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Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump attended the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington on July 24.

The event that was originally held on April 25 was abruptly canceled due to an assassination attempt against him.

“I am delighted to be here,” Trump said as he began his speech, which lasted an hour.

“Amazing people, a lot of people that I like. Some I don’t like at all, but I respect most of them. I must say that you do a great job, amazing job, and it’s an honor. As I said three months ago, the show must go on.”

Trump continued his speech with jokes and said, “This place is really the largest group of Trump derangement syndrome people ever put together.”

The rescheduled gala took place at the Waldorf Astoria.

During his speech, Trump said he is the most transparent president in history and took several jabs at the media, joking that many media organizations would be “broke” once he leaves the White House.

“When I’m gone, you’re all going to be broke. Your business model is going to be finished,” the president said.

He took direct aim at CNN's Kaitlin Collins (and 'Fake Tapper'):

"I want to personally congratulate CNN's Kaitlan Collins... I thought she had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed her that it wasn't her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney."

CNN released a statement during Trump's speech defending its reporters, writing in part:

"Honest, accurate journalism may sometimes irritate politicians, but our right to report and present that reporting without government interference is fully protected by the U.S. Constitution."

He also joked that, in order to save the media, he would announce a fourth presidential run.

“That’s why tonight, to show just how much I care about the press,” Trump said, “I’m pleased to announce my intention - and this is somewhat of a scoop - my intention to run for a fourth term as president of the United States.”

He then put on a “Trump 2028” hat, drawing laughs from the audience.

This was his first time attending the dinner as president, except for the April event, which was canceled after a shooting occurred just outside the main ballroom.

Trump joked about the dinner itself, saying it was “far worse” than he expected.

At the same time, he acknowledged that he and the reporters who attended the April dinner “went through a period of trauma” that created a unique bond between them. He said he would attend next year’s dinner.

Throughout the speech, Trump occasionally praised the media, saying he respected most reporters and liked some of them. However, he also said that much of the coverage of his administration and policies had been unfair.

The president also criticized his opponents, targeting individual journalists before shifting to Democrats and other public figures.

Trump rebutted the longstanding claim that he decided to run for president after former President Barack Obama mocked him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

He said Obama’s remarks were not a factor in his decision to enter the race in 2016.

“I just decided that I wanted to make America great again. This had nothing to do with that dinner,” he said.

After Trump’s remarks, mentalist Oz Pearlman took the stage and performed mind-reading tricks for the audience, concluding the event.

‘We Will Not Be Intimidated’

White House Correspondents’ Association outgoing President Weijia Jiang delivered the opening address at the dinner.

“Whatever may divide us, we stand together against political violence,” she said.

“An assassination attempt on our president is an attack on democracy itself,” she added, drawing applause from the crowd.

“Tonight, our message is this: We are back. We will not be intimidated.”

The dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel on April 25 was interrupted when gunshots were fired outside the ballroom. Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from California, allegedly got past security with a shotgun and shot at a Secret Service officer who was wearing a bulletproof vest. Security officers quickly responded and arrested Allen. The officer was not injured, and no one else was hurt.

The Secret Service immediately evacuated Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and several Cabinet members from the venue.

Allen is charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at the event. He also faces one count of transporting a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. He has pleaded not guilty.

At the event, the White House Correspondents’ Association presented special awards to Secret Service Police Officer Victor Gonzales and to the staff of the Washington Hilton to honor their exceptional service during the shooting. The association plans to return to Hilton for next year’s dinner.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a black-tie gala attended by media personalities, business leaders, celebrities, lawmakers, and Cabinet officials to celebrate the Fourth Estate and White House reporters.

The association said the logistical challenges in organizing a second dinner led it to scale back the event, resulting in a smaller gathering with a reduced guest list. The Washington Hilton’s ballroom can hold 3,000 people, while the Waldorf Astoria only fits 700.

While most of Trump’s Cabinet attended the rescheduled event, the first lady, Vance, and Rubio were not among the guests due to prior commitments, a White House official told The Epoch Times.

According to the White House, the following Trump administration officials attended the dinner: acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

As part of the enhanced security measures, each guest was required to present a unique QR code and a government-issued photo ID to get through the ticketing.

The guests then went through layers of security to access the ballroom.

The White House Correspondents’ Association was founded in 1914 to protect press freedom and preserve journalists’ access to the White House. It held its first dinner in 1921, and the first president to attend was Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

Watch the full speech below:

Brent crude surged 27% over two weeks to settle at $96.78 a barrel on Friday, briefly breaching $100 this past week as traders priced in a higher war-risk premium into energy markets amid simultaneous chokepoint threats to the Strait of Hormuz and the southern Red Sea.

