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Asia-Pacific

Coverage of Indo-Pacific security, South China Sea disputes, Taiwan contingencies, and the strategic dynamics of ASEAN, Australia, Japan, and Korea.

The Nuclear Mirage: Why Australia Can't Actually Maintain Nuclear Submarines

The Nuclear Mirage: Why Australia Can't Actually Maintain Nuclear Submarines

Three years after AUKUS, Australia lacks the dry docks, workforce, and industrial base to service nuclear submarines. The gap between political promises and physical reality grows wider each year.

The Sacrificial Fleet

The Sacrificial Fleet

Australia's military exists to signal commitment through spectacular failure, not to win wars. This explains why $50 billion in annual spending hasn't produced readiness for high-intensity conflict.

The Carrier Question: China's Missiles and the Future of Taiwan Defense

The Carrier Question: China's Missiles and the Future of Taiwan Defense

China's long-range anti-ship missiles can now theoretically reach American carriers thousands of miles from its coast. But whether this capability translates into strategic advantage depends on kill chains, countermeasures, and political will—variables that neither side has tested in combat.

The Decade That Decides: America, China, and Russia's Collision Course

The Decade That Decides: America, China, and Russia's Collision Course

Three great powers operate on three incompatible timescales. Washington resets every four years, Beijing plans through 2035, Moscow thinks in generations. The next decade will reveal which clock keeps better time—and whether any of them can be synchronized before collision.

The Pacific Auction: How Micro-States Learned to Sell Sovereignty

The Pacific Auction: How Micro-States Learned to Sell Sovereignty

Pacific Island nations with populations smaller than provincial towns have discovered their geography commands superpower attention. The bidding war between Beijing and Washington delivers resources—but at what cost to the states caught between?

Japan's $58 Billion Bet: Deterrence or Target Practice?

Japan's $58 Billion Bet: Deterrence or Target Practice?

Tokyo's record defence budget buys genuine capabilities that will complicate Chinese military planning. But constitutional constraints, industrial limitations, and alliance dependencies mean the billions purchase time and options—not security guarantees. The honest answer: Japan is creating both...

China's Nine-Carrier Cathedral: Monument or Miscalculation?

China's Nine-Carrier Cathedral: Monument or Miscalculation?

The Pentagon says China will field nine aircraft carriers by 2035—the largest Indo-Pacific carrier buildup since World War II. But building ships optimized for blue-water prestige while Taiwan sits 100 miles from the mainland reveals a strategic culture at war with strategic geography.

Japan's $58 Billion Defence Budget: The Power of Useful Ambiguity

Japan's $58 Billion Defence Budget: The Power of Useful Ambiguity

Japan's record military spending buys missiles and command integration with American forces. What it cannot buy is constitutional clarity. That ambiguity may be the alliance's most valuable asset—a deterrent that works precisely because no one knows its limits.

The Silicon Shield's Expiration Date

The Silicon Shield's Expiration Date

Taiwan's semiconductor monopoly has made the island indispensable to its international partners. But American industrial policy is explicitly designed to end that dependence. As chip production diversifies and military costs rise, the calculus sustaining Taiwan's security is quietly shifting.

The Sixty-Day Mirage: Why CENTCOM's Drone Task Forces Cannot Close the China Gap

The Sixty-Day Mirage: Why CENTCOM's Drone Task Forces Cannot Close the China Gap

CENTCOM's new task forces promise rapid drone deployment, but the sixty-day timeline addresses bureaucratic friction while ignoring industrial reality. China produces ten million drones annually. No procurement reform can bridge that chasm.

The Cave and the Crown: What Made Xi Jinping

The Cave and the Crown: What Made Xi Jinping

The most powerful Chinese leader since Mao was forged not by privilege but by persecution. His seven years in a cave village during the Cultural Revolution—and the destruction of his family—created a ruler who fears the Party's weakness more than its strength.

China's Silo Fields and the End of Nuclear Primacy

China's Silo Fields and the End of Nuclear Primacy

Beijing's 250 new missile silos near Mongolia have accomplished their strategic purpose before a single warhead launches: demonstrating that China cannot be disarmed. The era of American nuclear primacy has ended, and no treaty framework exists to manage what comes next.