Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shakes hands with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on May 4, 2026. (Getty Images)
A Philippine Air Force Black Hawk helicopter lands on June 29, 2023, on Mavulis Island, which is the Philippines’ northernmost island and is roughly 88 miles from Taiwan. (Getty Images)
Senior lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
A production line of the Glide, a high-altitude glider that delivers munitions across thousands of miles, is seen at the defense tech startup Mach Industries in Huntington Beach, California, on September 11, 2025. (Getty Images)
Trailers with launchers for guided missiles of a German Patriot air defense system stand on a snow-covered field in southeastern Poland on April 3, 2023. (Getty Images)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 11, 2025. (Mandel Ngan via Getty Images)
Construction of roads and railways that will pass through the Zangezur Corridor continues in Zangilan, Azerbaijan, on October 9, 2023. (Resul Rehimov via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump looks on as Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 7, 2025. (Jim Watson via Getty Images)
Chinese President Xi Jinping waves during a meeting with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam at the Office of the Party Central Committee in Hanoi on April 14, 2025. (Nhac Nguyen via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar attend the ceremonial reception of Angola's President Joao Lourenco at the presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on May 3, 2025. (Money Sharma via Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting on the development of occupied regions of Ukraine at the Kremlin on June 30, 2025. (Getty Images)