36. The climate change and worsening state of the environment affects Czechia’s security. Extreme weather events and human-made disasters pose a risk to our people’s safety, life, health, property, and environment, as well as to the economy of our State including supplies of raw materials, water, and food. Disasters may destroy or compromise critical infrastructure and impede the basic functions of the State. The question of environmental migration is also relevant to Czechia’s security. 37. 38. 39. 41. The use of conventional military force against the Czech Republic’s territory is a possibility. Czechia may become involved in a military conflict especially in the event of an attack against its allies. It cannot be ruled out that allies including the Czech Republic will be compelled to conduct a high-intensity defence operation against a technologically advanced attacker possessing nuclear weapons and other advanced weapon systems. Our territory may be directly threatened mainly by enemy air forces, ballistic missiles, UAVs, and by diversion and sabotage operations of intelligence services. 42. The use of nuclear weapons against the Czech Republic’s territory is unlikely. However, the risk would increase if the nuclear taboo were broken, even with a very low-yield nuclear attack, in Ukraine or anywhere else. Global nuclear confrontation would be fatal for Czechia, but this risk remains low. The architecture of global strategic balance is crumbling because of Russia’s disregard for treaty-based commitments and China’s unwillingness to get involved. International mechanisms have been unable to prevent the proliferation crises associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran. Nuclear deterrence is an active element of Russia’s tactics in its war against Ukraine. 43. The chemical weapons ban has been broken by non-State actors and some States, namely Russia and Syria. Moreover, research and development in the fields of nuclear energy, nuclear chemistry, and nuclear biology is essentially of a dual use nature, which means that it is vulnerable to misuse for military purposes. China and Russia have thwarted the long-standing international cooperation in the peaceful use of the results of this research as, from their perspective, the existing control mechanisms do not serve the interests of their armament programmes. The spread of infectious diseases with a pandemic potential poses a direct threat to the lives and health of Czechia’s population. It makes our people more vulnerable, including psychologically; it depletes the human resources we need to maintain our defence capability and to operate our critical infrastructure and other important public services. What is more, global health crises may impair international economic relations, which may have significant geopolitical impacts. A health crisis may be misused deliberately in geopolitical competition. State and non-State actors may endanger the Czech Republic’s security by hybrid interference targeting the vulnerabilities of our democratic society. Their synergic use of cyber, disinformation, economic, political, diplomatic, military, intelligence, and other tools seeks to disrupt democratic processes, the functioning of democratic institutions, and mechanisms of the rule of law, as well as our internal security and social cohesion. It may compromise the functioning and security of our communication and information systems, supply chains, and critical infrastructure, including the supply of critical raw materials, food and energy commodities. The severity and scope of hybrid interference keeps increasing with the development of new technologies including AI. The pressure on Czechia’s economic security grows. The quality of our internal and external economic environment is at risk. Dangerous economic actors may compromise the functioning of our important infrastructure, gain access to our sensitive data, rob our businesses of unique technological know-how, or bar them from accessing crucial resources. They step up the pressure on our private as well as public sectors, which places increased demands on the resilience of the system and each of its components. Their drive to harm us in the economic sphere may impair the competitiveness and functioning of our economy. 40. Cyber threats take advantage of the vulnerabilities in our information and communication systems. The greatest source of danger are targeted attacks by foreign State and State-sponsored actors, often covered up by plausible denial. International organizations are attractive targets, whether because 16 the attackers want to demonstrate their geopolitical views, or because of the large amounts of sensitive data held by the organizations. Originators of cyber threats may cause considerable asymmetric damage in cyber space. The situation and activities in cyber space are completely interrelated with crises and events in the physical space. A large-scale cyber attack may trigger NATO’s collective defence. 44. States may assert their interests through non-State actors. One example are the private military and security companies contracted by governments or serving on a commercial basis. Today, Russia, most of all, resorts to military contractors and demonstrably uses their services in Ukraine, in the Middle Eas, and in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa. Transregional criminal organizations provide mobility for terrorism, human smuggling, and smuggling of prohibited goods including WMDs. 17