Bucket-wheel excavators mine rare earth materials on Ukrainian soil on February 25, 2025, in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. (Kostiantyn Liberov via Getty Images)
The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald fires the first Naval Strike Missile from a US destroyer on July 18, 2024, in the Pacific Ocean. (US Navy photo)
Fast-attack submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777) enters Dry Dock 1 at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Hawaii, on September 4, 2024. (US Navy photo by Justice Vannatta)
A South Korean Army K1E1 tank crosses a pontoon bridge on the Imjin River during a joint river- crossing exercise as part of the Freedom Shield military drills with US and ROK forces in the border town of Yeoncheon, South Korea, on March 20, 2025. (Getty Images)
A man holds up a sign demanding that soldiers from the United States Army leave Niger without negotiation during a demonstration in Niamey, Niger, on April 13, 2024. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) soldiers escort civilian vehicles transporting goods from Beni toward Komanda on March 19, 2022. (Photo by Sebastien Kitsa Musayi/AFP via Getty Images)
Chinese President Xi Jinping with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attend the 2018 China-Africa Cooperation Summit at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 4, 2018. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Citizens walk past a decorative installation for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on October 14, 2023, in Beijing, China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)