Frequently international threats result from the way states define their interests and aims – be it conflicts caused by the great powers’ competition or reluctance to cooperate in tackling persisting global challenges like the climate change or emerging ones like the current pandemic. In this paper, we analyse the latest strategic documents of the key…
The coronavirus not only is challenging national health care systems but also creates a favourable environment for numerous information attacks. The global infodemic is another challenge to address. In the article, the author shows who benefits from spreading fakes and what goals these actors have (the most obvious actor is the Russian Federation). The article…
The pandemic caused by COVID-19 arguably came as a shock and will have profound consequences. It has already created exceptional circumstances in NATO capitals and in other NATO structures at all levels – strategic, operational, and tactical. The objective of this article is to analyse Alliance’s reaction to the pandemic, with a focus on lessons…
COVID-19 has seen a number of governments in the post-Soviet region enhance their law enforcement and surveillance capabilities. Governments are leveraging existing technologies to police COVID-19 lockdowns and using the pandemic as a test case for new forms of tracking citizens. In the absence of a clear end date to the pandemic, there is an…
The latest pandemic has become a new challenge for the whole world, in which world leaders were forced to communicate in new conditions and amid disinformation and proliferation of fakes. They need to protect the population, defend their nations’ security, stop the pandemic and infodemic, and keep calm. They appeal to their nations’ beliefs, symbols,…
The narrative around the COVID-19 pandemic is significantly focused on its future implications. This article, however, explores the pandemic retrospectively. It does so by giving an account of the way the COVID-19 crisis was shaped from the very beginning to understand the drivers behind some of the nowadays’ national, regional, and international issues and what…
Taking into consideration that many legal systems qualify a pandemic as a state of emergency justifying limitations of citizens’ and human rights, the questions worth asking are: To what extent may the opposite (not taking any actions and downplaying the problem) lead to human rights violation and what are the possible consequences thereof for the…
In the 21st century, states employ concealed ways to destabilise adversaries and achieve geopolitical goals, thus resorting to hybrid warfare. This may include economic pressure, interference in political affairs, cyber-attacks, disinformation, and other means. Considering the most recent manifestations of hybrid warfare between states, the dilemma is how to build nations’ resilience to such threats….
The article covers international and security dimensions of the Iranian space programme, which is rather successful despite economic sanctions. The article considers how the launches of the Iranian-made satellites from Iranian territory in 2009–2020 could accelerate Iran’s programme of the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) construction and how the potential threat of Iranian ICBMs could affect…
Online Expert Chat, 23-24 November 2020 New threats are the risks that we have not noticed earlier. Infodemic, pandemic, nuclear and space programs, AI, cyber and hybrid threats. How does the world react? How can we adapt? 2020 brought a new challenge that affected international relations – COVID-19. What are the future pandemics and unknown…
