At least 17 people were killed and more than 40 wounded, but 800 miles away in Germany, Russia is suspected of launching an attack on an airport, possibly expanding the war.

On this episode of “The Hunt with Â鶹¹ÙÍø National Security Correspondent J.J.ÌýGreen,” Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, discusses what happened.

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But what he didn’t say was that the U.S. may not be able to continue the fight much longer.

“They called me, and they said, ‘Please don’t attack. We’ll make a deal,'” Trump said during an impromptu back-and-forth with reporters in the Oval Office. “There’d be essentially very little left. There’d be nothing left.”

He said he is “under no time constraint” and is willing to wait because, “If I’m given a chance to let a lot of people live, I want to give that chance.”

The message was clear: diplomacy remains possible, but overwhelming military force remains on the table.

Whether Iran sees it that way is another matter.

Iran continues to deny that direct negotiations with Washington are underway. That disconnect creates one of the most dangerous conditions in international conflict: two adversaries operating from completely different understandings of where diplomacy stands. One side believes negotiations are within reach. The other publicly insists there are none.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he believes the larger reality is becoming unavoidable.

“Well, it indicates that the president is trying to get the American people to recognize that we’re in another forever war in the Middle East,” Panetta said. “That’s the reality.”

The conflict has now stretched into its sixth month. Despite repeated U.S. strikes and Iranian retaliation, neither side has achieved a decisive strategic advantage, and no meaningful negotiations appear to be taking place.

Panetta argued the war is evolving exactly as military history suggests prolonged wars often do.

“The basic principle that comes out of any kind of war is that a continuing war doesn’t ultimately resolve an end to that war,” he said. “What usually results is an escalation of that war.”

That escalation is already visible.

Iran has attacked or threatened U.S. interests across the region, proxies continue disrupting Red Sea shipping, cyber operations have expanded beyond the Middle East, and at least 16 countries have now been drawn into the conflict either as launch points, interception sites or direct targets.

Panetta said he believes the U.S. should shift its military strategy away from continued bombing and toward restoring freedom of navigation.

“I think it’s much better to use our military capability to regain control of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “What will happen is we will take away Iran’s greatest leverage.”

But while military planners debate strategy, another problem is emerging beneath the surface.

The U.S. is discovering that modern, high-intensity warfare consumes precision-guided weapons at an extraordinary pace. Reports that inventories of long-range strike missiles and advanced air-defense interceptors have fallen significantly are forcing the Pentagon to confront a broader question than simply defeating Iran.

Can the U.S. sustain this war without weakening its ability to deter China, support Ukraine and respond to another major crisis?

That may become the defining strategic issue of the conflict.

The battlefield is no longer confined to Iran. It has expanded to America’s defense industrial base.
Missiles can be fired in minutes. Replacing them can take months or years.

Trump is betting military pressure will eventually force Iran to negotiate.

Panetta is warning that time favors escalation.

The outcome of this war may ultimately depend on how long U.S. military supplies last.

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It should not be read as a single isolated alarm. It fits a broader pattern: Moscow is probing NATO’s eastern flank through cyber intrusions, sabotage planning, maritime pressure, GPS interference, proxy recruitment and deniable operations designed to stay below the formal threshold of war.

The core question is no longer whether Russia is waging a hybrid campaign against Europe. It is how far that campaign can go before NATO decides it has crossed into collective-defense territory.

The most important point is that the reported intelligence does not appear to identify a specific target, location or timetable. That matters. It suggests Russia may be preparing options rather than executing an imminent large-scale attack.

In intelligence terms, that distinction is critical. Preparation can include reconnaissance of energy sites, cyber access to transport networks, recruitment of local facilitators, mapping of port operations, GPS spoofing or test runs using criminal intermediaries. None of that requires Moscow to make a final decision. But all of it gives Moscow the ability to act quickly if the political order comes.

The likely targets are obvious: energy interconnectors, rail corridors, ports, telecommunications systems, LNG facilities and undersea infrastructure in the Baltics and Poland. These are not symbolic targets. They are the connective tissue of NATO reinforcement and European resilience.

Disrupt a rail node, damage a power cable, compromise a port logistics system or interfere with navigation signals, and the effect is broader than the physical damage. It creates uncertainty, raises insurance and security costs, slows military mobility and pressures governments to prove they can protect civilian life.