Meanwhile, the US appeared to pause its 13-day campaign of daily overnight strikes against Iran. While there was no indication that the operational halt would extend into next week, the pause certainly reinforces the diplomatic signals highlighted in our US-Iran wrap on Friday.

However, there was an escalation overnight with Saudi-led strikes on Iran-backed Houthi targets in Hodeida. This comes after the terror group attacked multiple Saudi-linked tankers in the southern Red Sea area.

Houthis escalate with attacks against Saudi Arabia: 

BREAKING: Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says the group has launched two "sensitive operations" targeting Saudi Arabia, vowing that the principle of a "blockade for a blockade" will continue.

?? LIVE updates: https://t.co/gEqGF07kWl pic.twitter.com/IYUFD5qCva

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 25, 2026

Saudi Arabian oil refinery reportedly hit by Houthi missile: 

Smoke has been seen coming from a Saudi Arabian oil refinery in Jazan after reports of a Houthi missile attack and air defence activity.

The Iran-backed Houthis said they had launched a series of attacks on the country in retaliation to Friday’s Saudi strikes on Hodeidah. pic.twitter.com/P88heLGtOO

— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) July 25, 2026

The confrontation threatens to open a second major front in the Gulf conflict. With traffic through Hormuz largely paralyzed, sustained Houthi attacks on Yanbu or ships entering Bab al-Mandab Strait could disrupt millions of barrels of Saudi exports, raise shipping costs, and further tighten physical markets.

Hormuz Traffic

Bab al-Mandab Strait Traffic

Commodity desks from JPMorgan, RBC, Goldman Sachs and others warned this past week that spreading "strait chaos" across the Gulf and widening disruptions to regional energy flows could drive further upside in crude if the conflict persists. Brent has returned to the $90s after briefly trading above $100 a barrel.

Here's what top commodity desks are saying:

•Goldman Warns Brent Could Top $120 If Gulf Chokepoint Crisis Deepens

•RBC Commodities Chief Warns "War Entering Dangerous Phase" As Chokepoint Chaos Risks Oil Above 2008 Peak

•Gas Prices Nearing Levels That Could Push Trump Towards Iran Talks, Says JPM Commodities Expert

And then there's this:

•Nine Potential Commodity Wildcards As "Once-A-Decade" Shocks Become New Normal

Red Sea disruption already materialized on Friday when a Hong Kong-flagged supertanker decided to turn away before reaching Bab el-Mandeb and to instead transit around the Cape of Good Hope, reinforcing longer freight times, higher rates, and more disruptions:

•Oil Tanker Makes Red Sea U-Turn After Houthi Threats, Reroutes Around Africa In Costly Transit

There is good news because US-allied Gulf countries are either planning or already developing new pipeline and port projects to bypass the Hormuz chokepoint entirely, which in the long run will erode Tehran's leverage on the critical waterway:

•Seven Pipeline Projects That Could Break Iran's Grip On Hormuz Chokepoint

Here are the latest overnight developments, courtesy of Bloomberg:

US Strikes & Pause

• Iran reported no US strikes overnight on Saturday, marking an apparent break after nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly US attacks.

• US strikes had progressively expanded in scope over two weeks, targeting bridges and infrastructure deeper inside Iran, following a collapsed ceasefire and renewed fighting over the Strait of Hormuz.

• Trump said on Friday he has not yet made a decision on whether to conduct major strikes against Iran, while noting US-Iran talks are continuing through VP Vance, Secretary Rubio, and others.

• Trump had previously told Axios he was considering a "massive attack" on Iran, saying the country "hasn't received enough pain yet" and is not ready to make a deal.

Strait of Hormuz

• Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they stopped four ships attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours after firing warning shots.

• The US and UK are planning a high-level international conference in London next week focused on forming a coalition to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, according to two European diplomats and other sources.

• An LPG tanker with 28 Indian crew members was attacked in Iranian territorial waters on Friday; India's embassy confirmed the crew is safe.

Regional Escalation

• Houthis claimed to have struck Saudi Arabia with missiles on Saturday morning, targeting southern Saudi provinces; Saudi authorities issued emergency warnings before lifting them for Jazan.

• Bahrain and Kuwait secretly sent warplanes to strike drone- and missile-storage depots inside Iran earlier this month, according to people familiar with the matter, their first such direct retaliation against Tehran.

Diplomacy & Sanctions

• China urged Iran and the US to return to implementing their ceasefire memorandum, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressing deep concern over renewed escalation at an SCO meeting in Kyrgyzstan on Friday.

