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Read today's newsletter: Europe’s biggest arms show playing out beneath shadow of Russia-Ukraine war

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Bill Gertz

Bill Gertz

bgertz@washingtontimes.com

Bill Gertz is a national security correspondent for The Washington Times. He has been with The Times since 1985.
He is the author of eight books, four of them national best-sellers. His latest book, "Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy," reveals details about the growing threat posed by the People's Republic of China. He is also the author of the ebook "How China's Communist Party Made the World Sick."
Mr. Gertz also writes Inside the Ring, a weekly column that chronicles the U.S. national security bureaucracy.
Mr. Gertz has been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.; the Central Intelligence Agency in Virginia; the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington; and the Brookings Institution in Washington. He has participated in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
He studied English literature at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and journalism at George Washington University. He is married and has two daughters.
He can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Bill Gertz

(Associated Press/File)

Foreign weapons create military satellite crisis

The U.S. military's satellite communications are facing a crisis, threatened by a growing array of foreign weapons, including cyberattack capabilities, lasers, electronic jammers and anti-satellite weapons, according to a Pentagon study.

May 17, 2017
National Security Adviser Susan Rice was a close associate of President Obama. (Associated Press/File)

Inside the Ring: Susan Rice political spy role under House investigation

Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice is expected to be a central witness in the coming weeks before committee investigators to explain the unmasking and wide dissemination of what the committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, has called improper electronic surveillance of Trump transition team officials.

April 26, 2017
President Trump added weight to his threat to act unilaterally against the nuclear weapons program of North Korea last week by approving U.S. missile strikes on Syria while hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Associated Press)

Donald Trump, Xi Jinping put North Korea in focus

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged views on the assessment of North Korea's nuclear weapons program last week, and "there was mutual agreement the problem has become more urgent," a senior administration tells Inside the Ring.

April 12, 2017
Cyber Warfare Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

Cybersecurity paramount for U.S. in 21st century

Russia's intelligence service hacks Democratic Party computer networks and puts out stolen emails in a bid to influence the 2016 election. China says it owns 90 percent of the South China Sea and begins building military bases under a vague historical claim to the strategic waterway. Iranian hackers break into American banks and a water control computer network at an upstate New York dam. Welcome to the new form of conflict in the 21st century: information warfare.

March 29, 2017
The Pacific Command will be the focus of Patrick Cronin, a former critic of President Trump, who landed a plum position as director of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. (Associated Press/File)

Patrick Cronin, Donald Trump critic, named to Pentagon post

Patrick Cronin, an Asian security expert with the Democrat-leaning Center for New American Security, has been named to the plum post of director of a key Pentagon think tank, the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.

March 22, 2017
U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifies during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, March 7, 2017. (DoD Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. James K. McCann) ** FILE **

Inside the Ring: Drones threatened nuclear facilities

Drone aircraft recently carried out unauthorized intrusions over Air Force and Navy nuclear facilities, and the incidents pose a growing threat, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command disclosed to Congress Wednesday.

March 8, 2017
A video shows a Russian pilot flight-testing a jet equipped with a helmet mount from what analysts say appears to be for a GoPro video camera. The U.S. Navy has been slow to adopt the technology. (Russian Defense Ministry)

U.S. vs. Russia on helmet video cameras

Russia is using GoPro video on the helmets of its fighter pilots, while the U.S. Navy and Air Force do not routinely use helmet cameras that are needed to record the increasing number of dangerous aerial encounters. The Navy delayed for two years before meeting a Pacific Fleet admiral's request to outfit pilots with helmet-mounted video cameras. The Navy also has not released any video showing some of the recent threatening encounters with Chinese aircraft since the cameras were introduced last year.

March 1, 2017
Michael Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn (left) (Associated Press/File)

Michael Flynn an intelligence community casualty

The resignation of White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on Monday was the result of a coordinated effort by current and former U.S. intelligence officials to undermine the Trump administration using the disclosure of highly classified communications intercepts.

February 15, 2017
Iranian dissidents have documented work at 42 missile centers operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's dominant security force. A dozen of those sites had never been disclosed before. (Associated Press/File)

Chinese sent Iran missile parts

China's backing of Iran's missile program was detailed in leaked State Department cables made public on the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

February 8, 2017
FILE - In this file photo posted on the Twitter page of Syria's al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on April 25, 2015, which is consistent with AP reporting, Nusra Front fighters stand on their vehicles and wave their group's flags as they tour the streets of Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib province, Syria. The battle for Aleppo has gripped the world, but it is hardly the only active front across Syria. One of the next targets for the forces of Bashar Assad will probably be the heartland of rebel territory, the neighboring Idlib province. (Al-Nusra Front Twitter page via AP, File)

Inside the Ring: Al Qaeda resurgence

U.S. intelligence agencies recently uncovered new information indicating the al Qaeda terrorist group continues to plan for conducting terrorist attacks around the world.

February 1, 2017
North Korean defector and former spy Kang Myong-do has said hundreds of the regime's spies are operating in the U.S. at any given time. (CNN/File)

North Korean spies extend abuses overseas

North Korea has deployed more than 300 undercover security officers around the world to spy on government personnel and laborers to prevent them from defecting, according to information provided by a former North Korean security official.

January 25, 2017
Critics says CIA Director John Brennan, a career intelligence analyst, sharply turned the agency in a leftward direction during his tenure in Langley. (Associated Press)

Donald Trump to reform U.S. intelligence community

One national security priority of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is to reform the heavily bureaucratized and, to some critics, politicized U.S. intelligence community.

January 18, 2017