Headlines

Trump’s $1.5 trillion military splurge destined to backfire

Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood in front of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to defend the Trump administration’s record-breaking US$1.5 trillion military budget proposal for FY2027. According to the White House, this 66% year-over-year

Asia

Seoul’s blind spot, Beijing’s red line

On April 10, 2026, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung sparked controversy by sharing a social media video that compared wartime killings to the Holocaust and alleged that Israeli forces had tortured, and thrown from a rooftop, a Palestinian. Because the incident had occurred

Asia

Pete Hegseth’s desperate crusade for masculine validation

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump surveyed his top military brass on the prospect of making war in Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine urged caution, presciently predicting that a ramped-up campaign against Iran could lead its leaders to close

Asia

The Iran miscalculations that we were warned about

There is a particular kind of silence that follows a war’s opening salvos — the silence of think-tank papers being quietly archived, of cable-news predictions being scrubbed from the chyron, of confident assurances that “this time it will be different” colliding with the

Asia

Iran: ‘shot down Reaper drone’ after US launched new strikes

The Iranian military said early Tuesday that it shot down an American Reaper drone after the Trump administration launched what it characterized as “self-defense strikes” on southern Iran, further complicating efforts to secure a diplomatic resolution to the illegal US-Israeli

Asia