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)
A gathering outside of the former US embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 2022, celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the embassy by protestors. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Firefighters conduct search and rescue operations at a residential building hit by a kamikaze drone on October 17, 2022, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
An Iranian long range surface to surface Qadr missile and an anti-aircraft gun are displayed in a war exhibition organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a park in southern Tehran to mark the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war on September 23, 2021. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
An Iranian woman holds both Ukrainian and Iranian flags at a demonstration for peace in Cologne, Germany, on November 5, 2022. (Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a residential building destroyed by a Russian drone, which local authorities believe to be Iranian-made Shahed-136, in central Kyiv on October 17, 2022. (Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
A Russian T-72 tank fires during joint military exercises between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Iran, Pakistan, and Myanmar at the Raevsky range in Southern Russia on September 23, 2020, during the "Caucasus-2020" military drills. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
Missiles fire over the Caspian Sea during the Caucasus-2020 military drills between Iran, China, Russia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus, on September 23, 2020. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
A boy looks on during a candlelight vigil to pay tribute to those who have died protesting the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who was killed in police custody after allegedly violating the country's hijab rules, outside the White House on October 1, 2022. (Bonnie Cash via Getty Images)
Israeli navy vessels off the coast of Rosh Hanikra, an area at the border between Israel and Lebanon, on June 6, 2022. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)