This month brought three signs that deterrence — the idea that attacking a country will cost more than it's worth — is weakening.
In one week, NATO jets shot down an explosive-laden drone that entered Latvia from Belarus, the US scaled back a major annual drill with South Korea, and a former Finnish prime minister warned Europe would react slowly to Chinese pressure on Taiwan, unlike its fast response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because the EU's decades-old one China policy avoids taking a clear stand on Taiwan.
Taiwan's National Security Council, once dismissed as powerless, is now coordinating the island's defense buildup against China, including a proposed 18% rise in next year's military budget, tougher war games, and eased rules for satellite internet providers like Starlink.
In one week, four governments used the word "deterrence" for four unrelated plans: a Saudi Arabia-Pakistan-Turkey defense pact backed by Pakistan's nuclear weapons, a NATO drone-and-sensor network in the Baltic states, European weapons-repair lines set up inside Ukraine as a model for future conflicts, and a North Korean threat of stronger nuclear measures against US-South Korea military drills.
In the same week, Luxembourg looked at buying a European air-defence system, Australia became the first foreign buyer of a new US air-to-air missile, India test-fired a nuclear-capable missile, and analysts noted Taiwan's missile stockpile still has gaps.
Current and former US officials tell Reuters the Pentagon has used almost its entire stock of long-range precision-guided missiles fighting Iran, raising questions about what would be left for a separate crisis with Russia or China.
Several new reports this week look at Iran's missile attacks, low US weapons stockpiles, and hacking simulations, and find the same root cause: aging weapons factories and wavering political resolve are undercutting the West's ability to deter attacks.
In one week, four governments took steps to make their military threats harder to ignore.
Deterrence has always been a belief, not a weapon. This week, in Tehran, Kyiv, Tokyo and along the Korean border, that belief started to fail in the same place at once.
Brent is up around 10% since talks with Iran collapsed and Hormuz traffic has slowed to a crawl. Across Europe and the United States, states are treating energy, munitions and deterrence as supply chains to be secured rather than markets to be trusted. The common thread is the pricing of risk.