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)
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meet with Republic of Korea’s Minister of Defense Suh Wook for the 53rd US-Republic of Korea Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on December 2, 2021. (DOD Photo by Navy Chief Petty Officer Carlos M. Vazquez II)
Ships from the US, Japan, and Republic of Korea conduct a trilateral ballistic missile defense exercise in the Sea of Japan, on October 6, 2022. (US Navy Photo by Gray Gibson)
A woman walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test in Seoul, South Korea, on November 3, 2022. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images)
Xi Jinping votes at the closing ceremony of the Twentieth Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People on October 22, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
The Republic of Korea and United States conduct combined attack squadron flight and precision bombing drills on October 4, 2022, in South Korea, following North Korea’s ballistic missile launch. (ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff).
The guided missile destroyer USS Barry conducts routine underway operations in the South China Sea on November 21, 2022. (US Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist Molly Crawford)