China’s Jiutian high-altitude unmanned aircraft is not a superweapon, but it alters the geometry of airpower. By operating above terrain and distance constraints, it pressures two theatres at once: the Himalayan frontier and the Western Pacific. The real issue is not penetration, but cost, persistence, and defensive arithmetic.
Empires do not collapse because their populations weaken. They collapse because elites refuse to repair the conditions that caused that weakness. History shows a familiar progression: neglect gives way to moral panic, panic hardens into discipline, discipline escalates into militarism, and militarism ends in war. Edwardian Britain followed this path to catastrophe. America is now walking it again.
Asia Pacific is entering a new phase where security policy and economic policy have fused into a single bargaining system. Defence budgets, trade law, sanctions, logistics, and digital standards are now instruments of leverage. As 2026 approaches, the next global shock is more likely to arrive through prices, compliance, and supply chains than through open war.
The United States has begun sanctioning Europe not with tariffs or lawsuits, but with visa bans. By targeting EU regulators and aligned civil society actors, Washington is signalling that digital sovereignty now carries personal costs. Europe insists this is coercion. But years of regulatory overreach, rhetorical hubris, and blurred lines between platform enforcement and democratic legitimacy have made retaliation politically inevitable.
India’s December tour of Jordan, Ethiopia, and Oman was not a photo circuit. It was systems diplomacy: trade pacts, corridor access, digital state capacity, and security coordination designed to survive shocks, sanctions, and fragmentation.
Power no longer flows from persuasion or values alone. In 2025, leverage sits in chokepoints: energy routes, chip supply chains, payment rails, shipping corridors, platforms, and custody systems. States that control bottlenecks can still force outcomes. States that cannot are left issuing statements while power moves elsewhere