Trajectory Daily Brief: 12 January 2026
America strikes Nigeria for the first time ever while China builds unsinkable aircraft carriers. The UAE abandons Yemen as Manila's internet cables become military targets.
Africa | Defence | US launches first direct military strikes in Nigeria as Sahel security architecture collapses
Situation
On December 25, 2025, American Tomahawk missiles struck ISIS-linked militants in Nigeria’s Sokoto State—the first direct U.S. military action on Nigerian soil. President Bola Tinubu approved the strikes and Nigeria provided intelligence support, according to Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar.
The strikes targeted Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) operatives in Nigeria’s northwest, where a new group called Lakurawa has also emerged. Nigeria’s military has fought Boko Haram and its ISIS affiliate for over a decade but cannot secure the region despite billions in security assistance.
The operation was justified under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, stretched to cover ISIS “associated forces” worldwide.
Context
The strikes represent the final collapse of the Sahel’s Western-backed security architecture. France’s Operation Barkhane, the UN’s MINUSMA mission, and the G5 Sahel joint force have all crumbled following military coups in Mali (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023). These juntas expelled Western forces and welcomed Russian Wagner Group mercenaries instead.
Nigeria has become the last viable platform for Western counterterrorism operations in the region. However, the strikes reveal a troubling sovereignty bargain: Tinubu is converting American firepower into domestic political capital while avoiding harder military reforms.
Jihadist pressure displaced from French operations is flowing into Nigeria’s northwest, creating hydraulic effects that Nigerian forces cannot contain independently.
Trajectory
The precedent establishes Nigeria as America’s primary counterterrorism partner in West Africa, but creates dangerous dependency dynamics. Each strike builds precedent for expanded presidential war powers and geographic scope under an increasingly stretched 2001 AUMF.
Congress is reasserting war powers oversight, but the legal ratchet effect continues expanding permissible executive action. Nigeria’s reliance on American firepower may actually erode rather than build indigenous capacity.
The broader pattern suggests Washington is being drawn deeper into African security vacuums as traditional partners collapse, potentially replicating failed intervention cycles elsewhere while Russia consolidates influence through coup-prone juntas.
Indo-Pacific | Defence | China’s South China Sea militarization serves as rear-area infrastructure for Taiwan conflict scenarios
Situation
China has transformed seven submerged features in the Spratly Islands into military installations since 2013, creating 3,200 acres of new land with three-kilometer runways, aircraft shelters, radar arrays, and missile batteries. Fiery Cross Reef alone now hosts facilities comparable to a major air base.
The militarization has damaged regional relationships, pushing the Philippines to host US troops at nine bases and prompting Vietnam to quietly deepen security ties with Washington. However, no Southeast Asian state has joined comprehensive sanctions, trade continues growing, and the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling changed nothing operationally.
Context
Western analysts misframe reef militarization as trading diplomatic capital for maritime claims. The deeper logic emerges when mapping island capabilities against Taiwan scenarios—they extend China’s integrated air defense network hundreds of kilometers into waters US forces would need to transit.
Beijing has calculated it can absorb diplomatic friction because China remains too economically important to isolate. Unlike Russia after Crimea, China faces complaints rather than coordinated sanctions. The islands create strategic depth for a conflict China hopes to deter but must prepare to fight.
China has developed a sophisticated “grammar” of gray-zone coercion—water cannons, laser targeting, hull contact—that imposes costs while staying below armed conflict thresholds.
Trajectory
The 2027 timeline represents a capability target, not an invasion deadline. Beijing is building physical architecture for fait accompli while testing adversary response thresholds through calibrated provocations.
Each year the islands exist normalizes their presence and demonstrates that international institutions cannot reverse facts on the ground. The infrastructure will remain regardless of diplomatic costs, providing China strategic options in any future Taiwan crisis.
China | Technology | Philippines’ submarine cables create undefendable economic chokepoints
Situation
The Philippines hosts 16,000 kilometers of submarine cables carrying the digital backbone of its $30 billion business process outsourcing industry. These cables, employing 1.5 million Filipinos in call centers and back-office operations, must traverse the South China Sea and land at vulnerable coastal points.
Chinese vessels have established precedent for “accidental” cable damage. In February 2023, a Chinese-registered vessel severed two cables connecting Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, cutting internet access for 14,000 residents for weeks. The incident followed the gray-zone playbook: anchor drag with disabled tracking transponders during heightened tensions.
Chinese research vessels conduct 20-22 annual surveys in the Luzon Strait, where cables must pass through accessible depths. Natural turbidity currents in the area create permanent cover for sabotage attribution.
Context
The vulnerability represents a new category of economic warfare. Western corporations have externalized cognitive processes to Manila—when Americans call banks and reach Filipino agents, the thinking happens in the Philippines. Coordinated attacks on three or four landing stations could sever this “externalized nervous system” entirely.
Legal frameworks designed for accidental damage cannot address state-directed sabotage. UNCLOS grants cable-laying freedom but limits coastal state protection measures. Each incident remains individually deniable while achieving cumulative strategic effects.
Alliance commitments face definitional gaps. The U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty lacks clear thresholds for cable attacks. American sovereign repair capability has atrophied to two aging vessels, while private companies like Meta and Google own tens of thousands of kilometers of cable infrastructure.
Trajectory
The Philippines cannot meaningfully defend infrastructure that requires traversing contested waters to reach inherently exposed landing points. The economic model depends on geographic vulnerability.
Gray-zone cable warfare offers China plausible deniability while threatening immediate economic paralysis. Unlike traditional military targets, cables create binary outcomes—they work or they don’t—making partial degradation as effective as complete destruction.
The gap between alliance rhetoric and operational reality will likely be tested through incremental escalation rather than dramatic incidents, forcing allies to choose between economic disruption and military escalation over “accidents.”
Global | Conflict | UAE withdraws from Yemen to prepare for Iran Gulf confrontation
Situation
The United Arab Emirates has completed its military withdrawal from Yemen, ending years of direct involvement in the Saudi-led coalition against Houthis. Abu Dhabi officially cited mission objectives achieved and shifted priorities.
The pullback includes ground forces, air assets, and logistical support that had been deployed since 2015. UAE forces are being redeployed to home bases and strategic positions closer to Iranian threats.
Context
This withdrawal represents strategic prioritization rather than tactical failure. The UAE calculates that Iran’s primary threat comes through the Strait of Hormuz and direct Gulf confrontation, not proxy conflicts in peripheral theaters.
Historical precedent shows smaller powers must choose their battles carefully. The UAE learned from overextension mistakes of larger powers, recognizing that defending core territory trumps projecting power in secondary conflicts. Yemen offered limited strategic returns compared to resources invested.
Abu Dhabi’s move signals broader Gulf realignment as regional powers prepare for potential direct confrontation with Iran rather than continuing costly proxy wars.
Trajectory
Expect UAE military modernization to accelerate, focused on anti-missile defense and naval capabilities rather than expeditionary forces. This consolidation strategy may prove prescient if Gulf tensions escalate.
Other Gulf states may follow similar calculations, withdrawing from distant commitments to strengthen home defenses. The shift suggests regional powers anticipate a more direct, conventional conflict phase with Iran rather than continued proxy warfare.
Until tomorrow.
