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)
Retired M41 “Walker Bulldog” light tanks, which served the Taiwanese Army for 63 years, are on display by a beach on October 7, 2023, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Photo by Alex Wong/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)
On his first state visit to the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a meeting with five US governors to discuss clean technology and economic development on September 22, 2015, in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Matt Mills McKnight-Pool/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)
Vehicles drive under a massive billboard that is displays an illustrated image of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps missiles in Tehran, Iran, on April 15, 2024. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)