Russia is doubling down on its military role in Africa despite the growing demands of its war in Ukraine. The latest example featured a direct intervention just days ago by Russian forces that stepped in to suppress a mutiny that threatened to topple Niger’s junta.

Threat Status Special Correspondent Joseph Hammond has a deep-dive dispatch, reporting that Saturday’s intervention marked the second time this year that Russian troops have operated directly alongside forces of the junta in Niger’s capital city of Niamey, underscoring Moscow’s role as security guarantor for the gold- and uranium-rich West African nation, which has been battling Islamist insurgents for more than a decade.

Russian operations have expanded in Niger since 2024, when the Biden administration withdrew a key contingent of about 1,000 U.S. forces from what had been a strategic drone base in the country. Russian forces are now active in Niger’s conflict, which intersects with great power nuclear competition and also increasingly involves forces from Algeria, a close Russian partner in the Arab world.

The U.S. military’s largest branch is left without a top civilian leader or a congressionally confirmed senior officer after the sudden departure of the Army secretary. A source close to the development tells Threat Status that upon resigning Monday, Mr. Driscoll informed the White House he’s worried for the future of the Army and that his efforts to modernize the force were met with resistance at the Pentagon.

The development comes five months after Mr. Hegseth ousted Gen. Randy George, the former chief of staff of the Army, amid a widening top-down overhaul of the service. Mr. Driscoll had worked closely with Gen. George to push forward research, development and funding for some of the Army’s core technologies. That partnership, according to one former official, was critical to a successful Army leadership team in a Pentagon plagued by intrigue and personality clashes.

“It just got to a point where all his efforts on innovation and transformation were being stymied,” the former official said, pointing to friction with Mr. Hegseth, who in April appointed Army Gen. Christopher C. LaNeve as acting chief of staff. Gen. LaNeve has a reputation of being more focused on “warrior ethos” around military training, physical fitness and standards for Army soldiers.

In an oddly coincidental development, both Pyongyang and Seoul have replaced their defense ministers in recent days — part of wider military reshuffles occurring in both North and South Korea amid rising tension over the North’s expanding ballistic missile and nuclear arsenals and military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from Seoul that Kang Shin-chul, a retired general, has been nominated to replace Ahn Gyu-back, who had a civilian background. Gen. Kang is a former deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. On the diplomatic front, he has experience as a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

The North Korean regime, meanwhile, has named Kim Song-gi to replace No Kwang-chol as defense minister at a moment when Pyongyang is reaping tactical and technological benefits as a result of its engagement in Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is the only nation, bar the two main combatants, to join a conflict that many say is reshaping warfare.

Ohio State University will pay the federal government $2.1 million for failing to report Chinese funding for a climate scientist who was working under Beijing’s Thousand Talents foreign expert recruitment program. C.K. Shum, now a former Ohio State professor, worked on NASA and National Science Foundation grants at the same time he was paid by Chinese state-run research institutes and universities, the Justice Department said on Monday.

The case marks the latest in a widening government effort to crack down on Chinese Communist Party efforts to exploit ties with U.S. universities to advance Beijing’s defense technologies. Threat Status co-hosted an event at the International Spy Museum in 2024 examining the growing congressional push to crack down on the CCP’s activities. 

NASA and NSF contacts require the disclosure of all foreign government funding for recipients. Robert Steinau, an official in the NASA Office of Inspector General, said the case sends “a clear message: We will not tolerate institutions that conceal foreign ties and compromise national security. Our cutting-edge research must not fall into the hands of our adversaries.”

No American president should conduct consequential diplomacy with a CCP leader behind closed doors in a controlled-information environment without capable American interpreters, notetakers, experts and a precise institutional record, writes Miles Yu, a contributor to Threat Status.

“The fate of nations should never depend on whether an American leader believes he has established a special relationship with the man across the table,” Mr. Yu writes in his biweekly “Red Horizon” column for The Washington Times. “CCP leaders are exceptionally skilled at encouraging exactly that illusion.

“None of this means that America should stop talking to China. Nuclear powers must communicate, and some negotiations require confidentiality,” writes Mr. Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute. “Still, confidentiality is a diplomatic technique. It should never become a diplomatic theology.”

• Sept. 2-3 — AI for Defense Summit, Defense Strategies Institute

• Sept. 3 —The AI Open-Weight Debate: Balancing Innovation and Security, Center for a New American Security

• Sept. 8-10 — Billington Cybersecurity Summit 2026, Billington Cybersecurity

• Sept. 9 — Bend but Do Not Break: Shaping the Future of the All-Volunteer Force, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Sept. 9 — Global Affairs Expert Webinar: China’s Influence in the Americas, Council on Foreign Relations

• Sept. 11 — The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks at 25: Assessing the Legacy, Addressing the Future, Brookings Institution

• Sept. 12-13 — AFA National Convention, Air & Space Forces Association

• Sept. 22-23 — Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2026, Atlantic Council