In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Vladimir Putin enters a hall to meet with graduates of higher military educational institutions at the Kremlin on June 23, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov via Getty Images)
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
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pose for a picture with European leaders following a meeting at the White House on August 18, 2025. (Win McNamee via Getty Images)
A US Marine Corps VXE30 Stalker unmanned aerial system is staged during a maritime domain awareness training exercise in southern Finland on July 31, 2025. (DVIDS)
A US Air Force security forces raven maintains security aboard a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan on August 24, 2021. (US Air Force photo by Donald R. Allen)
Taliban fighters stood guard as people searched for relatives outside a hospital after a suicide attack at an education center in Kabul on Friday. (PHOTO: STR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES)
Afghan politician Ahmad Massoud, one of the leaders of the National Resistance Front and son of the famed Mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, in Paris, France, on March 22, 2021. (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri photographed in 2001. (Hamid Mir via Wikimedia Commons http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/05/03/feature-02)
Members of Taliban led government, as well as many Afghan men, participate in celebrations marking the first anniversary of the US-led troops' withdrawal from the country in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 31, 2022. (Photo by Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)