• Pakistan is exploring a path toward resuming stalled US-Iran talks following a push initiated by China, according to three Pakistani sources cited by Reuters; obstacles to talks remain high.

• The US Treasury imposed new sanctions on Friday on the network of Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, targeting four individuals and nine entities linked to sanctions evasion and digital asset exchanges.

Authored by Steven Tucker via dailysceptic.org,

Did you see that huge Muslim gathering held in Suffolk recently, which had to be called off early due to a major far-Right terror plot being hatched against it? You may well have done, as the news was all over the media and referenced in alarmist tones by leading politicians, up to and including the Prime Minister (both the ones we've had this week).

But did you also see that the 'plot' didn't even exist? Quite possibly not, because the subsequent release of everyone concerned (bar one aberrant and misleading exception, who we'll come to later) didn't get anything like as much space in the media, and no mention at all from any of the politicians who had so eagerly jumped the imaginary gun to condemn it.

Empty threats

The disrupted event, called the UK Ijtima, attracted 15,000 members of the Religion of Peace from around the world to gather in the grounds of the country estate of Shrubland Hall in Barham to engage in events of a peacefully peaceful nature. This peace was suddenly shattered, however, when armed counter-terror police descended, warning visitors of a severe threat to their wellbeing in the shape of the nearby presence of some white people, causing the jamboree to be closed down a few hours early on Sunday July 12th. Eight men across the country were detained under the Terrorism Act 2000, whilst a further four individuals were apprehended upon different grounds like conspiracy to commit murder. Counter-terror cops confirmed the arrests were "Right-wing terrorism related".

Then-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, another recent victim of things having to end early, was quick to express shock at the "credible, serious threat", as was his soon-to-be successor, Andy Burnham.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood went further, saying the prompt police action "undoubtedly saved lives", making a statement in the Commons, playing up the cancellation as all part of a wider campaign of terror and intimidation being waged against Britain's Muslims by the agents of Anglo-Saxon hatred.

Hannah Spencer, the Green Party MP for Gorton and Gaza, joined in, demanding stronger governmental action against "anti-Muslim hatred" and bemoaning how the "alarming incident" in Barham "has barely been covered in the news", even though it appeared on the BBC, Sky News, ITV and many major newspapers.

The lengthy ITV report is particularly cringeworthy and dhimmified. An interviewee, before any details of the 'plot' were even known, says that, if it had succeeded, it could have been the biggest terror massacre in British history. ITV would not have run an interview just after Axel Rudakubana's arrest in 2024 with someone saying the same thing about his own plan to kill thousands with the bioweapons he was brewing in his bedroom, because Axel was from a minority group himself, and so speculating about his own case was officially discouraged by media and politicians alike, even though his offences, unlike those of the white Barham 'terrorists', were actually real.

Others doing their best to inflate the risk included the Muslim Council of Britain, who used the incident to specifically warn that "the threat facing Muslim communities is real, not imagined". A few days later, of course, it turned out the precise reverse was true as regarded Barham, yet still the MCB's statement remained online and unaltered.

Did it really matter to those bemoaning the 'threat' so loudly here that it ultimately did turn out to be wholly imaginary, though?

PCS gone mad

The PCS, our main civil service union, momentarily confused itself with the CPS, and put out an eerily similar statement to the MCB on the 'plot', also presenting it as part of a wider pattern:

There is no doubt there was a serious risk to life. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described a "credible threat" and said that police action had "undoubtedly saved lives". Britain's Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) confirmed that the investigation was "Right-wing terrorism related". This is not an isolated incident. There is increasing evidence of growing Islamophobia and alarming Islamophobic attacks. On Friday June 19th PCS condemned violent attacks targeting Edinburgh's Muslim community. This followed serious violence earlier the same month over several days in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In Manchester and Stockport, mosques have been attacked during evening prayers.

The other attacks upon Muslims referred to by the PCS here were real, physically extant events. The pseudo-events in Barham later turned out not to be. Fran Heathcote, the PCS General Secretary, reassured her union's Muslims that the difference didn't matter, though. Look at the sentence I've highlighted in bold:

Firstly I am thankful that this potentially catastrophic attack was prevented on this occasion without injury. However, I recognise that the threat facing Muslim and other religious communities is very real. Once again, we send our solidarity to those affected who may be feeling frightened and insecure at this time. PCS is ready to support any of our members affected by such events whether threatened or real. This kind of violence has no place in any society. We stand firmly against racism and religious intolerance in all its forms.