Russia’s advantage is deniability. A cyberattack can be blamed on criminals. A fire can look like an accident. A damaged cable can be attributed to a careless ship. A recruited courier or petty criminal can be discarded after the operation. It’s the logic of hybrid warfare: create real damage while forcing the target to argue over attribution, legal thresholds and proportional response.

That’s why Europe’s recent public attribution campaign matters. The UK and EU are not just sanctioning Russian cyber and hybrid operators to punish past behavior. They are trying to strip away deniability before the next incident. Naming officers, companies and networks makes it harder for Moscow to hide behind proxies and front structures. It also warns potential collaborators that the relationship may become public.

For NATO, the hardest problem is not military capability. It is decision speed. Article 5 was designed for an armed attack, not a suspicious ship near a cable, a rail fire, a cyber intrusion and a disinformation burst happening at the same time. Russia understands that ambiguity buys time.

The strategic lesson is blunt: Europe’s front line is no longer only in Ukraine. It runs through substations, ports, rail yards, fiber-optic cables, shipping lanes and data systems. Russia is building a battlespace inside civilian infrastructure. The attack may not have started yet. The preparation almost certainly has.

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Pilots are strongly urged to check temporary flight restrictions before taking to the skies around the nation’s capital.

Millions of Americans are expected to participate in events marking Independence Day and the country’s 250th anniversary, including an all-day series of military flyovers and aerial demonstrations over Washington.

Gen. Greg Guillot said NORAD’s Operation Noble Eagle will be on alert throughout the celebration. The mission, established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is responsible for defending U.S. airspace against airborne threats.

“Our mandate’s clear. We detect, we deter and defeat any airborne threat to the homeland,” Guillot said in an interview with Â鶹¹ÙÍø.

Guillot said the greatest concern is preventing civilian aircraft from inadvertently entering restricted airspace during the celebrations. He urged general aviation pilots to review Federal Aviation Administration Notices to Airmen, known as NOTAMs, before every flight.

“Before you fly anywhere in the National Capital Region, you need to read the NOTAMs to make sure that you understand if there are temporary flight restrictions that would keep you from flying in locations where you normally can fly,” he said. “That’s to ensure that we have safety for the air show and everybody in D.C.”

To secure the airspace, NORAD will have fighter aircraft patrolling over the Washington region while additional fighters remain on ground alert, ready to launch within minutes if needed. The command also will coordinate closely with the FAA using ground-based radar and other surveillance systems monitored around the clock from NORAD’s Joint Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and its backup facility inside Cheyenne Mountain.

Guillot offered simple advice to anyone planning to enjoy the aerial displays.

“Watch the show from the ground. Don’t try to watch it from the air. It’ll be really busy up there.”

He added that Americans attending the celebration should be confident because “at NORAD and NORTHCOM, we have the watch.”

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One of the most closely watched provisions of the emerging U.S.-Iran agreement — a reported plan to release roughly $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues — is exposing what may become the first major test of whether the broader deal can survive. At first glance, the dispute appears technical. It involves money that already belongs to Iran, funds generated from oil sales that were frozen overseas under sanctions.

But beneath the debate over bank accounts and purchasing restrictions lies a much larger question: Who controls the terms of the postwar relationship?

President Donald Trump’s administration and Iranian officials are telling two very different stories. According to reports from the Financial Times and statements from Vice President JD Vance and Trump, the framework would allow Iran access to approximately $6 billion in frozen assets held in Qatar. The money would reportedly be used to purchase approved humanitarian and civilian goods from the U.S., including food, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies.

The White House has presented the arrangement as a carefully controlled, confidence-building measure. The administration’s argument is straightforward. The money is not American aid. It is Iranian money. But access to it would be conditioned on compliance with the broader diplomatic framework.

The funds would support American exporters, provide economic relief to ordinary Iranians and help keep negotiations moving forward while reducing the risk of renewed conflict. From Washington’s perspective, it is a limited concession designed to buy time and stability.

Iran sees it differently.

On Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva publicly rejected the notion that the U.S. would dictate how the money is spent. Ali Bahreini said Iran alone would determine how its unfrozen assets are used. He dismissed suggestions that Washington or Qatar would control the spending process and denied that Iran had agreed to purchase American goods as a condition for receiving access to the funds.

