The NAOC’s Cyber Security and Emerging Threats Program features an in-depth analysis of latest trends, developments, and threats in international security. New security concerns are always on the horizon and our program seeks to examine these domains including global warming, natural resources, drones, urban conflicts, and cyberspace.
The program’s mandate is to keep Canadians informed on these rapidly developing and increasingly pivotal realms that are integral to all aspects of security.
The 2025 Science and Technology Organization (STO) Highlights Report is a stark reminder that in an environment characterized by compressed decision cycles and rapid response requirements, technological military advantage depends less on possessing advanced systems than on how seamlessly they operate across domains, nations, and architectures. Progress in integrated platforms and autonomous sensing and countermeasure Read More…
Canada’s threat environment has already made clear that cyber risks demand serious attention; the real question is what the country chooses to defend. The CRA incidents and NATO’s resilience agenda show that protecting Canada today means treating core digital systems as strategic assets essential to public trust, fiscal stability, and national security
How can NATO integrate Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) into the Cyber Defence Framework? In this article, Christopher Macartney highlights the developments and capabilities of UGVs during the Russia-Ukraine War and strengthening UGV network defences as a strategic asset for NATO in the future of warfare.
Whether it is NATO’s eastern front or the Persian Gulf, wars today have a variety of drivers that range from troops to weapons systems. Many of these advanced technologies are dual-use in nature, often switching between military and commercial (or civilian) settings. Bringing greater urgency to this matter, prominent defence technologies that are sensitive also Read More…
As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in modern warfare, it is reshaping how states conduct war and raising urgent questions of ethics and accountability regarding the potential absence of human judgment in lethal decisions. If machines can decide when force is used, who ultimately remains accountable for the decision to take a human life in war?
Brad McInnis is the founder of cyberzero and the creator of Quantanaut, a cryptographic intelligence platform that helps organizations uncover hidden cryptographic dependencies and plan a practical transition to post quantum security. He has more than twenty-five years of defence intelligence and military experience. In Part 1 of this conversation, Brad unpacks why the overdue migration to Post Read More…
Hope Arpa re-evaluates the logic of nuclear deterrence in the context of nuclear programs allegation’s use to justify interventions. The article considers allegations of nuclear programs as motivators of preemptive strikes, discursive tools to justify intervention politically and socially, and the perception of enemy states as nuclear ambitious causing security dilemmas. The root cause of these conflicts is not necessarily framed as exclusively the nuclear weapons themselves, but the international system’s framing of them as the ultimate ‘self-defense’ tools.
Conflict follows the currents of scarcity, and NATO must navigate a world where the most dangerous battles are fought over what no longer flows freely. These behaviours signal a shift in how conflict will unfold: not only through conventional force, but through the manipulation, withholding, and weaponization of essential resources. This article explores three plausible scenarios – oil dominance, water ascendancy, and a dual‑pressure world – to map how resource hoarding could shape the next generation of conflict in the Middle East and beyond, and what this means for NATO’s strategic posture in the decades ahead.
In the shadow of artificial intelligence, governments are pouring billions into technologies that collapse the distinction between human thought and machine computation. If NATO does not intervene early, it risks ceding strategic influence to competitors who view the mind as a domain for military advantage. Yet the strategic promise of neurotechnology is matched by questions about control, accountability, and exploitation that the Alliance cannot afford to ignore. NATO must move quickly, but through a phased approach that balances innovation with the protection of cognitive integrity.
Dans l’espace numérique, l’information circule à une vitesse inédite. Les réseaux sociaux permettent à chacun de diffuser des contenus en quelques secondes auprès d’un public mondial, favorisant les échanges d’idées à grande échelle. Pourtant, ils facilitent aussi la propagation de contenus trompeurs. Avec l’essor de l’intelligence artificielle (IA), cette réalité a franchi un nouveau cap Read More…