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 Standard Missile-3 Block 1A interceptor is launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie during a Missile Defense Agency and US Navy test in the Pacific Ocean on February 13, 2013. (US Navy photo)
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)
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)
Ships from the US, Japan, and Republic of Korea conduct a trilateral ballistic missile defense exercise in the Sea of Japan, on October 6, 2022. (US Navy Photo by Gray Gibson)
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 woman walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test in Seoul, South Korea, on November 3, 2022. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images)
Xi Jinping votes at the closing ceremony of the Twentieth Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People on October 22, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
A Russian RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile complex during the Victory Day Parade main rehearsals on May 7, 2022, in Moscow, Russia. (Getty Images)
The guided missile destroyer USS Barry conducts routine underway operations in the South China Sea on November 21, 2022. (US Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist Molly Crawford)