That disagreement is not a minor public relations problem. It is the first visible sign that Washington and Tehran may have fundamentally different understandings of what has actually been agreed to.

Yet the dispute over the money is occurring against a much larger backdrop. The $6 billion release is only one piece of a broader effort to stabilize the region after the ceasefire. Equally important is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.

According to retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who closely follows naval operations in the region, the U.S. Navy has already begun the difficult task of securing commercial traffic through the waterway. Montgomery said approximately half of normal prewar oil traffic has resumed, largely through a southern shipping route near Oman that U.S. forces quickly cleared after the ceasefire.

The reopening of the strait should not be mistaken for a return to normal operations.

“They have not swept the whole Strait of Hormuz area,” Montgomery said. “That’s a monthslong event.”

The current arrangement relies on a narrow corridor that U.S. forces rapidly cleared after the ceasefire. Maintaining that route requires constant monitoring and repeated inspections to ensure new mines have not been laid. The result is less a permanent solution than a heavily guarded temporary arrangement.

Perhaps the most significant observation from Montgomery is that the U.S. is already enforcing parts of the agreement before the most difficult negotiations have even begun. According to Montgomery, U.S. destroyers, helicopters, surveillance aircraft and unmanned systems are already operating to guarantee commercial traffic through the southern transit lane near Oman.

“The U.S. can keep the southern transit lane open, period, full stop,” he said. But he added that doing so “persistently for months on end is a demanding responsibility for the Navy.”

In other words, the economic benefits now being discussed — the reopening of oil exports, the release of frozen assets, and the stabilization of global energy markets — depend upon a substantial and ongoing American military commitment.

That reality also highlights a strategic imbalance that has not disappeared with the ceasefire. Montgomery said while the U.S. can effectively secure the southern shipping lane, the northern transit lane remains a different matter altogether.

“Geography says Iran can close that if they want to,” he observed.

The northern route lies much closer to Iranian territory and islands, making it significantly more difficult to protect without broader military action. Even if the current agreement holds, Tehran retains leverage over one of the world’s most important energy choke points.

For the U.S., the $6 billion appears to be leverage. For Iran, it appears to be sovereignty. That distinction matters because the asset dispute is a preview of every difficult negotiation still to come. The same questions lie at the center of the uranium talks. The same questions lie at the center of future sanctions relief. The same questions lie at the center of inspections, verification and regional security arrangements.

Who sets the terms? Who determines compliance? Who decides whether commitments have been met?

If the dispute over frozen assets represents the first crack in the agreement, the nuclear issue may be where the framework faces its greatest test. Montgomery argued that any meaningful nuclear settlement would require more than promises.

“It generally would involve the removal of all the enriched uranium,” he said, along with dismantling enrichment infrastructure and establishing a verification system capable of ensuring there is no hidden continuity program.

Such requirements would go well beyond previous agreements and would likely face fierce resistance from Tehran.

Critics of the deal argue that even if the money is technically restricted to humanitarian purchases, it still frees up other Iranian government resources for military programs, missile development and regional proxy activities. Supporters counter that strict monitoring mechanisms can prevent abuse and that limited economic relief is necessary if diplomacy is to succeed.

But both sides may be missing the bigger issue. The real danger is not the money itself. The real danger is that the disagreement reveals a widening gap between expectations.

Successful diplomacy depends on both sides believing they are operating under the same set of assumptions. Yet within days of announcing the framework, American and Iranian officials are publicly describing key provisions in entirely different ways. History suggests that this is often how agreements begin to unravel. One side believes it secured a concession. The other believes it preserved a principle. The disagreement remains manageable until implementation begins. Then the competing interpretations collide.

That moment may be approaching quickly. The broader U.S.-Iran framework was never intended to resolve every issue. Its immediate purpose was to stop a war, reopen shipping lanes, restore oil flows and create space for negotiations. By that measure, it has succeeded so far. Oil prices have stabilized. The Strait of Hormuz remains open. Direct military confrontation has paused.

But the most difficult issues were deliberately deferred.

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If implemented, the agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports, extend a ceasefire and launch negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Markets responded immediately. Oil prices fell, investors welcomed the prospect of stability and governments around the world signaled relief.

But this is not peace.

