Issue Regional security tensions and military and hybrid conflict

Summary

Geopolitical clashes and wars, including the Ukraine-Russia war and the Gaza war, are continuing around the world. As US-China competition becomes linked to military capability, a new era of arms racing is arriving, with military tension concentrated in the Indo-Pacific. Great-power rivalry is increasingly tied to emerging technologies such as AI, strengthening the link between technology and security, and recent wars show how the militarisation of new technologies is changing the character of warfare and intensifying competition in defence science. Cybersecurity and cognitive warfare, which seeks to disrupt or manipulate an adversary's thinking through information and psychological operations rather than physical force, are emerging as new battlefields. Major powers are accelerating military innovation and the militarisation of critical emerging technologies, and hybrid warfare that combines cyberattacks and psychological operations is on the rise.