US military confirms strikes on Houthi missile storage facility, command center in Yemen
The U.S. Central Command confirmed that it conducted airstrikes in Sana’a, Yemen, saying it targeted a missile storage facility and a command-and-control site operated by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. (Credit: CENTCOM via X)
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly been receiving intelligence briefings from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) since mid-November, a practice that began when President Harry S. Truman ordered that presidential nominees and presidents-elect receive intelligence briefings to help ensure a smooth transition from one commander-in-chief to the next.
The baton is at the ready for a smooth transition but it's the metastasized global threat landscape about which we have to be worried. Every one of those wickedly complex threats to our national security also carries profound implications for the U.S. economy.
Terrorism remains the national security threat with the shortest fuse. Terrorists have our civilians and economy directly in their crosshairs. That's why Iran's proxy terrorist Yemeni Houthis continue to launch attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, driving up insurance costs and disrupting trade.
RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT SAYS IT IS WILLING TO IMPROVE TIES—BUT ONUS IS ON TRUMP TO MAKE FIRST MOVE
Afghanistan is a failed terrorist state, a swath of ungoverned space where ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists plot attacks against us. Following the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which degraded our counterterrorism capability to detect and preempt terrorist attacks, our nation is arguably more vulnerable than ever since 9/11.
President-elect Donald Trump needs to learn from President Teddy Roosevelt (above), who had a strong foreign policy. (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
We need an effective counterterrorism strategy, which as the late Charles Krauthammer used to emphasize, enables us to target our enemies over there rather than face their attacks on our homeland. That does not mean a costly nation-building "forever war," but rather as small a military and intelligence footprint overseas as possible, benefiting from robust joint interoperability with our closest allied nation partners and a heavy reliance on smart diplomacy.
China continues to militarize the South China Sea, hack into U.S. critical infrastructure, steal our intellectual property, aggressively expand its nuclear arsenal and threaten Taiwan's sovereignty.
One of Trump's great foreign policy achievements from his first term was to build strong bipartisan consensus on confronting China economically, militarily and diplomatically. With U.S. power projection and trade with Pacific nations hanging in the balance, Trump will need to continue to deter a Communist China invasion of Taiwan, which would cost the global economy trillions of dollars.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the most devastating land war in Europe since WW II. A negotiated peace settlement must preserve Ukraine's independence, deter Russia from further aggression and prevent Putin from casting a menacing shadow over the continent, which would threaten our trillion-dollars worth of trade with Europe.
FILE: Warships of Chinese navy take part in a joint naval exercise, Joint Sea 2022, in the East China Sea on Dec. 21, 2022. (Li Yun/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Our global allies and adversaries likely consider Syria to be a canary in the coal mine test case for how Trump administration plans to project U.S. power.
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Flush with terrorists and rival militia groups, Syria is at risk of descending into a power vacuum. Our Kurdish allies, who make up the bulk of the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) are guarding thousands of ISIS prisoners.
When focused on defending themselves from Turkey's kinetic strikes, the SDF cannot take the fight to ISIS. The Trump administration will need to take a leadership role diplomatically to resolve issues between the SDF and Turkey to avoid operational fratricide and take the fight to the terrorists.
Trump will also need to engage Turkey and our Gulf State partners, who should fund a post-conflict reconstruction plan for Syria to drive a wedge between the civilian population and irreconcilable terrorists; eliminate Iranian influence; and require that Russia withdraw from its naval and air bases in Syria. Iran can never again be permitted to use Syria as a land corridor to transport material support to its proxy terrorists Lebanese Hezbollah.
China continues to militarize the South China Sea, hack into U.S. critical infrastructure, steal our intellectual property, aggressively expand its nuclear arsenal and threaten Taiwan's sovereignty.
Using Syria as part of the maximum pressure strategy on Iran, which is a key to expanding the Abraham Accords, means heavy diplomatic engagement buttressed with a Teddy Roosevelt "walk softly but carry a big stick" strategy.
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The global economy is too interconnected for us to think we can simply raise the drawbridge on fortress America and ignore the threats rising against us. Moreover, as we learned from Pearl Harbor and later 9/11, our adversaries can inflict harm on the homeland in spite of geographic separation, which once gave us a measure of security.
But if there's a silver lining in those dark clouds, it's the opportunity for the dedicated incoming Trump administration security officials to deliver a more effective and efficient national security strategy in defense of our nation.
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