Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, and several other international airlines have begun to cancel flights tonight and over the weekend to and from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, citing the “security situation” in the Middle East.

The U.S. Department of Defense has published its 2026 National Defense Strategy, featuring four key lines of effort under the Department’s Strategic Approach:

1. Defend the U.S. Homeland
2. Deter China in the Indo-Pacific Through Strength, Not Confrontation
3. Increase Burden-Sharing with U.S. Allies and Partners
4. Supercharge the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

Under the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2026 National Defense Strategy, Russia “will remain a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future… The Department will ensure that U.S. forces are prepared to defend against Russian threats to the U.S. Homeland. The Department will also continue to play a vital role in NATO itself, even as we calibrate U.S. force posture and activities in the European theater to better account for the Russian threat to American interests as well as our allies’ own capabilities. Moscow is in no position to make a bid for European hegemony. European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power… Although we are and will remain engaged in Europe, we must—and will—prioritize defending the U.S. Homeland and deterring China. Fortunately, our NATO allies are substantially more powerful than Russia—it is not even close. Germany’s economy alone dwarfs that of Russia. At the same time, under President Trump’s leadership, NATO allies have committed to raise defense spending to the new global standard of 5% of GDP in total, with 3.5% of GDP invested in hard military capabilities. Our NATO allies are therefore strongly positioned to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense, with critical but more limited U.S. support. This includes taking the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defense.”