A union which explicitly promises to protect its members from imaginary threats? Would that include handing them out free cloves of garlic to ward off vampires, and silver bullets to see off werewolves? I wrote on the Daily Sceptic recently about a bizarre new far-Left faux-academic philosophy called 'eventism', or the unjustifiable social prejudice against false claims of things which never actually happened at all. This philosophy, which allows minority groups like Muslims to demonise majority groups like whites as being collectively 'guilty' of crimes like rape, murder or slavery even if they have never personally committed them, seems also here to apply to non-existent acts of 'terror' like the one which never occurred at Barham.

Bodies like the Muslim Council of Britain expressly want to use such purely imagined 'events' as a basis for implementing concrete polices. As the MCB said in its post-Barham statement, "The MCB calls on ministers to match the language of condemnation with actual action and policy, not another round of statements that change nothing." If you want "actual action", rather than mere abstract words, isn't that a kind of eventism in itself?

Droning on

What actually happened at Barham during the Ijtima, then? It is quite hard to ascertain for certain, due to the mainstream media, police and previously mouthy politicians, all of whom must now know, failing completely to tell us. So, we have to guess.

The best explanation (officially unconfirmed) I have seen appears in a TikTok video from Shayne Wiskin, a Right-wing campaigner who says an anti-immigration patriot group, as it would style itself, had gone to the Ijtima bearing drones. The Ijtima gathering is banned in several Islamic nations around the globe, with the parent sect which organises it, Tablighi Jamaat, sometimes accused of being extremists. Fearing such rumours may be true, the patriots, from something called the British Security Project (BSP), decided to go to a nearby field and pilot some drones equipped with cameras overhead just to check the festival-goers weren't secretly building a nuclear warhead.

If this narrative is true, then the supposed 'Nazi terrorists' were nothing of the kind, just the modern-day equivalent of Uncle Jimmy and his Fairly Secret Army from the 1970s Reginald Perrin sitcoms, attempting to protect the nation from fifth-columnists armed with little more than broomsticks and bravado. The BSP aspires to place over 120,000 members in schools and on trains nationwide, just in case a jihadi or a paedo happens to wander into one someday. This might be difficult as yet, as it would seem lucky to have 120 members. It sounds more like well-meaning fantasists than genuinely dangerous men. To be fair to the police, though, if the below alleged photographs supposedly showing BSP drone-operatives at work are real, they did look somewhat suspicious, and it was hardly unreasonable to investigate what they were doing, albeit the ultimate decision to go in so hard with nationwide arrests of alleged 'accomplices' appears to have been rather over the top.

It isn't so much that the police approached these people that is the problem here - if those were masked Muslims flying drones over a Christian gathering, I'd certainly want them taken in for questioning - it was the political and media reaction to the arrests that was more worthy of critique.

Event management

Having expended so much political capital upon condemning this "credible, serious threat" to the Muslim population, politicians, activists, unions and media could hardly just come out and openly admit they had got it all horribly wrong. This, for example, is how ITV News obediently and uncritically reported the Muslim Council of Britain's initial comments about the affair on its website:

I would have loved to have seen a follow-up headline saying 'Far-right danger MCB described as 'real, not imagined', turns out to be imagined, not real', but I suspect that would have been far too humiliating for ITV to own up to. Also, once again, to do so would have been 'eventist', and so just another unacceptable form of systemic white racism.

The main Establishment face-saving tactic rolled out has been simply to stay silent. Mahmood, Burnham and Starmer don't seem to have issued any corrections or apologies, nor do the MCB or PCS union. As for the media, several outlets have dutifully printed follow-up stories explaining how everyone arrested was later released facing no specific terror charges. However, these seem less prominently reported than the initial news of the arrests, and one particular report, from the BBC, was framed in such a way as to make it all sound like the direct opposite of what really happened:

If you only read the headline there, which many users will, it sounds like there was a real terror threat in Barham after all. But if you examine the whole story, it turns out one of the men arrested, during a search of his home and vehicle, was found to possess two extendable batons and a stun-gun. He had made no attempt to take them to the UK Ijtima, had no intent to use them there and wasn't even present in Barham during the gathering, being apprehended in distant Basildon. For this, the man has already been charged, tried and sentenced to six months in prison on a suspended sentence: the wheels of justice really can spin quite quickly on the odd occasion the state actually wants them to. Elsewhere, the BBC reported the other men's release in more honest terms, but the headline reproduced above looks like a clear exercise in damage limitation.

Speculation nation

There's something about all this that does not add up. I would guess it's more an exercise in quietly obscuring yet another DEI-created policing cock-up rather than a case of initial intentional elite conspiracy, but Reform UK's Deputy Leader Richard Tice thinks otherwise. Tice questions whether the whole thing was some government false-flag psy-op to counteract the widespread belief that the murderer of his fellow Reform member Ann Widdecombe may have been a far-Left extremist, by spuriously dragging alleged far-Right extremists back into the headlines instead. (Some have even tried to link the British Security Project to Ann's killer.) In other words, 'White woman killed for real, make the headlines about poor brown men feeling threatened by made-up non-threats': anti-eventism activism in action.

