Why a tiny Indian Ocean atoll is fracturing the UK-US alliance
The Chagos Islands deal was meant to resolve a colonial wrong. Instead, it has exposed how legal challenges, sovereignty disputes, and shifting politics can threaten military infrastructure that great powers assumed was permanent.
Trump's NATO ultimatums force European rearmament while fracturing the alliance's strategic core
Trump's NATO ultimatum: Will Europe rearm, fragment, or go nuclear?
American pressure has pushed European defense spending to record highs. But rising budgets mask deeper fractures over strategy, capability, and nuclear deterrence that could reshape transatlantic security for decades.
Trajectory Daily Brief: 26 January 2026
Japan's hypersonic missiles reach Beijing in minutes while Trump tells allies to defend themselves. Arctic ice melts faster than NATO can secure Greenland from Chinese shipping routes.
What breaks first when japan deploys hypersonic strike weapons: The constitutional fiction anchoring east Asian order
Japan's hypersonic missiles will work—the system that commands them will not
Tokyo's new strike weapons force a question Japanese strategic culture has avoided for three generations. The answer will fracture alliances before it deters adversaries.
If Trump strikes Iran's nuclear facilities, does israel's regional position strengthen or collapse as tehran activates proxy networks?
What the strikes on Iran revealed about Israeli vulnerability and regional realignment
The June 2025 attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities tested a generation of assumptions about proxy coordination and Israeli defense capacity. The outcome defied predictions of both triumph and collapse, exposing structural dynamics that will shape Middle Eastern security for decades.
NATO's Greenland problem breaks first as Arctic ice retreats
The Arctic is breaking in three places at once—and no one can stop it
NATO allies clash over Greenland's future while Russian pipelines sink into thawing permafrost and Chinese shipping routes prove more fragile than promised. The Arctic's transformation is outpacing every institution meant to govern it.
Trajectory Daily Brief: 25 January 2026
Pentagon tells allies to defend themselves as Britain abandons the Gulf after 46 years. China studies Venezuela's survival playbook while keeping warships out of America's backyard.
