Paul McLeary | Politico
President Donald Trump unveiled plans for a “Trump-class” battleship on Monday that will carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles — the first time a surface ship will be armed with such weapons since the Cold War. During an announcement from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida ahead of the winter holidays, the president also said his administration would build a new class of aircraft carriers — another massive industrial undertaking that would cost tens of billions to design and build and take years of planning to kickstart. There is no funding in the current Pentagon budget for either program, making it unclear when and how the work would start on either effort.
Idrees Ali | Reuters
China is likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its latest three silo fields and has no desire for arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report which highlighted Beijing's growing military ambitions. China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit. ... Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia. But the draft Pentagon report, which was seen by Reuters, said Beijing did not appear to be interested.
Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Dan De Luce and Carol E. Lee | NBC News
Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned that Iran is expanding production of its ballistic missile program, which was damaged by Israeli military strikes earlier this year, and are preparing to brief President Donald Trump about options for attacking it again, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans and four former U.S. officials briefed on the plans. Israeli officials also are concerned that Iran is reconstituting nuclear enrichment sites the U.S. bombed in June, the sources said. But, they added, the officials view Iran’s efforts to rebuild facilities where they produce the ballistic missiles and to repair its crippled air defense systems as more immediate concerns.
The Associated Press/ABC News
Belarus' authoritarian president said Thursday that Russia had deployed its latest nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system to the country, a move that comes as talks to end the war in Ukraine have entered a crucial phase. President Alexander Lukashenko said the Oreshnik, an intermediate range ballistic missile system, arrived in the country on Wednesday and is entering combat duty. He didn't say how many missiles have been deployed or give any other details. ... [Putin] warned that Moscow will seek to extend its gains in Ukraine if Kyiv and its Western allies reject the Kremlin’s demands in peace talks.
John Leicester | Associated Press
Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield. Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the so-called “zone-effect” weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets, potentially disabling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems.
Theresa Hitchens | Breaking Defense
President Donald Trump has released a new executive order (EO) setting national space policy across the civil, commercial and defense sectors — setting a goal of establishing an “initial” Moon base by 2028 and reiterating the administration’s Golden Dome plans for a comprehensive air and missile defense shield over America.