RUSI Newsbrief

National resilience and the vulnerability of Critical National Infrastructure to sabotage has increasingly come under scrutiny since the publication of the Strategic Defence Review.

Today’s geopolitical turmoil has undermined the multilateral institutions that have structured international relations since the end of World War II. To avoid a slide into global anarchy, we must begin complementing existing institutions with a patchwork of arrangements that are less formal, less universal, and less binding.

From arson attacks on civilian targets to the recent bombing of a rail line between Warsaw and Ukraine, Russian provocations inside Poland are intensifying. By stoking anti-Ukrainian and anti-EU sentiment, the Kremlin hopes to empower the "useful idiots" of the Polish populist right.

ChatGPT will soon remove restrictions which were put in place to minimise its more humanlike features. This is bad news for security, worsening an AI already rife with security issues including misinformation, hallucinations and propaganda.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed Europeans that they cannot take their security for granted or rely on others for critical functions. Yet the European Union is doing exactly that by allowing itself to fall behind in the new space race.

The United States is the only power that can succeed as a peacemaker in the Middle East; but that doesn’t mean the task will be easy. The question now is whether US President Donald Trump has the patience and stamina that brokering a lasting political resolution between Israelis and Palestinians requires.

From surveilling and repressing Chinese citizens to firing and prosecuting potential rivals, Chinese President Xi Jinping seems able to rule only through fear. But fear is not a foundation for long-term stability, and the more Xi seeks to consolidate power, the more vulnerable his position becomes.

Despite mounting economic and demographic pressures, Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to feed the war machine so long as he gains ground in Ukraine. To change his calculus, Western leaders must strengthen sanctions against the Kremlin, provide advanced weapons to Ukraine, and incentivise Russian brain drain.

The United Nations is now 80, and its long slide toward irrelevance appears unstoppable. The design of the Security Council has become a recipe for paralysis, but that is only the start of the organisation's problems.

In the third decade of the twenty-first century, we are facing a confluence of escalating ecological, political, economic, technological, and existential crises, each of which is reinforcing the others. The situation requires a fundamentally different set of values, not mere technocratic fixes.