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The world is still trying to divine what North Korea’s surprise Take Your Daughter to Work Day means for the family regime’s future.

North Korean leader KIM JONG UN appeared with his progeny in state-issued pictures twice this month, first during the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and then again Sunday during a visit with troops at an unknown location. The images ended widespread speculation of the existence of a daughter, who is rumored to be about 10 years old and named KIM JU AE.

So why did the dictator reveal his daughter now? And why in this way? No one, from U.S. officials to prominent experts in Washington and Seoul, has a clear answer yet, though theories abound.

MOON CHUNG-IN, a former top adviser to previous South Korean President MOON JAE-IN, said Kim was trying to project nuclear strength while also portraying himself as a family man, showing off his two most prized assets at once. Parading around with his kid allows Kim to distinguish himself from his father, KIM JONG IL, who was much more secretive than the current despot. It’s too early to speculate that Kim is grooming his child for future leadership, said Moon, who noted South Korean media is running with that theory.

VICTOR CHA, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, thinks the daughter’s introduction is part of a longer-term public relations campaign. Kim first unveiled his wife, RI SOL JU, only a year after taking power in 2012. Then he showed off his younger sister, KIM YO JONG, who has since played a major policy and leadership role in the regime. Now, Kim wants everyone to meet his daughter.

“It shows that the Kim family will continue to rule generations into the future,” Cha said. “Kim only surrounds himself with the women of the family, delicately balancing dynastic succession with his continued superiority in a patriarchal structure.”

Both of those explanations boil down to the Kim family and its leadership being the main message. But the RAND Corporation’s SOO KIM, formerly a CIA analyst focused on the Koreas, told NatSec Daily that the North Korean leader might be trying to distract his enemies.

“Think about how much chatter his daughter's appearance has been able to stir in public debate over the succession issue,” she said. “We still recognize the nuclear issue as a serious concern, but now our time and attention have been split between weapons and hereditary succession.”

Soo Kim added that Kim Jong Un is rumored to have at least one son born in 2010, making him older than the just-revealed daughter. If that’s the case, then the son could be a strong contender to take over after his father, unless there’s some reason to dismiss him.

However, Kim Jong Un wasn’t the oldest of his father’s kids and was eventually deemed the successor, so it’s possible birth order isn’t that important to him. He had his older half-brother killed in Malaysia in 2017, after all.

The only thing we know for sure is that Kim didn’t have the same experience during the Thanksgiving season as many in the NatSec Daily family. “I took my boys to a Georgetown basketball game for Thanksgiving,” Cha told us. “Not as memorable as taking them to a ballistic missile launch, but more entertaining.”

STRIKE WEAPONS TO UKRAINE?: The Pentagon is considering sending Ukraine weapons that could strike behind Russian lines, Reuters reports, citing a document reviewed by the outlet and three people familiar with the plan.

The proposal from Boeing would provide Kyiv with a small precision bomb fitted to rockets, the people said. It combines a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb with the M26 rocket motor, which are both common in U.S. inventories.

The weapons could be delivered as soon as the spring, according to the document and people familiar with the plan. The system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb, is one of several plans for getting new weapons into production for Ukraine and other European allies.

KHERSON REGION BOMBARDED: Moscow continued its shelling of the Kherson region over the weekend, and Ukrainian officials claimed Russia targeted civilians during its attacks, our own SERGEI KUZNETSOV reports.

Russian forces shelled the region 54 times over the weekend, according to YAROSLAV YANUSHEVYCH, the regional governor of Kherson. He also said the troops “purposefully hit civilians in the region,” killing one resident and injuring two more, including a child.

The barrage came as Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYYwarned of new missile strikes on the country, urging defense forces and citizens to be prepared to deal with the aftermath.

TURKEY PREPARES FORCES: Turkey's military is days away from being ready to invade northern Syria, Reuters' UMIT OZDAL and ORHAN COSKUN report.

Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN launched a series of airstrikes against Kurdish militants near Syria's northern border, and has warned that a ground operation will soon begin.

The spike in tensions comes after Ankara blamed the Kurdish militia for a terrorist attack in Istanbul two weeks ago that killed six people and wounded dozens.

CRICKETS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: The Biden administration is responding cautiously to weekend protests across China, reflecting in part a U.S. desire to stabilize a vital but increasingly adversarial relationship with Beijing, our own NAHAL TOOSI and PHELIM KINE report.

Instead of public statements from top officials, an unnamed National Security Council spokesperson offered slightly critical comments Monday focused mainly on what appeared to spur the demonstrations: anger over China’s zero-Covid policy.

“We’ve long said everyone has the right to peacefully protest, here in the United States and around the world. This includes in the PRC,” the spokesperson said in the statement.

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ON THEIR WAY OUT?: PETRO KOTIN, head of Ukraine's state-run energy company, claims that Russia may have plans to soon leave the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after they seized control of the facility in March shortly after invading, Reuters reports.

"In recent weeks we are effectively receiving information that signs have appeared that they are possibly preparing to leave the [plant]," Kotin said.

