I seriously can’t wrap my head around why anyone would (allegedly) sell out their own country. Do they genuinely not realize it’s illegal, or do they just assume they’ll never get caught?
And yet, here we are again.
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES
Air Force Pilot
“Betrayer” Charged
Gerald Eddie Brown Jr.
Federal prosecutors say a former US Air Force fighter pilot illegally provided training services to Chinese military pilots, and now he is facing federal charges for it.
This work allegedly ran for years overseas and ended only after he returned to the US earlier this month.
Arrest. Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, was arrested in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and charged with providing and conspiring to provide defense services to Chinese military pilots without authorization.
This is being pushed as a violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
Justice Department officials are arguing that training a foreign military is illegal for US persons without State Department authorization.
FBI counterintelligence leaders framed the case as part of a broader Chinese push to recruit American military expertise.
Who He Is. Prosecutors describe Brown, who used the call sign "Runner," as a career combat pilot and instructor with 24 years in the Air Force.
His roles were tied to sensitive units and nuclear weapons delivery systems.
They say he previously trained US military pilots on aircraft including the A-10, F-4, F-15, F-16, and F-35.
US government says he spent extended time in China between Dec. 2023 and Feb. 2026 doing the training.
Stephen Su previously admitted to participating in a conspiracy from roughly 2008 to 2014 to hack into the computer systems of major US defense contractors to steal plans for fighter jets.
Deal. The complaint alleges that around August 2023, Brown used a co-conspirator to negotiate a contract with a Chinese national to train People’s Republic of China military pilots in combat aircraft operations.
That Chinese national is identified as Stephen Su (Su Bin).
He had previously pleaded guilty in a separate case involving efforts to steal sensitive US military data from defense contractors.
📌 Context. The Arms Export Control Act is one of the main US tools for regulating military-related services and know-how, not just hardware. This case sits in a larger national security fight over how adversaries try to buy experience that took the US decades and billions of dollars to build.
🇨🇺 CUBA
Cuba Shoots
US Speedboat
Cuba says its border forces killed four people after a Florida-registered speedboat fired on them off the island's northern coast, framing the trip as terrorism.
The US says it will investigate independently.
Incident. Cuban officials say the boat was less than a nautical mile off Villa Clara province on Wednesday morning, when border agents approached and requested identification.
They say the crew opened fire, wounding the Cuban vessel's commander.
Cuban forces returned fire, leaving four dead and six wounded on the speedboat.
Seizure. In a late-day statement, Cuba's Interior Ministry said the speedboat carried 10 armed Cuban nationals who had been living in the US and were trying to "infiltrate" the island.
Officials said they confiscated assault rifles, handguns, Molotov cocktails, body armor, and military-style clothing from the vessel.
Names. Authorities said they identified the six survivors and named one of the dead, while working to identify the other three killed.
A daughter of one detained man, Conrado Galindo Sariol, said she learned about his involvement only after Cuba released the names.
She said that her father had been living in the US for about a decade and had not returned to Cuba during that time.
US State Secretary Marco Rubio
Response. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, traveling in the Caribbean when the incident occurred, said the US would not rely on Havana's account and would verify what happened through its own investigation.
📌 Context. The US has maintained a broad trade embargo against Cuba since 1960 and cut diplomatic relations in 1961, with a brief normalization beginning in 2015 before relations cooled again.
🇮🇷 IRAN
Khamenei In Bunker
Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei.
Iranian opposition-linked reporting says Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being moved around Tehran under tight security, with visiting officials allegedly blindfolded to conceal his location.
Claim. A London-based Persian-language outlet reported Wednesday that Khamenei is living in a specially secured underground bunker complex in Tehran made up of tunnels, and that senior officials are taken to him without knowing where they are going.
Detail. The same report said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and a key manager of state affairs, was blindfolded before a meeting with Khamenei ahead of Larijani's travel to Oman for talks with the United States.
Pressure. This claim lands as Iran and US head into another round of nuclear negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES
CIA Warning To Tech
Apple CEO Tim Cook
A classified CIA briefing told top US tech leaders that China could move on Taiwan by 2027. Apple CEO Tim Cook was in the room, and he reportedly left rattled.
This was reportedly the first instance in which such a specific warning was issued, in contrast to earlier warnings that had been broader and more general in nature.
✍🏼 Note. This article is about a day old, but it may be useful for anyone interested in understanding why recent US presidents (including both Biden and Trump) have sought to encourage companies to shift manufacturing back to the US, particularly from overseas hubs such as Taiwan.
Warning
Briefing. In July 2023, US officials convened a classified session in a secure Silicon Valley location for
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
AMD CEO Lisa Su
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon
CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines presented intelligence on China’s military plans to the leaders, seeking to press industry leaders to take Taiwan supply risk more seriously than before.
Timeline. The warning leaned on a clock that US officials have been repeating for years, including earlier testimony that Xi Jinping wanted China’s military ready to take Taiwan by 2027.
A similar classified session at the White House in late 2021 reportedly landed poorly with executives who felt much of it was already public.
Dependence. The hard problem is, of course, manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) makes about 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, including all of Apple’s custom silicon for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Even major chip designers like Nvidia do not manufacture their chips themselves. Instead, they rely on TSMC to produce them.
A confidential 2022 industry-commissioned analysis warned that losing access to Taiwan’s chip output could trigger a Depression-scale economic shock, with US GDP falling 11%.
Classic “putting all your eggs in one basket” situation.
Diversification
US President Donald Trump (left) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (right) shakes hands at an event where Cook gave Trump a customized plaque with a 24-karat gold base.
Reshoring. Even when companies want to diversify, cost and capability get in the way, since chips made in the US have been priced more than 25% above Taiwan output.
US production in Arizona is described as a full generation behind Taiwan’s leading edge.
Cook later committed to a $100 billion US investment, and Apple has reportedly begun all-day engineering sessions with Intel to evaluate manufacturing options.
This makes it look like moving manufacturing back to the US isn’t just companies playing politics with the current president. It might just be a smart hedge, spreading things out and not relying so much on one of the riskiest parts of the world right now.
Limits. TSMC has now committed roughly $165 billion to US investment, including land for at least five additional plants in the Phoenix area, and its Arizona facility recently produced Nvidia’s first US-made AI chip, though advanced packaging still had to be done in Taiwan.
Shield. Taiwan maintains an unofficial stance that its most advanced processes stay on the island as a "silicon shield," and TSMC’s CFO has said the most advanced nodes will remain in Taiwan for the foreseeable future.
This “silicon shield” idea is basically the notion that TSMC, and the world’s dependence on its chips, creates a huge deterrent and a major geopolitical complication for Xi Jinping’s goal of taking Taiwan by force.
Whether that leverage would actually change his decision-making, though, is still an open question.