This is pure speculation on Tice's behalf, of the kind you would normally expect politicians like Mahmood, Starmer or Burnham to immediately condemn - but on this occasion, neither their lips nor their Twitter-fingers, moved. Why? Perhaps because, if they had done, Tice could legitimately have shot back that they were guilty of doing precisely the same thing themselves first.

'Don't speculate about motives,' our leaders command us whenever a Muslim attacks people shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' In this case, some white persons do basically nothing, and our leaders themselves can't stop speculating right from the start, because, when possessed by the dogma of 'eventism', fictional 'events' (inverted commas) which tell the right story become somehow automatically much truer than factual events (no inverted commas) which do not.

We were always brought up to believe that actions have consequences. Today, it seems children are more likely to be taught that complete non-actions have consequences too. Being arrested by counter-terror police for doing absolutely nothing wrong, for example.

Unemployment across the OECD averaged 4.9% in May 2026, but labor market conditions continued to vary significantly from one country to another as economic growth slowed across parts of the developed world.

This visualization ranks seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for people aged 15 and older across OECD member countries in May 2026, using data from the OECD.

Finland Tops the Ranking

Finland recorded the highest unemployment rate among OECD countries at 10.8%, narrowly ahead of Spain at 10.3%.

The country’s labor market challenges have been especially pronounced among younger workers, with unemployment reaching 23% among Finns under the age of 25.

Several European Economies Face Labor Market Pressure

Europe dominates the upper end of the ranking, with Sweden, France, Türkiye, Greece, Lithuania, Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Baltic states all posting unemployment rates above the OECD average of 4.9%.

Spain has consistently recorded one of the highest unemployment rates in the OECD for decades, reflecting long-standing structural challenges in its labor market.

Meanwhile, countries such as France and Sweden have also experienced softer labor demand amid weaker economic growth across Europe.

Japan and South Korea Remain Among the Lowest

At the opposite end of the ranking, Japan posted the lowest unemployment rate at just 2.5%, followed by Mexico (2.7%), South Korea (2.8%), Israel (2.8%), and Czechia (2.9%).

These countries continue to benefit from relatively tight labor markets, supported by demographic trends, steady employment demand, or structural labor shortages.

The United States also remained below the OECD average, with an unemployment rate of 4.2%, while Canada stood at 6.6%, reflecting somewhat weaker labor market conditions than its southern neighbor.

Overall, the OECD average unemployment rate of 4.9% suggests that labor markets remain relatively healthy despite slowing global growth and ongoing economic uncertainty.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out this graphic on the world’s richest countries by GDP per capita.

Building on Bank of America's latest note, which cited Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Derrell Peel's warning that the US cattle cycle is unlikely to improve anytime soon, beef prices are poised to remain elevated through at least next year. But two competitively priced proteins that consumers can switch to today remain largely overlooked.

That overlooked protein is ground pork, with an average of $4.81 a pound in mid-June, compared with $7.95 for ground beef, while pork chops cost roughly one-third as much as beef steak, according to Bloomberg, citing NielsenIQ data.

Still, beef consumption is forecast at a 15-year high, underscoring how stubborn consumers are and how unwilling they are to trade down for their meats.

Processors including Smithfield Foods are responding with precut, marinated and ground-pork products designed to improve convenience and compete with beef and chicken.

Industry insiders see ground pork as the category's biggest opportunity, though ground beef's $17 billion in annual sales suggests any shift will be gradual.

"People don't want to risk something not tasting great when it comes down to it," said Reba Hatcher, chief commercial officer at meat subscription company ButcherBox, who the outlet cited. "Even if it's cheaper when you go to the checkout, it's not cheaper if you end up throwing it away or people end up hating it at the dinner table."

For readers wondering just how long beef prices will remain elevated, the BofA note provides a timeline for when the cattle cycle could turn upward. Spoiler alert: not anytime soon. Read report.

With beef prices unlikely to meaningfully ease anytime soon, the Beck Ranch Carnivore Trio in ZeroHedge Store lets readers stock the freezer with more affordable and premium chicken and pork while still keeping premium ground beef in the mix. 

Get yours here.