Moscow denied reports that they were planning an exit from the facility.

"There's no need to look for signs where there are none and cannot be any," Kremlin spokesperson DMITRY PESKOV said.

Russia's occupation of the plant has alarmed Europe and the U.S., which feared fighting taking place near the site could trigger a nuclear disaster.

NO SHOW: Russia postponed plans to appear at the first nuclear treaty negotiations with the U.S. since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. embassy in Russia told Kommersant, a Russian newspaper.

Nuclear arms reduction talks between both sides were scheduled to take place between Nov. 29 and Dec. 6 in Cairo. Previous negotiations were held in Geneva, but Moscow no longer considers Switzerland a neutral site after the country has adopted EU sanctions against Russia.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed by the U.S. and Russia in 2011 and the agreement is set to expire in 2026. Russia opted not to comply with inspections under the treaty in August and blamed travel restrictions imposed by the U.S.

FIGHTING BACK: The U.S. is dedicating “substantial resources” to combat ransomware, but attack activity is “back to as much or more than the historical norm,” ROB JOYCE, director of NSA’s cybersecurity directorate, said in an interview with our friends over at Weekly Cybersecurity.

A major issue is that many cyber criminals operate out of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” or foreign countries that refuse to crack down on domestic cyber criminals, Joyce said. In addition to Russia, he pointed to North Korea, which “does state-sponsored ransomware,” and China and Iran, which harbor cyber criminals, as drivers of the problem.

“The safe haven that those nations provide is a big problem,” Joyce said. “That is something we’re all looking at and trying to figure out.”

INCREASED SPACE CAPABILITIES: U.S. military officials are increasingly concerned with China's growing space capabilities, Reuters’ ALASDAIR PAL reports.

“I think it's entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely,” said NINA ARMAGNO, the Space Force’s director of staff. "The progress they've made has been stunning, stunningly fast.”

Some of Beijing's space ambitions have rattled Washington due to concerns about space debris from Chinese rocket tests.

“These debris fields threatened all of our systems in space, and these systems are vital to all nations’ security, economic and scientific interests,” she said.

China's new Tiangong space station could allow the country to set more goals in space as NASA's International Space Station is set to end operations by the end of the decade.

AUSTIN URGES ACTION: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said the U.S. can’t outcompete with China “with our hands tied behind our back” for much of the fiscal year, urging lawmakers to pass a full-year budget before temporary funding runs out next month, our friends over at Morning Defense (for Pros!) report.

"We must break this pattern of extensive inaction,” Austin wrote in a letter to House and Senate leaders and appropriators on Sunday in unusually strong language.

The Pentagon chief warned that efforts to modernize the military to counter China will be stymied the longer Congress fails to do its job. DoD has been operating under a continuing resolution since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, carrying over funding levels from the previous year and barring the agency from starting most new programs.

FOREIGN MINISTERS URGE MORE AID TO UKRAINE: European foreign ministers in a trip to Kyiv underscored the need to provide Ukraine with more weapons and defense systems as Russian attacks on the country persist, our own LILI BAYER reports.

A delegation of foreign ministers from Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden visited the capital on Monday as a gesture of support for Ukraine ahead of a NATO ministers’ gathering in Bucharest.

On the way there, Estonian Foreign Minister URMAS REINSALU called for providing Kyiv with a “sword” and “shield,” referring to long-range missiles and air defense systems. Arms assistance to Ukraine can no longer be “gradual” as Moscow’s attacks continue, and weapons should be provided “without any caveats,” he said.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister GABRIELIUS LANDSBERGIS urged more assistance in the form of tanks, saying the “main task is that we need to help Ukraine win the war.”

— STEPHEN BOYD has joined Horizons Global Solutions as a partner. Boyd was previously Sen. TOMMY TUBERVILLE’s (R-Ala.) chief of staff and was an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.

— LILI BAYER, POLITICO: NATO’s looming fault line: China

— CHARLES DIGGES, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: War puts cleanup of Russia’s radioactive wrecks on ice

— ADRIAN BONENBERGER, The Boston Globe: Under fire from Russia, Ukrainian morale remains high

— The Wilson Center, 8 a.m.: "Between the Eagle and the Dragon: Challenges and Opportunities for South Korea in the US-China Competition"

— The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, 10 a.m.: "Schriever Spacepower Forum: Gen. JAMES H. DICKINSON"

— The Heritage Foundation, 10 a.m.: “Solving America’s Military Recruiting Crisis”

— Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 2:30 p.m.: Hearings for ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary nominations

— The Wilson Center, 3 p.m.:“Achieving Security in the Arctic: the Role of DHS and its Components”

— The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3:30 p.m.:"Book Event: Innovate to Dominate"

— The Institute of World Politics, 4:30 p.m.:"China Is Preparing for War, America Is Not"

Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at [email protected] to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter.

Thanks to our editor, Dave Brown, whose sons now wish they could take a family trip to an ICBM test site.

And we thank our producer, Jeffrey Horst, who we’re always happy to tell the world about.