Diplomacy & International Relations

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 9, 2026 (Institute for the Study of War)

Ukrainian and Russian officials confirmed that Russian forces conducted an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) strike against Lviv Oblast on the night of January...

China & Taiwan Update, January 9, 2026 (Institute for the Study of War)

PRC Anti-US Rhetoric: The PRC is using the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to portray the US negatively and present itself as a...

UN News (9 January 2026)

(UN Affairs - US) The United States’ intention to withdraw from a host of UN bodies announced this week targets programmes and initiatives focusing...

Iran is rewriting its rules of war—and raising the stakes for everyone (Roohola Ramezani – ASPI The Strategist)

Iran’s long-standing era of strategic patience appears to be ending. A newly articulated doctrine of preemption—dangerously vague and publicly declared—suggests a regime that sees...

Facing China’s threat, Australia–Japan alignment is indispensable (Carlyle Thayer – ASPI The Strategist)

The deteriorating strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific makes an Australia-Japan defence alignment central to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific by deterring China in...

Japanese frigate may be a lifeline for New Zealand’s maritime security (Tadashi Iwami -East Asia Forum)

China’s growing military activity in the Pacific has accelerated New Zealand’s strategic pivot towards closer defence alignment with like-minded partners, including Japan. Japan’s highly...

The illusion of control in Indonesia’s nickel revolution (Berlin Syahputra Situmorang – East Asia Forum)

Indonesia’s rapid nickel industry expansion has made the sector dependent on Chinese capital and technology. The risks of Indonesia’s reliance on China continue to...

Voluntary cooperation is the face of APEC’s future (Andrew Elek – East Asia Forum)

South Korea’s 2025 chairmanship of APEC has deftly handled the US shocks to multilateralism and open international trade, ensuring that APEC’s broad work program...

Battery Statecraft: Green Tech Minerals are a Military Asset (Tye Graham – The Jamestown Foundation)

Beijing sees its battery dominance as an emerging instrument of statecraft. By controlling key stages of the value chain, it can impose delay, uncertainty,...

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