Trump's Greenland push forces Europe to confront what it cannot afford
The American president's territorial ambitions have become an accidental stress test for European strategic autonomy. The results expose a €1.8 trillion investment gap, fiscal rules that prevent defense spending, and political systems unable to sustain the commitments that independence requires.
Trajectory Daily Brief: 19 January 2026
Taiwan's 500 interceptors face thousands of Chinese missiles. Gulf allies host US bases while lobbying against Iran strikes. Beijing builds satellite stations where America can't compete.
Why Taiwan's missile defenses will exhaust within hours of a Chinese attack
Why Taiwan's missile defense will fail in the first hours of a Chinese attack
Taiwan has spent billions on Patriot batteries and indigenous interceptors. But the brutal arithmetic of saturation warfare means its layered defenses will likely collapse within hours of a serious Chinese strike—not from technological failure, but from the physics of fighting an adversary with...
Why gulf states are blocking US military strikes on Iran
Why Gulf states are urging America not to strike Iran
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and their neighbours have spent decades under an American security umbrella. Now they are begging Washington to keep that umbrella closed—fearing they would pay the price for any attack on Tehran.
China's global south satellite ground stations create systematic vulnerabilities in Western military communications
China's ground stations are the real threat to Western military satellites
While defense planners focus on Chinese missiles and anti-satellite weapons, Beijing has been building something more insidious: a global network of ground infrastructure across the Global South that can track, jam, and exploit Western military communications—without ever firing a shot.
Trajectory Daily Brief: 18 January 2026
China completes its South China Sea fortress while cataloguing America's integration failures. The US quietly builds backup bases as Beijing's deep space network watches from the shadows.
Why antelope reef marks China's transition from threatening punishment to making operations impossible in the South China Sea
China's Antelope Reef signals a strategic shift from deterrence to denial in the South China Sea
Beijing's latest artificial island is not another territorial marker. It is a weapons platform designed to make American operations in the western Pacific prohibitively costly—a shift from threatening retaliation to eliminating options.