What exists today is not a final settlement, it is a framework designed to stop a war that neither side appeared capable of decisively winning.

The biggest unresolved issue is also the issue that helped trigger the conflict in the first place: Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran reportedly agrees not to pursue nuclear weapons, but the difficult questions surrounding enriched uranium stockpiles, inspections, sanctions relief, verification and future enrichment activities have been deferred to future negotiations. Washington and Tehran have essentially agreed to stop shooting first and tackle the hardest problems later.

The Strait of Hormuz presents another major test.

Throughout the conflict, Iran demonstrated that it could pressure the global economy by threatening one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Now the success of the agreement may depend on whether shipping resumes safely, mines are cleared and commercial traffic returns to normal. If attacks resume or shipping remains disrupted, confidence in the deal could quickly erode.

Then there is Israel.

Israel’s priorities do not fully align with Washington’s. The Trump administration appears focused on ending the conflict and reducing economic pressure. Israel remains focused on degrading Iran’s military capabilities, limiting Hezbollah and preventing Tehran from retaining any meaningful nuclear infrastructure.

That creates a potentially dangerous fault line.

A single Israeli strike in Lebanon, a Hezbollah attack, an Iranian-backed militia operation or a maritime incident in the Gulf could trigger accusations that the agreement has been violated and push the region back toward confrontation. Ultimately, neither side achieved its maximum objectives. Washington did not eliminate the Iranian nuclear challenge.

Tehran did not force the United States from the region. Instead, both sides appear to have concluded that continuing the war carried greater risks than negotiating an imperfect settlement. That may be enough to sustain the ceasefire.

But it is not enough to guarantee long-term stability.

The war may be winding down. The strategic competition between the United States, Iran, Israel and their regional partners is not.

The next phase of this confrontation will not be fought primarily with missiles, drones or naval blockades. It will be fought through negotiations over uranium stockpiles, sanctions relief, inspections, regional security arrangements and freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.

The shooting may have stopped, but the strategic contest has merely entered a new phase.

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This appears to be proof of one of the central realities of this war: The United States can influence events, but it cannot control them.

Despite enormous military, diplomatic and economic leverage, Washington has been unable to stop the fighting, restrain its allies, deter its adversaries, or prevent the conflict from repeatedly pulling itself back from diplomacy toward confrontation. The longer that continues, the more this war becomes a test of American influence as much as a test of Israeli and Iranian resolve.

The administration is pushing hard for a deal. Trump said final negotiations are moving forward.

He also said both sides want an immediate ceasefire. Yet missiles are still flying, threats are still being made and the region remains on edge. That contradiction tells us something important.

The United States remains the most powerful external actor in the Middle East. It possesses enormous military, economic, diplomatic and intelligence leverage. Yet after more than 100 days of conflict, Washington still cannot reliably stop the fighting.

Iran sees that, and Tehran is increasingly exploiting it.

Iran’s strategy is not necessarily to win a conventional war against the United States or Israel. It is to survive, preserve its core capabilities and demonstrate that neither Washington nor Jerusalem can dictate the terms of the conflict.

Every time diplomacy appears close to a breakthrough, Iran gains leverage simply by showing that the United States cannot fully control events on the battlefield. That strengthens Tehran’s negotiating position and reinforces its longstanding argument that military pressure alone cannot force Iranian capitulation.

Compounding the problem is Israel. The United States and Israel remain allies, but there are increasingly visible signs that Washington and Jerusalem are operating from different strategic playbooks.

Trump’s primary objective appears to be ending the conflict and reaching a broader agreement that addresses Iran’s nuclear program, regional security concerns and freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Israel’s objective appears more focused on degrading Iran’s military capabilities and weakening Tehran’s regional network before any agreement is finalized.

That difference has become increasingly public. In recent days, Trump has confirmed reports that he sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pressed him to avoid actions that could derail negotiations.

Reuters, Axios, The Associated Press and others have reported significant disagreements between the two leaders over Israeli military operations and their impact on ongoing diplomacy.

The significance is not personal tension. The significance is strategic divergence. Washington is trying to stop the war. Israel is trying to shape the outcome of the war. Those are related goals, but they are not the same goal.

From Tehran’s perspective, this creates opportunity. Iranian officials have repeatedly blamed the United States for Israeli actions while simultaneously continuing indirect communications with Washington.

