Military & Defense
Japan controls a 1200km chain of islands that sits across the Chinese navy’s main routes to the Pacific. In peacetime, Chinese warships sail through the gaps legally, but in a war, the Ryukyu Islands could become a giant wall. With China historically sensitive to being hemmed in by foreign powers, how has Japan managed to control the Ryukyus, and what impact does this have on geopolitical strategy?
Read MoreNo Ugandan leader has ever lost power in an election since Uganda gained independence in 1962, and the military that decides who’s in charge has become so useful to Western partners that they rarely challenge what it does at home. So how did Uganda become so volatile and militarized, and what impact does it have on geopolitics?
Read MoreIceland has no army, navy, or air force. But at the same time it’s a founding member of NATO. So why is a country without a proper military such a key part of a military alliance?
Read MoreA typical geostationary satellite orbits the Earth roughly over the equator. But a lot of Russian military and intelligence satellites fly very strange orbits that linger far above the Arctic. So why do Russian satellites operate like this, and what impact does it have on geopolitics?
Read MoreFor 29 straight years, the US kept at least one nuclear command and control aircraft in the sky at all times. Each one carried an Air Force general who could take command of the nation's nuclear bombers and missiles if Washington, DC and Strategic Air Command headquarters were destroyed.
Read MoreIf a nuclear missile launched toward the US, it would take 20-30 minutes from an infrared satellite’s first detection to the retaliatory missiles leaving their silos. The president’s actual decision window is compressed to around six minutes, within which they must decide whether the attack is legitimate and how to respond, effectively choosing whether to end the world. But how do these nuclear launch procedures vary from country to country, and what do they reveal?
Read MoreThe exclave of Kaliningrad is not only disconnected from the rest of Russia, it’s also wedged between two NATO countries, making it an obvious target during a potential war. So how does Kaliningrad survive without a connection to the rest of Russia, and just how vulnerable is it?
Read MoreTucked between Finland and Sweden is an archipelago called Aland. It belongs to Finland and is strategically critical because it commands the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia, but it is autonomous and unexpectedly demilitarized. So why aren’t there military forces in Aland, and will that change amid threats from Russia?
Read MoreYou might think that Hawaii is as far west as the US goes, but you'd be wrong. Guam is over 6000km west of Hawaii and nearly 10000km from California, making it the most distant populated US soil. So how did the US gain control of Guam to begin with, and how does it change the US’s geopolitical dynamics?
Read MoreThe US spends about a trillion dollars per year on defense, and more than half of that goes to contracting companies. The five biggest, like Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin, take a third of all contract dollars on their own. But why does the US rely so much on the military-industrial complex, and what impact does this have on geopolitics?
Read MoreThe Yellow Sea is one of the most strategically sensitive bodies of water in the world. It's bordered by China, North Korea, and South Korea, and the United States gets pulled in by treaty. The Yellow Sea’s inner gulf, the Bohai, reaches to within about 150 kilometers of Beijing. So how exactly does the Yellow Sea shape geopolitics?
Read MoreI’ve never talked about this before, but I’m a big music guy, and there’s a song I really like by this artist from Appalachia called Fey Fili, and she has a song called War Dog whose lyrics basically explore how working class families just like mine join the military for healthcare or school and in pursuit of greater opportunity, and what those people trade for it.
Read MoreThe US has been openly campaigning to acquire Greenland since 2025, even refusing to rule out the use of force against one of its own NATO allies to obtain it. But what many people don’t know is that the US military has had a substantial presence in Greenland already for decades, including its northernmost permanent military installation. So how is the US allowed to operate in Greenland, what impact has the current administration had on this dynamic, and what role does Pituffik Space Base have on all of this?
Read MoreIn January 2026, the US conducted targeted strikes on Venezuela that ultimately decapitated the country’s government, placing President Nicolas Maduro in US custody and providing an avenue for US businesses to expand their operations into a country that has been a key US adversary for decades. Just weeks later, the US launched an even larger operation in Iran to kill the country’s Supreme Leader and degrade its military and nuclear infrastructure. And now reports indicate that the US may be preparing to conduct military operations against Cuba. These events have many similarities that can give us tremendous insight into the current administration’s priorities and strategy, but the question is, knowing what we know now, how and why would the US invade Cuba?
Read MoreIn June 2024, a Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan pulled into harbor at Havana, Cuba. It was joined by a guided missile frigate, a fuel tanker, and a rescue tug. US destroyers and unmanned surface vessels shadowed them the entire way in, and though the Pentagon publicly waved it off, that single port call was the loudest signal in a very quiet relationship between Russia and Cuba that has been rebuilding since the Cold War ended. We all know the stories about the Cuban Missile Crisis and Soviet patronage, but how and why are the two countries collaborating today?
Read MoreIf you’ve heard of Eritrea at all, you’ve probably heard it referred to as the North Korea of Africa. This is a country of a few million people governed for the last 33 years by one man, in a very literal sense. Eritrea has no constitution, no legislature, and no elections, but it is now being courted simultaneously by Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and now the US. So what makes this tiny east African autocracy so attractive in the world of geopolitics?
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