Dear readers,
Today is October 1st: summer has left us, autumn has arrived, and we now enter the final stretch of 2025. Keeping with the schedule outlined at the start of this series, this month’s briefing examines major events that unfolded in September and their implications for American national security and global stability. You may notice some adjustments to the categories covered and the order they appear - my goal is to keep these briefings responsive to the most urgent challenges. Let’s take a look at September 2025,
The United States
September 2025 may be remembered as a crucial period for the second Trump administration. The assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on September 10th set off a wave of mobilization across far-right and MAGA networks. Instead of calls for unity and national healing, the administration used Kirk’s death to inflame grievance politics and signal a potential broad crackdown on progressive and liberal institutions.
FBI Director Kash Patel focused public attention on a supposed transgender assailant and relied heavily on a family-member confession to close the case. This has raised questions about the investigative integrity of the FBI under Patel’s leadership. Simultaneously, a series of school shootings linked to “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” spread across the country - evidence that Patel’s FBI has both mismanaged high-profile cases and failed to redirect resources toward emergent, decentralized threats that endanger ordinary Americans.
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