The transformation and all the challenges that come with it — including advanced technology integration, shipbuilding labor shortages and budgetary tensions — will be at the center of a special event to be hosted Wednesday by The Washington Times’ Threat Status national security team at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington. There is still time to reserve a spot.

The Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget is projected to eclipse $60 billion in four of the next five years, according to exclusive analysis provided to Threat Status by Obviant, a Virginia-based, artificial-intelligence-driven data intelligence company and the official data partner of Wednesday’s event.

U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is among those slated to speak at the event. A key topic will be the Trump administration’s Golden Fleet, an ambitious plan aimed at restoring America’s naval edge and shipbuilding capacity at a moment when China has surpassed the U.S. in total ship numbers, with an estimated 370 Chinese naval ships compared with roughly 295 American ships.

The president is directing the federal government to build a powerful quantum computer for scientific research and wants U.S. intelligence agencies to protect government “cryptographic” data security systems from futuristic cyber threats emanating from quantum in the hands of adversaries.

Mr. Trump issued two executive orders Monday, one focused on quantum innovation, the other focused on cyber. “The advent of large-scale quantum computers, particularly in the hands of adversaries, will pose a significant threat to widely used cryptographic security systems,” states one of the orders. “Ongoing cyber activity against our nation also presents the risk of adversaries collecting [U.S.] information now and decrypting it later once large-scale quantum computers are operational.”

Quantum computers are advanced machines that harness the power of quantum physics to process information exponentially faster than traditional computers. Threat Status examined the current status of quantum-chip development with an exclusive video earlier this year at “Qubits26 Quantum Realized,” a conference hosted by D-Wave Quantum.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it launched airstrikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah after identifying an active cell of militants operating close to Israeli troops within the “security zone” that Israel has established in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leaders said Tuesday the strikes targeted civilians and insisted Israeli forces had engaged in a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement that the militants reached with Israel Sunday. Reports from Lebanese state media said the strikes killed two people. It was not immediately clear whether the casualties were civilians or Hezbollah fighters.

The attack comes after two days of relative peace between Hezbollah and Israel that had provided breathing room for U.S.-Iran talks under the memorandum of understanding that Mr. Trump and Iran’s president signed last week. The memorandum states there must be a full ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon, before in-depth negotiations can occur on Iran’s nuclear program.

The memorandum of understanding signed by Mr. Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was a “complete capitulation of the leverage the U.S. gained through its military action,” writes Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler, who asserts the White House “knows it is in a politically perilous position.

“MAGA hard-liners and isolationists such as [Vice President J.D. Vance] never wanted to enter the war and are betting that the American people care more about domestic issues than winning a foreign war, especially if the war means American boots on the ground in Iran,” Ms. Sadler writes in an opinion column.

“Those who supported President Trump’s intervention,” she writes, “are rightly frustrated at the administration’s attempt to spin the memorandum of understanding as a success and its seeming unwillingness to finish the job the president started.”

Times Deputy Commentary Editor Anath Hartmann comes at the situation from another angle, writing the Trump administration has “sacrificed Israel on the altar of political expediency” by embracing a memorandum of understanding that calls for the “permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

“This ropes Israel into a deal from which it was notably shut out and then ties its hands behind its back,” writes Ms. Hartmann, who asserts that “Israel’s battle with Hezbollah should be viewed as a microcosm of the global fight between democratic rule and Islamist tyranny.

“The U.S. can make Israel the patsy in this latest attempt to reason with immutable evil. It has done it before, and Israel is used to going it alone,” she writes. “Still, the administration should not fool itself. It has not won anything.”

• June 23 — From Insight to Policy: Partnering with African Expertise to Inform U.S.-Africa Policy and Engagement, Center for Strategic & International Studies

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

• June 24 — China’s AI Capabilities and the Risks to U.S. National Security, Center for a New American Security

• June 25 — AI and Scams: Beyond the Hype, Stimson Center

• June 25 — Navigating Competition in the Central Arctic Ocean, Hudson Institute

• June 30 — 2026 Global Security Forum, America at 250: A Defining Moment for American Statecraft and Military Power, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• June 30-July 1 — AWS Summit, Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the Public Sector, Amazon Web Services

• July 8-9 — Military Robotics and Autonomous Systems USA Conference, SAE Media Group