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 Philippine Coast Guard vessel and Filipino military personnel stationed in the Spratlys on December 10, 2023, in Palawan, Philippines. (Jes Aznar via Getty Images)
Communal workers walk next to a crater and destroyed houses following a Russian shelling in Kyiv on December 11, 2023. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)
Members of China's thirteenth Arctic Ocean scientific expedition team conduct a sampling operation aboard China's polar icebreaker Xuelong 2 on August 6, 2023. (Wei Hongyi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Black smoke billows from a fire on the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia after a truck exploded near Kerch on October 8, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
A supporter of Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NFR) and the leading Afghan fighter against the Taliban, holds a flag with an NRF logo as he demonstrates outside Concordia Press Club in Vienna, Austria, on September 16, 2022. (Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)