Authored by Madge Waggy,

The Military, Industrial and Strategic Programs Reshaping the World in 2026

The most dangerous geopolitical developments of 2026 are not necessarily the weapons that have already been fired, but the systems being constructed in anticipation of the next crisis. Across Europe, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, governments are committing extraordinary resources to military production, strategic infrastructure, weapons procurement and long-term defence planning, creating a global security environment in which preparation for war has itself become one of the defining features of international politics. The official justification is almost always deterrence: stronger armies are supposed to prevent aggression, larger stockpiles are supposed to make adversaries think twice and new military infrastructure is supposed to close the gaps that might otherwise invite attack. Yet deterrence has an inherent paradox. Every military capability built by one state is examined by another as a potential threat, and every response can then be used to justify another round of preparation. What emerges is not necessarily an organized march toward a single global conflict, but something more unstable: a collection of increasingly sophisticated military projects operating simultaneously across several regions, each designed to prevent war while potentially making the consequences of miscalculation far more severe.

The scale of this transformation is no longer a matter of speculation. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military expenditure reached approximately $2.887 trillion in 2025, marking the eleventh consecutive year of growth. European military spending increased by 14% to approximately $864 billion, while military expenditure in Asia and Oceania rose by 8.1% to around $681 billion. The United States remained the world's largest military spender at approximately $954 billion, followed by China at $336 billion and Russia at $190 billion. Together, those three countries accounted for roughly 51% of global military expenditure. SIPRI also reported that European NATO members increased spending sharply, while China's military expenditure continued a decades-long upward trajectory and Taiwan increased its own military spending by approximately 14% in 2025. These figures do not prove that a world war is approaching, but they reveal an international system in which the largest military powers are simultaneously expanding or restructuring their strategic capabilities.

THE GLOBAL REARMAMENT MAP

 

The "Editorial risk assessment" is an analytical classification based on escalation potential, proximity of military forces, strategic importance and likelihood of involvement by major powers. It is not an official probability forecast. Data on military expenditure: SIPRI. Current developments in Taiwan Strait and the Middle East: Reuters and AP.

The most important feature of this table is not any individual number, but the simultaneous concentration of military pressure across several theatres. Europe is rebuilding defence capacity at a pace unseen in decades, China is continuing its military modernization while applying pressure around Taiwan, Russia remains heavily committed to wartime spending, and the United States is attempting to maintain strategic commitments across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. This creates a geopolitical environment in which a crisis in one region could consume resources, attention and military capacity that are simultaneously required elsewhere. The risk is therefore not simply that one country decides to start a global war; it is that several regional crises could interact with one another at precisely the moment when governments have fewer diplomatic and military resources available to contain them.

EUROPE'S REARMAMENT PROJECT

Europe's rearmament is perhaps the clearest example of a strategic project that is simultaneously defensive in intention and potentially destabilizing in perception. The transformation began with the recognition that the continent had allowed its conventional military capabilities to decline after the Cold War, but the war in Ukraine fundamentally altered that calculation. Governments that had spent years treating defence as a secondary budgetary priority are now rebuilding ammunition reserves, expanding weapons production, ordering new aircraft and missile systems, strengthening military logistics and investing in the infrastructure required to move large numbers of troops and equipment across the continent. NATO has committed its members to a long-term target of spending 5% of GDP annually on defence and defence-related security requirements by 2035, while the alliance reported in July 2026 that European allies and Canada had already increased core defence expenditure by nearly 20% in 2025 compared with 2024. NATO is also explicitly working with industry to expand production capacity, including ammunition stockpiles and other military capabilities.

The economic dimension of this transformation is significant because military production cannot be expanded overnight. A government can announce a larger defence budget in a single parliamentary session, but factories, skilled labour, supply chains and production lines require years to develop. Once those systems are established, they create their own momentum. Defence companies receive long-term contracts, governments become dependent on domestic production capacity and military planners begin designing strategies around weapons that may remain in service for decades. The result is a structural transformation rather than a temporary response to a single crisis. Europe is not simply buying more weapons; it is rebuilding an industrial ecosystem capable of producing them at scale.

From Moscow's perspective, the same transformation can be interpreted very differently. European governments describe their military expansion as a response to Russian aggression and a means of preventing future conflict. Russia, however, is likely to view the growth of European military capabilities, expanded NATO production and increased strategic infrastructure as evidence that the continent is preparing for a prolonged confrontation. This is the classic security dilemma, and it is one of the most persistent mechanisms behind arms races throughout modern history. The fundamental problem is that two governments can simultaneously believe they are acting defensively while interpreting the other's defensive actions as preparation for aggression.

The danger becomes greater when military infrastructure acquires permanence. A temporary deployment can be withdrawn relatively quickly; a factory built to produce ammunition for decades, a new logistics corridor or a permanent military installation creates a different strategic reality. These projects establish capabilities that remain available long after the political circumstances that originally justified them have changed. The result is a continent increasingly structured around the possibility of prolonged confrontation, with defence spending becoming not merely a reaction to war but an enduring component of economic and industrial policy. That does not make a European war inevitable, but it does mean that the physical and industrial capacity required for one is expanding substantially.

