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 man walks past a damaged silo at the Saudi Aramco oil facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 24, 2020, after Houthi rebels launched a missile attack on the facility. (Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)
Barack Obama shakes hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office at the White House May 13, 2015, in Washington, DC. (Olivier Douliery via Getty Images)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei attends the joint graduation ceremony of armed forces cadets at Imam Hussein Military University in Tehran, Iran, on October 3, 2022. (Iranian Leader Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A member of the Komala opposition party stands in the remains of what used to be its headquarters. Iranian missiles and drones struck multiple headquarters of Kurdish opposition groups in the KRI on September 28, 2022, in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. (Hawre Khalid/Getty Images)
Demonstrators gathering around a burning barricade during a protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic's "morality police", in Tehran on September 19, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
A picture taken on November 10, 2019, shows an Iranian flag in Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, during an official ceremony to kick-start works on a second reactor at the facility. Bushehr is Iran's only nuclear power station and is currently running on imported fuel from Russia that is closely monitored by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. (Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
Servicemen march during the military parade marking the 76th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, Russia's term for World War II, on Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2021. (Photo by Evgeny Sinitsyn/Xinhua via Getty Images)