exquisite information is no longer the guarded property of governments or of the state,” Adm. Bradley said. “It is increasingly crowdsourced, exploitable and available to anyone with the will to look.”

California-based maritime technology company Navier says it’s at the forefront of “out-innovating” China with the development of an electric flying boat. Navier founder and CEO Sampriti Bhattacharyya brought Threat Status aboard one of its N30 all-electric vessels during an exclusive podcast interview at the SOF Week convention.

“How do we build lots of boats and outnumber China? … It’s important to stay grounded,” Ms. Bhattacharyya said on the podcast. “We have to think about what America is really good at. Maybe it is about out-innovating your adversary rather than outnumbering them.”

The N30 platform has 70 nautical miles of range as it lifts onto hydrofoil wings, raising the entire boat above the water to travel at high speed. The technology has attracted interest from the U.S. Navy as it looks to minimize service member injuries from the sudden and high-force impacts that smaller boats often experience when traveling at high speeds.

The U.S. Space Force must plan to deploy troops on orbiting space stations and at bases on the moon to prevent China from winning the new space race and controlling outer space, according to a policy paper circulated recently by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz writes in his weekly “Inside the Ring” column that the paper by retired Space Force Col. Kyle Pumroy warns that a sustained human military presence in space is needed to counter China’s growing space efforts that are run by the People’s Liberation Army, including plans for a moon base by 2030.

Relying solely on unmanned drones for military operations — or limiting U.S. human space presence to civilians under the direction of NASA — poses national security risks, based on China’s current designs on space, according to the policy paper, which asserts that human military space presence is imperative because of the growing likelihood of a high-stakes competition for control of lunar access and resources.

The Chinese Communist Party-ruled government in Beijing has halted its direct involvement in nuclear-related proliferation and transfers of complete missile systems, but Chinese companies are continuing to sell nuclear weapons and missile-related systems and goods to Russia, North Korea and Iran.

That’s according to a May 19 Congressional Research Service report, which highlights concern with the U.S. government over “weaknesses in China’s export control system.” It’s notable that a 2019 State Department report on arms control agreement compliance stated that China supplied missile systems and items to Iran, North Korea, Syria and Pakistan.

Subsequent U.S. requests for China to halt the missile transfers have not been resolved. The 2024 and 2025 State Department arms compliance reports dropped all mention of the Chinese missile-proliferation activities. The recent CRS report says separate State Department reports from that period declared that Chinese companies and arms dealers “worked to supply technology and equipment that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their missile delivery systems to programs of concern” in North Korea, Iran and Pakistan.

Jed Babbin homes in on the release by NASA and the Pentagon of “some formerly classified files and tapes of the ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,’ (‘UAPs’) formerly called UFOs,” writing that “these ‘phenomena’ have been seen in the air, in space and underwater.

“President Trump’s ‘Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters’ (PURSUE) is supposedly hot on the UAP trail,” writes Mr. Babbin, a national security and foreign affairs opinion columnist for The Washington Times. “Mr. Trump is reportedly moving to release more classified files on UAPs. And the second tranche of documents may not be more illuminating than the first.

“Other governments — some with space programs, such as China and Russia — could be accused of the same secrecy,” Mr. Babbin writes in an op-ed for The Times. “But so far, they have not been. It’s highly unlikely that Russian or Chinese astronauts would be less observant than ours.”

• May 28 — The Electrotech Stack at Risk: China, AI and America’s Energy Supply Chains, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• May 29 — A Framework for U.S.-Japan Cooperation in the Arctic, Atlantic Council

• May 29-31 — IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• June 2 — War at Arm’s Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance, Brookings Institution

• June 3 — Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran, Brookings Institution

• June 12 — Winning the Innovation Competition (Featuring Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael), Hudson Institute

• June 18 — Deterring Russia and China: Securing America’s Nuclear Future, Hudson Institute

• June 24 — IndoPac 2026 | Naval Dominance: Shipbuilding, Autonomy & C2, Threat Status Events