THE TAIWAN STRAIT: THE MOST DANGEROUS CONVERGENCE OF MILITARY POWER AND GLOBAL ECONOMICS

The Taiwan Strait represents a different kind of danger because it combines territorial sovereignty, national identity, military competition and the technological foundations of the global economy. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, while Taiwan maintains its own democratic government and rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. The United States remains deeply involved in the island's security through arms sales and strategic commitments, making any serious military confrontation potentially capable of drawing the world's two largest military powers into direct conflict.

The latest developments demonstrate how quickly the military environment can change. On July 23, 2026, China began two days of live-fire drills in sections of the Taiwan Strait near the coast of Fujian province, following high-level discussions between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in which Taiwan was a major issue. The exercises followed earlier large-scale Chinese military drills and came amid continuing concerns over the expansion of military activity surrounding Taiwan.

China's military modernization is central to this strategic equation. SIPRI estimates that Chinese military expenditure reached approximately $336 billion in 2025, representing a 7.4% increase and the thirty-first consecutive year of annual growth. Taiwan, meanwhile, increased its own military expenditure by approximately 14% to $18.2 billion, while Japan's spending rose by 9.7% to $62.2 billion. The pattern is unmistakable: China is expanding its military capabilities, while countries that fear the consequences of Chinese regional dominance are simultaneously strengthening their own. The result is an increasingly dense military environment in which naval vessels, aircraft, missiles, intelligence systems and surveillance platforms operate in close proximity to one another.

This is where the Taiwan problem becomes larger than the island itself. Any major conflict would immediately threaten one of the world's most important technological and commercial regions, with consequences extending into semiconductor manufacturing, maritime trade, financial markets and global supply chains. A military crisis in the Taiwan Strait could therefore produce economic consequences before the conflict had even developed into a full-scale war. The strategic importance of the region means that the international community has a strong incentive to prevent escalation, but it also means that the number of actors with something to lose is exceptionally large.

The most dangerous scenario may not necessarily be a carefully planned invasion. A crisis could emerge from an accident, an unexpected military incident or a political decision made under extreme pressure. As military exercises become more frequent and forces operate closer together, the distinction between signalling and provocation becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. The immediate challenge is therefore not simply to determine whether Beijing intends to use force against Taiwan, but whether the military systems being constructed by China, Taiwan, the United States and their regional partners leave enough room for diplomacy when something goes wrong.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

If Taiwan represents the possibility of a future great-power confrontation, the Middle East demonstrates what happens when escalation is already underway. The ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict has entered a dangerous phase in which military operations, attacks on infrastructure and disruption of maritime trade are becoming interconnected. According to AP reporting on July 23, U.S. forces carried out another night of airstrikes against Iran amid continuing tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran and allied forces threatened or attacked shipping and regional infrastructure. Reuters reported that the conflict had already cost the United States approximately $37.5 billion, with 18 American service members killed and more than 430 wounded, while the disruption to shipping through key regional chokepoints has created broader economic consequences.

The Strait of Hormuz is particularly dangerous because it transforms a regional military confrontation into a global economic problem. The waterway is a critical route for energy shipments, meaning that any prolonged disruption affects not only the countries fighting the war but also governments, industries and consumers thousands of kilometres away. Reuters reported on July 22 that the conflict had significantly worsened the outlook for the global oil market in 2026, with analysts projecting a global oil deficit of approximately 1.5 million barrels per day as disruptions continued to affect exports from the Gulf. The same report noted that Brent crude had risen sharply during the renewed escalation.

This is the point at which military escalation begins to acquire a life of its own. Once energy infrastructure, shipping lanes and civilian economic systems become part of a conflict, every military action produces consequences far beyond the battlefield. A strike against a port can affect insurance markets. An attack on a tanker can alter shipping routes. A threat against energy infrastructure can change oil prices before a single barrel is physically removed from the market. The conflict becomes a feedback loop in which military decisions generate economic pressure, economic pressure generates political pressure and political pressure encourages governments to adopt even more aggressive positions.

The latest developments in the Red Sea demonstrate the danger of geographic expansion. On July 23, AP reported that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement claimed responsibility for attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, while U.S. forces continued strikes against Iranian targets. The involvement of additional maritime routes creates the possibility that the conflict could gradually spread across multiple strategic chokepoints, linking the Strait of Hormuz with the Bab el-Mandeb and the broader Red Sea shipping system.

THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL PROJECT THAT CONNECTS THEM ALL

The most consequential project underway may therefore be the expansion of military-industrial capacity itself. Europe is increasing production, NATO is seeking greater industrial output, China is continuing military modernization and countries across Asia are responding by increasing their own defence budgets. SIPRI's data show that global military expenditure reached its highest recorded level in 2025, while the sharpest increases were concentrated in regions already experiencing significant geopolitical tension. This does not establish a direct causal relationship between military spending and war, but it demonstrates that the international system is investing heavily in the capacity to sustain conflict at precisely the moment when diplomatic trust between major powers is weakening.

There is an important distinction between preparing for war and wanting war. Governments may rationally conclude that the best way to prevent aggression is to possess overwhelming military capabilities, maintain large reserves and demonstrate the ability to respond immediately. From this perspective, rearmament is a tool of peace. The difficulty is that deterrence depends on interpretation. A military project that appears defensive to the country building it may appear offensive to the country observing it. This problem becomes especially severe when multiple states are rearming simultaneously, because each government can use the actions of others as evidence that its own expansion is justified.

The statistical trend is therefore less important as a prediction of war than as an indicator of strategic psychology. The world is spending more because governments increasingly believe that the future will be more dangerous. That belief itself influences policy, and policy then changes the environment that created the belief in the first place. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle in which insecurity generates military investment, military investment generates suspicion and suspicion generates further insecurity.

This is why the most important projects of 2026 are not necessarily individual weapons systems. They are the long-term structures being built around them: defence industries, military logistics, strategic alliances, naval infrastructure, ammunition stockpiles, surveillance networks and procurement programs designed to remain operational for decades. These systems are being constructed under the assumption that strategic competition will not disappear quickly. Once established, they will shape the calculations of governments long after today's political leaders have left office.

THE GEOPOLITICAL RISK MATRIX

Analytical assessment based on current military activity, strategic importance, involvement of major powers, economic interdependence and escalation pathways. This is an editorial framework, not an official forecast or probability model.

The matrix illustrates why the danger of 2026 cannot be reduced to identifying one country or one conflict as the source of the next major war. Europe presents a high-intensity military confrontation involving Russia and NATO. Taiwan represents the possibility of a direct clash between the United States and China. The Middle East has already demonstrated the ability of regional conflict to disrupt global energy markets and maritime trade. These theatres are geographically separate, but they are strategically connected through the allocation of military resources, energy markets, alliance commitments and global economic dependencies.

The most troubling scenario is therefore not necessarily a coordinated decision by several governments to launch a global war. It is the possibility that one crisis could destabilize another. A prolonged conflict in the Middle East could absorb American military resources while tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific. A European crisis could force governments to redirect weapons and ammunition away from other theatres. A major confrontation around Taiwan could disrupt global trade at precisely the moment when energy markets were already under pressure. In such circumstances, strategic calculations would become more complicated, not less, because every government would be forced to consider not only the immediate enemy in front of it but also the possibility that another adversary might exploit the distraction.

The modern international system is therefore becoming increasingly vulnerable to strategic overload. The United States, China, Russia and their respective partners are building military capabilities designed to operate in an environment of prolonged competition, while regional conflicts are becoming increasingly interconnected through energy, technology and trade. The danger is not that every military project inevitably leads to war; the danger is that the sheer number of simultaneous projects and crises increases the number of pathways through which an accident, miscalculation or deliberate escalation could become much larger than originally intended.

The world is consequently entering a period in which deterrence and escalation are becoming increasingly difficult to separate. Europe is building the industrial capacity to defend itself, NATO is expanding its long-term military commitments, China is strengthening its ability to project power around Taiwan, Taiwan is increasing its own defences, and the Middle East is demonstrating how rapidly military conflict can spread from battlefields to shipping routes and global energy markets. Each of these developments has a rational strategic explanation when examined individually. The deeper danger emerges when they are viewed together.

What is being constructed in 2026 is not a single machine designed to start a world war. It is a network of military and industrial systems designed to ensure that governments are never again caught unprepared by one. Yet the more extensively those systems are built, the more the international order becomes dependent on accurate intelligence, disciplined decision-making and the ability of political leaders to distinguish between preparation and provocation. That dependency is fragile. The statistics show an extraordinary expansion in global military expenditure, the geopolitical map shows multiple simultaneous flashpoints and the latest events in Taiwan and the Middle East demonstrate how quickly military pressure can intensify.

The central risk of the present era is therefore not that war has become inevitable, but that the world is accumulating more weapons, more strategic infrastructure and more potential points of confrontation than it has diplomatic mechanisms capable of reliably controlling.