Social Media App TikTok the New Military Tool for Military Defence and Cooperation?

In today’s age of social media and Generation Z (Gen Z) "taking over" the world, there is a new modern approach to military defence. Ordinary citizens record military activities on their phones and post videos on social media. The social media app TikTok, which is often associated with dance trends, is currently being used to watch a very different kind of choreography: the movement of military forces that could be on the brink of a new severe conflict on European soil (Britton and Mulligan, 2022). The app has recently come into the spotlight as tensions between Russia and Ukraine have led to what could be called "the first TikTok conflict" (Bowman, 2022). Videos of Russian troops gathering at the borders of Ukraine are widely distributed on TikTok (Sonne et al., 2022).

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EDA Live Cyber Exercise for Military CERTs in its Second Edition

The second live-fire cyber exercise of the European Defence Agency (EDA), specifically dedicated to improving European cooperation between member states’ national military Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) has reached and concluded its second edition in the last days of January 2022. Even though European countries have established mechanisms and processes to exchange information between civilians of the CERTs over time, cooperation and communication channels are much less developed in the military domain due to the high sensitivity of the information. Therefore, many stakeholders have decided to extend the information sharing practices used in civilian circles to military CERT and their operations. Through this Info flash, we will briefly investigate the birth of this project, the two editions carried out and conclude with a perspective on the future.

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New Developments in Cloud Initiatives in Land Forces – Advantages and Challenges

We have entered a modern era of warfare, where the battlefield is no longer exclusively physical but also digital. Information is vital to national security. In this context, the storage and process of data become crucial to guarantee mission success (Department of Defense, 2018). An effective ally to do so is represented by cloud technologies that empower the military infrastructures. Cloud technologies or services are defined as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Mell & Grance, 2011). Cloud services are an information technology model that allows information and resources to be available via the Internet (Al-Gharibi, 2019). As a consequence, reliance on the traditional IT model is reduced.

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Current Trends in CBRNE Threats: Spotlight on Roadside IEDs, Islamic State activity and Public Safety in Somalia

Despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, other threats to public safety remain persistent. Perilous threats are grouped under the label of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) events. These events are observed and prepared by various military and civilian organisations, such as the NATO’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence Centre of Excellence (JCBRN Defence COE); or the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC). Likewise, most of the world’s military forces have within their ranks specialised command structures, such as the US-American 20th CBRNE Command. However, training and defence preparations do not eliminate the threat posed by CBRNE events, which raises the question: How often do CBRNE events occur? The Italian Observatory on Security and CBRNE defence (OSDIFE) publishes a monthly report to shed some light on this issue. The OSDIFE’s report compiles CBRNE event-related reports worldwide and further supplements this collection with reports about counterterrorism, terrorism, and innovations in defence technology.

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The Future of Warfare is Now: Robots and AI

The idea of using robots in warfare dates back to the 1940s. From WW2-era German Goliaths and Soviet teletanks to Cold War Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), we are steadily moving towards a more robotised battlefield. Projects are many, and development is encouraging, but not without its problems: military and ethical questions quickly come to the surface with high costs.

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