Comms Editor - Finabel

European Health Data Space (EHDS) and Cybersecurity: The Gaps in Europe’s Digital Health Future

The European Health Data Space (EDHS) aims to revolutionize medical accessibility across EU Member States. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for a collective health data system to improve patient care and track health trends across the EU. While EDHS relies on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to safeguard private data, certain cybersecurity issues remain unresolved. Despite multiple EU cybersecurity initiatives, cyber-attacks persist, raising concerns about EDHS’s vulnerability and its potential impact on private and state security. This article explores EDHS’s purpose, the gaps it aims to fill, and GDPR’s role in ensuring data safety. It also examines cybersecurity threats and their broader implications for state sovereignty, defence, and collective health data management within the EU.

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20 February 2025

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The Evolving Theatre of Urban Warfare: A Post-Modern Battlefield in Ukraine and Gaza

This paper examines the evolving dynamics of urban warfare, emphasising the integration of advanced technologies and their profound impact on modern military operations. Through detailed analyses of the battles of Bakhmut and Gaza, the study explores how innovations such as kamikaze drones, precision-guided munitions, and enhanced surveillance systems have transformed the urban battlefield, rendering it both deadlier and less predictable. The research highlights how these technologies have led to the ‘civilianisation’ of high-tech warfare, where cyber operations and sophisticated information campaigns play roles as critical as physical firepower. Additionally, the paper investigates the psychological dimensions of urban combat, focusing on the use of cyber warfare to influence morale and public perception. By synthesising insights from recent conflicts, this study reflects on the operational, ethical, and strategic challenges faced by modern militaries, particularly in densely populated environments. The findings aim to inform future defence strategies, offering valuable perspectives for policymakers and military planners confronting the complexities of post-modern urban warfare.

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18 February 2025

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The Strategic Vulnerability of NATO Logistics in Wartime: Lessons from Ukraine

In light of NATO’s recent focus on logistics in high-intensity, large-scale warfare, this paper examines the vulnerabilities of the Alliance’s ability to sustain and resupply forces, based on lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It analyses how threats to logistics evolved in modern combat, revealing the critical role of military sustainment within contemporary military strategy and the challenges that NATO must face in supporting and enabling operations on the battlefield.

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14 February 2025

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Trump’s Greenland Proposal: Balancing Territorial Integrity, Self-Determination, and Strategic Interests

Trump’s ambition to gain control over Greenland has unsettled Denmark, the people of Greenland, and much of Europe. As the world’s largest island, Greenland is an autonomous region within the Kingdom of Denmark with aspirations for independence. This article will analyse Greenland’s legal status and potential path to independence. Additionally, it will explore the various strategies the United States might pursue to assert influence over the island and will examine the potential implications of Greenlandic independence for these efforts.

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12 February 2025

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Space-to-Space Military Systems — An Operational Paradigm Shift

Current developments in space-to-space kinetic and non-kinetic weapons are changing the nature of military conduct in outer space. Additionally added flexibility, manoeuvrability and sustainability in space operations is made possible by in-orbit refuelling, servicing, assembly and manufacturing capabilities. When coupled with new technologies like military space vehicles, hunter-killer and nesting doll satellites and converged directed energy weapons, the space domain is realigned with more traditional operational domains of warfare. Although the nature of many military systems are by nature classified, one can infer from the current gamut of Western and adversarial projects already implemented but also in development that an operational paradigm shift is taking place in space. As such, European interoperability has never been so crucial - but similarly so is the ability to militarise space while guided by a stern moral compass, where legal accountability is ambiguous. In this vein, the article contends that space is experiencing an operational paradigm shift. Space is now, for all effects and purposes, a battlefield.

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10 February 2025

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