In effect, Tehran is attempting to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel by arguing that Washington either cannot control its closest regional ally or is secretly endorsing Israeli actions while claiming to support diplomacy.

Either narrative benefits Iran. If Washington cannot control Israel, that suggests American leverage is weaker than advertised. If Washington is secretly coordinating Israeli actions, Iran can justify taking a harder line in negotiations. In both cases, Tehran gains room to maneuver.

This helps explain why stopping the war has been so difficult.

There is no single battlefield, no single chain of command and no single negotiation. There are multiple conflicts operating simultaneously: Israel and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah, the Houthis and maritime shipping, nuclear negotiations, sanctions negotiations and the broader struggle for regional influence.

Each conflict affects the others. Every military action changes the diplomatic environment. Every diplomatic proposal affects military calculations.

The result is a cycle in which nobody appears able to impose a decisive outcome. The United States can pressure Israel but not fully restrain it. Israel can strike Iran but cannot force political surrender. Iran can absorb punishment but cannot achieve strategic victory. Regional proxies can disrupt diplomacy without controlling it.

That is why Trump’s latest ceasefire appeal is so important. It reflects a growing recognition that the greatest threat may no longer be a deliberate decision by either side to widen the war. The greatest threat may be the inability of any actor — including the United States — to stop events from widening on their own.

The war is no longer being driven solely by military objectives. It is being driven by competing political objectives, competing diplomatic objectives and increasingly divergent views among allies about how the conflict should end. That is why the fighting continues despite everyone publicly claiming they want it to stop.

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For four years many Western leaders said they believed the fighting would remain inside Ukraine. NATO would support Kyiv, but the alliance itself would avoid becoming a combatant.

That assumption has suffered a major blow.

Two civilians were injured. A fire erupted. Residents were evacuated. Romanian fighter jets and military helicopters tracked the drone, but officials said the speed of the incident and the urban environment created an unacceptable risk of civilian casualties if they attempted to shoot it down.

This was not an empty field. It was not debris. It was not a drone crashing harmlessly into farmland. It was a weaponized Russian drone striking a civilian building inside a NATO member state.

Romanian officials have spent years warning that attacks on Ukrainian ports along the Danube posed a growing danger to neighboring NATO territory.

According to Romania’s Foreign Ministry, Russian drones have repeatedly entered Romanian airspace while attacking the nearby Ukrainian port of Reni, a critical hub for grain exports and civilian commerce.

The concern was always that eventually one would hit something or someone. That warning has now become reality.

The larger significance extends far beyond Romania.

Russia and Ukraine are increasingly attacking targets deeper inside each other’s territory. Ukrainian drones are reaching hundreds of miles into Russia. Moscow is responding with larger and more frequent missile and drone attacks. The war is becoming less geographically confined and more strategically unpredictable.

Romania’s government appears determined to ensure this incident is treated differently from previous airspace violations.

Romanian officials have described the drone crash as crossing a red line and say allies throughout NATO and the European Union have been informed of the seriousness of the event. Discussions are already underway about strengthening sanctions and accelerating allied responses.

The challenge for NATO is clear.

If every border violation is treated as an accident, deterrence weakens. If every violation is treated as an attack requiring escalation, the risk of direct conflict with Russia grows.

That is precisely the gray zone where Moscow often operates.

Russia may not want a war with NATO. But it has repeatedly shown a willingness to accept risks that raise the possibility of one. Every missile that strays across a border, every drone that enters allied airspace, and every act of intimidation forces NATO governments to decide where deterrence ends and confrontation begins.

The Romanian strike is therefore not just a Romanian problem. It is a test of alliance credibility.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this incident is what it reveals about the future of the war.

The longer the conflict continues, the more difficult it becomes to prevent spillover. Military operations are moving closer to borders. Long-range drones are becoming more numerous. Response times are shrinking. Opportunities for miscalculation are growing.

The war may still be centered in Ukraine. But the protective walls around it are beginning to crack.

And this week’s strike in Romania may be remembered as one of the clearest signs yet that Europe’s largest war since World War II is becoming harder to contain.

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Authorities said 21-year-old Nasire Best opened fire near a Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW while President Donald Trump was inside the White House. Officers responded immediately, killing the suspect before he could advance deeper into the secured area.

