In recent years the nature of security transformed. Contemporary threats increasingly extend beyond conventional military confrontation, targeting institutions, societies, and democratic processes through disinformation, cyberattacks, political interference, and other forms of hybrid activity. Rather than seeking immediate territorial gains, such threats frequently aim to undermine public trust, weaken institutional legitimacy, and exploit societal vulnerabilities. n this con

Péter Magyar's landslide victory over Viktor Orbán in Hungary's April 2026 parliamentary election did more than end sixteen years of Fidesz rule. It reopened a regional format, the Visegrad Four, that had been effectively dormant since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On June 23, Magyar hosted the prime ministers of Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia at the Grassalkovich Palace in Gödöllő for the first V4 summit in two years, declaring simply, "V4 is back." The four leade

France's Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu did not lead with cost overruns or technical failure when he announced in June 2026 that the DGSI would end its relationship with Palantir in favour of French firm ChapsVision. He led with a question of control. France, he said, could not depend on partners capable of cutting access to critical technology at will, on their own terms, for their own reasons. The concern was not hypothetical. It had just been demonstrated. Weeks earlier,

In Germany, a quiet yet rapidly developing hybrid threat is emerging: the smartphone screen. Unlike conventional warfare with tanks and troops, this could be fought with algorithms, anger, and a generation of young voters being drawn towards political extremes. TikTok, a platform owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and used by more than 20 millions of the German population, has become the most influential space for political persuasion and manipulation in the country, par

On July 13, the United Kingdom and the European Union unveiled their first coordinated cyber sanctions package against Russia, targeting senior intelligence officials, cybercriminals, front companies, malware operators, and disinformation actors involved in Russia's hybrid operations. Alongside the sanctions, the EU and the UK jointly attributed a cyberattack against Poland's energy infrastructure to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), while France and Germany summoned R

Recently leaked internal files attributed to Russia’s Social Design Agency (SDA) have exposed a set of coordinated influence operations targeting European societies. The SDA, a Russian firm already sanctioned by the US, UK and EU for spreading “deceptive Kremlin propaganda,” operates as a contractor of the Russian Presidential Administration. The leaked documents, obtained by investigative journalists, include internal reports, planning documents and private communications be

Nuclear influence has moved beyond its launch button and nuclear weapons no longer need to be deployed to reshape global security. A range of non-kinetic measures can now alter political calculations, generate strategic anxiety, and erode international legal frameworks without triggering the threshold of an armed conflict. Deterrence postures of Nuclear weapons states (NWSs) are also visibly changing with nuclear spending on the rise, as geopolitical competition persists, and

The 52nd G7 Summit concluded in Évian-les-Bains on 17 June 2026, but the gathering that emerged looked different from the one France had planned. Paris had hoped to focus on economic resilience, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence governance. Instead, leaders spent much of the summit responding to a rapidly changing security environment shaped by developments around Iran and Ukraine. More than any formal agenda item, these events defined the tone and outcomes of th

Photo: OpenAI By Louis Sandro Zarandia When analysts struggle to explain why Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova or Armenia keep finding themselves at the centre of geopolitical crises, they tend to reach for familiar explanations: democratic deficiency, corruption, institutional weakness, a region caught between Russia and the West. What these explanations share, beyond their condescension, is a common blind spot. They treat the symptoms while refusing to name the disease.

Photo: OpenAI By Megi Benia The Russian strike that damaged the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is more than an attack on a UNESCO World Heritage Site or one of the holiest places in Eastern Orthodoxy. It exposes a deeper contradiction that has long characterized Russia's relationship with religion, history, and power. For centuries, Russia has sought to portray itself as the heir to the Orthodox Christian world through the policy of the "Third Rome." Following

Source: OpenAI By Tamar Shengelia When a semiconductor CEO travels with the president, he is no longer just a businessman. And when a rival power targets his company while he sits at the negotiating table, he is no longer just a businessman either. The Beijing summit of May 2026 revealed the emergence of a new geopolitical figure: the CEO-diplomat. The Beijing summit offered a revealing glimpse into the evolving role of the technology CEO in contemporary geopolitics, with the

Photo: OpenAI By Megi Benia Contributors: Tinatin Gachechiladze, Mariam Gamdlishvili, Mariam Orjonikidze Wägmark On May 26, 2026, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit days before the Parliamentary election in Armenia became one of the most strategically consequential moments in recent Western engagement in the South Caucasus. Unlike previous high-level visits focused primarily on democratic reform or economic cooperation, Rubio’s visit was overwhelmingly security-orien

Photo: OpenAI By Mariam Gamdlishvili and Ketevan Jakeli Within less than a week in May 2026, Beijing hosted both: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The sequence itself became part of the message. In practical terms, the visits focused on trade, security, sanctions, and geopolitical competition. Symbolically, however, they communicated something broader: China increasingly sees itself - and wants to be seen - not just as a participant in global affairs, but as the diplomatic

Photo: OpenAI By Konstantina Zivla The question is no longer whether the prohibition on the use of force (Article 2(4) of the UN Charter) is technically in force - it is. The question is whether it remains meaningful in a world where three permanent members of the Security Council appear willing to abandon it, and where the Council itself is paralysed by the veto system. The short answer is: No, it is not meaningless. But it is no longer the rigid, inviolable wall it was des

Photo: OpenAI By Irina Mamulashvili and Sydney Sheinfeld This year's Victory Day parade in Russia was, for the first time in nearly twenty years, devoid of tanks, armoured vehicles, and ballistic missiles. There was no internet access in Moscow. A three-day ceasefire had been negotiated via Washington in order to prevent an attack by Ukraine during the celebration of the holiday. These are not the conditions under which a state projects strength. They are the conditions under

Photo: OpenAI By Mariam Gamdlishvili Strategic communication is still widely misunderstood. It is treated as messaging - something that follows policy, explains it, or, in the worst case, tries to repair it. This is not just inaccurate; it is strategically dangerous. Communication actually does not sit or set downstream of policy. It is inseparable from how policy is experienced, interpreted, and ultimately judged. Neville Bolt offers a rigorous definition of StratComms: th