US sailors conduct routine maintenance on a jet blast deflector on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on July 9, 2025. (US Navy)
The Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST) facility, which will house a compact fusion experiment device, undergoes its first exterior lighting test on September 9, 2026, in Hefei, China. (Getty Images)
United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy participate in a joint press conference after talks on September 6, 2026, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Getty Images)
Engineers work outside the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, on September 25, 2009. (Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes US Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner before their talks in Moscow on September 5, 2026. (Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping greet each other during a welcoming ceremony of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin on August 31, 2025. (Getty Images)
Chinese honor guards participate in a welcome ceremony in Tianjin, China, on August 31, 2025, as Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. (Vladimir Smirnov via Getty Images)
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
Indian army convoy carrying reinforcements and supplies, drive towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on September 2, 2020 in Gagangir, India. (Yawar Nazir via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump listens as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House on February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong via Getty Images)