Chinese military personnel take part in a rehearsal ahead of a parade commemorating the eightieth anniversary of victory in World War II in Beijing on August 20, 2025. (Pedro Pardo via Getty Images)
Senior lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
US Commerce Secretary Howard William Lutnick and Japanese Minister for Economic Revitalization Ryosei Akazawa shake hands on on September 4, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)
Arleigh Burke–class guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee (DDG 90) sails in formation during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise on July 28, 2022. (DVIDS)
A formation of Dongfeng-41 nuclear missiles takes part in a military parade celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing on October 1, 2019. (Xia Yifang via Getty Images)
Senior lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
A microchip and Taiwanese flag displayed on a phone screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo on April 10, 2023. (Jakub Porzycki via Getty Images)
Firefighters work on the site of a fire on May 4, 2024, in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Viacheslav Mavrychev/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
A drone equipped with an electronic warfare system takes off during a presentation on March 19, 2024, in Ukraine. (Photo by Viktor Fridshon/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Ukrainian infantrymen from the 126th Territorial Defense Brigade train on the banks of the Dnipro on April 16, 2024, in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine. (Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)
A small boat transfers a Romanian boarding team from Standing NATO Maritime Group Two (SNMG2) ship ROS Regele Ferdinand to SNMG2 flagship HMS Duncan on February 7, 2018. (NATO photo by GBRN LPhot Paul Hall)
Demonstrators protest against a controversial bill limiting so-called foreign influence in Tbilisi, Georgia, on April 28, 2024. (Photo by Nicolo Vincenzo Malvestuto/Getty Images)
A protestor holds a Taurus missile sign at a demonstration to show support for Ukraine in Cologne, Germany, on January 6, 2024. (Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tleuberdi, and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Alexander Khvtisiashvili attend a press conference after a ministerial meeting on Trans-Caspian connectivity in Aktau, Kazakhstan, on November 25, 2022. (Photo by Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a naval exercise from the Marshal Ustinov missile cruiser in the Black Sea on January 9, 2020. (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)