Laboratory technicians work on samples to be tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus at a testing facility in Wuhan, China on August 4, 2021. (Getty Images)
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)
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)
A US Air Force pilot looking down at the Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovers over the Central Continental United States on February 3, 2023. (Photo via Department of Defense)
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer conducts underway operations in the Taiwan Strait on April 10, 2020. (Ensign Samuel Hardgrove via DVIDS)
US Customs and Border Protection finds Oxycodone pills in a parcel at John F. Kennedy International Airport US Postal Service facility on June 24, 2019. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)