A bystander was injured as the scene erupted into chaos. Within moments, streets closed, agents flooded the perimeter and one of the world’s most protected political sites entered full emergency mode.

On paper, the system worked. The president was protected. The suspect was stopped. The White House remained secure.

But the real significance of this shooting lies elsewhere.

What happened outside the White House may be another sign that the nation is entering an era where emotional instability and political hostility are increasingly colliding in public life. Violence aimed at symbolic centers of power is no longer as shocking as it once was. That alone should concern the country.

This incident also did not happen in isolation. It came only weeks after another armed suspect allegedly attempted to target the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, one of Washington’s highest-profile political gatherings. Taken together, the episodes suggest something larger may be developing beneath the surface of American civic life.

For years, the American national security system focused primarily on organized threats: foreign terrorist groups, extremist networks, coordinated plots and hostile intelligence operations. The assumption was that dangerous actors would leave identifiable trails through communications, financing, travel or operational planning.

But many of today’s threats emerge from a different environment entirely.

They are often fueled by isolation, rage, obsession, paranoia or emotional collapse, accelerated by digital platforms that reward outrage, reinforce grievance and blur the line between fantasy and reality. In many cases, ideology is only one piece of a much larger psychological picture.

That’s making modern threat detection significantly harder.

The danger no longer always comes from structured organizations. Increasingly, it comes from individuals drifting through online ecosystems saturated with anger, conspiracy theories and emotional reinforcement. By the time law enforcement recognizes the threat clearly, the person may already be standing outside a government building with a weapon.

The White House occupies a unique place inside that environment.

It is not simply a seat of government anymore. It has become a permanent emotional symbol projected endlessly across television, social media and political culture. For unstable individuals, proximity to that symbol might feel psychologically important. Visibility itself becomes a form of power.

That changes the nature of security.

Modern attacks are no longer confined to physical acts alone. As I wrote in my book “,” the digital reaction is now part of the event itself.

Within minutes of an incident, rumors spread online, manipulated narratives emerge and political factions weaponize incomplete information. Security officials are forced to manage not only the immediate physical danger, but the informational fallout that follows almost instantly.

And this constant cycle is reshaping Washington itself.

The city increasingly operates like a psychologically fortified capital. More barriers. More visible tactical presence. More hardened security zones. More anticipation of disruption. Public life around government institutions now unfolds under a permanent layer of threat awareness.

Over time, societies adapt to those conditions.

Citizens begin treating emergency measures as normal. Political hostility becomes routine background noise. Public trust weakens. Fear settles quietly into the structure of everyday life.

That may be the larger warning embedded in this latest shooting.

The U.S. is not simply dealing with isolated acts of violence. It is confronting a broader erosion of civic emotional stability, where distrust, political fury, social fragmentation and digital amplification continuously feed one another.

The real challenge for the country is no longer just protecting buildings or political leaders.

It’s whether American society can slow the emotional and informational deterioration now pushing grievance closer and closer to violence.

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The suspect who U.S. Secret Service said opened fire near a security checkpoint is dead after he was shot by officers who returned fire. It was the third incident of gunfire near President Donald Trump in the past month, The Associated Press reported.

He was identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. Best was known to authorities.

The moment authorities confirmed that Trump was inside the White House, “that situation escalates dramatically,” Green said. “The Secret Service has to immediately assume the possibility of an assassination attempt, a diversion, a diversionary tactic or a broader coordinated threat until they can prove otherwise. That means every second matters.”

Green said agents kicked in measures that lock down movement, including securing evacuation routes, monitoring secondary threats and coordinating with local and federal agencies.

But the most difficult threat to stop is the “fragmented lone actor,” Green said.

After 9/11, Green said counterterrorism systems were largely built to detect networks, including how groups communicate, move money, plan operations and coordinate attacks.

But more recent threats often involve individuals acting alone or within loosely connected online spaces.

“Their motivations may involve ideology, it could be mental instability, personal grievance, sometimes obsession with public figures, or the desire for notoriety. And often it’s a combination of all of those factors that makes these threats today harder to predict,” Green said.

That’s because the warning signs are scattered across social media, police encounters, personal behavior and online behavior rather than a structured terrorist organization.

“The lone actor is the big threat right now,” Green said.

Listen to Green’s analysis below.

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