🎙️ Threatscape Weekly – Episode Description (Dec 7, 2025)

Conflicts are multiplying, alliances are shifting, and innovation is reshaping the balance of power. The world isn’t slowing down, and neither should your understanding of it.

In this week’s Threatscape Weekly, Winn Trivette II unpacks the headlines that matter most:

• Armed Conflict Survey 2025 – 135 active conflicts worldwide, lasting an average of 30 years.
• Vietnam’s Diplomatic Pivot – Hanoi elevates foreign affairs to a core mission.
• SIPRI Arms Industry Report – Revenues surge, signaling a systemic shift toward rearmament.
• China’s Smart Authoritarianism – Innovation surge propels Beijing into the world’s top 10 innovators.
• Ukraine’s Oil Strikes – Kyiv escalates attacks on Russia’s energy lifelines.
• Flashpoint Friday – Britain faces scrutiny over decisions favoring Beijing’s interests.

These aren’t isolated stories. They’re pressure points shaping the future of global security. If you want clarity, context, and actionable insight, this briefing is your edge in a volatile world.

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Ukraine has escalated its campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure, striking oil facilities that underpin Moscow’s war economy.

These attacks are designed to degrade Russia’s revenue streams, disrupt logistics, and weaken the Kremlin’s ability to sustain prolonged military operations.

Listen on for more about the effects of Ukraine's targeting of Russia's war economy.

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According to an article by Professor Jennifer Lind at Dartmouth College, China’s governance model of “smart authoritarianism” blends tight political control with inclusive economic policies to accelerate innovation.

Inspired partly by Singapore’s experience, the CCP adapted authoritarian tools for a globalized information age.

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that the world’s top 100 arms producers saw combined revenues surge in 2025 as states accelerated modernization and expanded arsenals. The surge reflects heightened geopolitical tensions, with NATO members boosting procurement in response to Russia’s war economy, while Asian states expand naval and missile capabilities to counter China’s assertiveness.

Get the full Daily Briefing at bit.ly/geothreat.

In this episode of Threatscape Briefing, we unpack Vietnam’s bold strategic pivot.

Ahead of its 14th National Congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam has elevated foreign affairs to a “core, frequent” mission—placing diplomacy on par with defense and internal security.

This is more than bureaucratic language. It signals Hanoi’s intent to move from reactive diplomacy to proactive statecraft—tasking its foreign service with shaping the international environment and safeguarding Vietnam’s rise.

For strategists, this is a reshuffling of Southeast Asia’s balance of power, with ripple effects across U.S., Chinese, and ASEAN playbooks.

👉 Get the full Threatscape Daily Brief — your strategic advantage in a perilous world. Subscribe at geopoliticalthreatscape.substack.com.

In this episode of Threatscape Briefing, we unpack the launch of the Armed Conflict Survey 2025. The International Institute for Strategic Studies reports 135 active conflicts worldwide — one of the highest totals in three decades — with the average conflict lasting 30 years.

Fatalities surged 20 percent year on year, claiming nearly 240,000 lives between July 2024 and June 2025. Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, and Myanmar remain among the deadliest arenas, while drones are rewriting battlefield norms faster than militaries can adapt.

This is systemic fragmentation in motion. From the paralysis of the UN Security Council to the rise of nonstate armed groups and cartels acting like political actors, the survey reveals how climate shocks and criminal networks are accelerating the formation of global conflict traps.

👉 Get the full Threatscape Daily Brief — your strategic advantage in a perilous world. Subscribe at geopoliticalthreatscape.substack.com.

In this episode of Threatscape Briefing, we examine Russia’s commissioning of the Ivan Papanin — the first of a new class of combat icebreakers.

Unlike traditional scientific vessels, the Papanin is armed with naval guns, missile positions, advanced radar, and a helipad for anti‑submarine operations.

Analysts warn that this marks a deliberate shift, enabling Moscow to project military power in ice‑covered waters where conventional warships cannot operate.

This development escalates the militarization of the Arctic, widens the capability gap with the United States, and complicates NATO deterrence as melting ice opens new shipping lanes and resource zones.

The Arctic is no longer peripheral but on the frontline in great power competition.

👉 Get the full Threatscape Daily Brief — your strategic advantage in a perilous world. Subscribe at geopoliticalthreatscape.substack.com.

This Threatscape Weekly unpacks why six “disconnected” headlines all point to the same pattern: states turning critical systems into tools of power. Ports, sushi, icebreakers, and cables aren’t random headlines—they’re the operating system of global power.

This Threatscape Weekly links China’s refusal to loosen its grip on Greece’s Piraeus Port, Taiwan’s sushi diplomacy with Japan, Russia’s hybrid campaign inside Europe, a diverging U.S. economy, Moscow’s armed Arctic icebreaker, and the vulnerability of subsea cables into one threat picture for professionals who brief commanders, ministers, or risk committees.

These issues are becoming the hard edges of great‑power competition.

Be sure to check out the Daily Brief every weekday to stay up to date on global politics.

👉 Get the full Threatscape Daily Brief — your strategic advantage in a perilous world. Subscribe at geopoliticalthreatscape.substack.com.