IV. Security environment 19. The open conflict caused by Russia in Europe, the joint anti-systemic drive of Russia and China, the increasing global tension, and the precipitous pace of technological development – all of this creates a situation where the long deterioration of our security environment may culminate dramatically. The preparedness of the Western world (including Czechia) for an intensive multidimensional conflict is the factor that determines what Europe and the world would look like in the coming decades. impacts is a catalyst of threats, natural and human-made, that impair our security environment and may plunge us into political and security instability. 24. Confrontation and rivalry have found their way into new areas. Just as the lines between peace and conflict are blurring, so are the lines between operational domains. The danger of a conflict is now a reality not just in the established domains – on land, at sea, and in the air – but also in cyber and outer space. Our economy, the very functioning of our State and the security of our people are increasingly dependent on outer space data and services. We are vulnerable to any harmful interference with outer space objects and systems, whether caused by irresponsible actions of strategic rivals or by collisions among the rapidly growing number of orbital objects. In the cyber space, our adversaries attack our critical infrastructure and institutions, seize our sensitive data, undermine the stability and functioning of our strategic information and communication systems, and steal our intellectual property. Attacks on international energy and telecommunication infrastructures, including seabed infrastructures, have revealed the high vulnerability of these installations. 25. Technologies gain strategic importance: our democratic world must stay ahead in the technology race. This is crucial to our security, especially in the area of emerging and disruptive technologies such as AI, quantum technologies, autonomous systems, and biotechnologies. Development and production of technologies strategically important to our defence industry—and indeed to our whole economy—is concentrated in a few facilities in locations vulnerable to conflicts and natural disasters. We increasingly risk becoming dependent on supplies of strategic raw materials and on global supply chains. Our rivals misuse new technologies all the more often in a bid to undermine the international rules-based order. Characteristics of the security environment 20. Europe has seen a reversion to the use of armed force for political and ideological ends. The risk of a direct military threat to the Czech Republic’s sovereignty and territorial integrity remains low. Even so, the likelihood of a military attack on our territory is at its highest since the end of the Cold War, especially in the context of a wider conflict or global strategic competition. 21. Global strategic competition has picked up pace. The democratic world is confronted with pragmatic groupings of countries seeking to transform the international rules-based order. The role of the UN as a protector of the order keeps losing traction. The tendency to assert one’s interests by force means a danger to the positions of smaller and weaker States. This radically increases the significance of the Czech Republic’s NATO and EU membership. 22. Our security environment develops ever more rapidly and less predictably. The worst-case scenario would be an escalation flaring up and spiralling out of control. Tensions between States are growing: rivalry takes the place of cooperation when threats are in the air. Polarization between the order and anti-systemic trends becomes a reality, globally as well as within our societies. Security threats and sources of instability 26. 23. 12 Internal security and external security are increasingly interlocked. Our security environment is multi-layered and interrelated—in the geographic sense as well as in terms of the range of areas that make up our security and, as such, may become a source, object, or instrument of hostile activity. Security cuts across many areas of critical importance to our society’s overall cohesion and resilience: economy, energy, and technology, as well as culture, environment, education, healthcare, or social ties at large. It is because of globalization and interlinked supply chains, including in strategic industries, that we and our allies feel the repercussions of a security threat even if the threat itself occurs far from our borders. Climate change with its significant Russia is the biggest immediate and long-standing direct threat to the security of Europe and to the international rules-based order. Russia seeks to retain and expand its sphere of influence in Europe and beyond, whether by means of political and economic coercion, information and influence operations or, more recently, by a massive use of force. It continues to treat Central Europe as its natural sphere of influence. It has questioned the right of sovereign countries to choose and change their allies. It has deliberately destabilized countries in its neighbourhood, in the Western Balkans, Middle East, and on the African continent. Russia’s war in Ukraine, its aggression and its ambitions, cause a significant buildup of tension in the Black and Baltic Sea regions and the Arctic. 13