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 soldier with the 781st Military Intelligence Battalion conducts cyberspace operations at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California on May 9, 2017. (Army Cyber Command photo by Bill Roche)
The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain transit the South China Sea on November 4, 2021. (US Navy photo by Tyler R. Fraser)
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Li Zhanshu at the Eastern Economic Forum in Primorye, Russia, on September 7, 2022, on the heels of the Vostok 2022 joint military exercises between Russia and China. (TASS)
US Marines with 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, drive an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System onto a US Air Force C-5 Galaxy during a loading exercise at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton in California on February 7, 2023. (US Marine Corps photo by Cameron Hermanet)
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to China's President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation leaders' summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 16, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Bobylov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
A Ukrainian army artillery crew dismounts from a self-propelled 122mm howitzer after firing on a Russian position on February 18, 2023, near Bakhmut, Ukraine. (John Moore/Getty Images)
A US Air Force B-1B long-range bomber and F-16 fighter jet fly over the Canadian Arctic during North American Aerospace Defense Command’s Arctic air defense exercise, "Amalgam Dart 21-2" on March 24, 2021. (US Air Force)
Participants drill shooting positions at a combat training day hosted by a local paramilitary civil formation called TSEL on February 22, 2023, in Lviv, Ukraine. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Louisiana transits Puget Sound following a 41-month engineered refueling overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility on February 9, 2023. (US Navy photo by Brian G. Reynolds)