• COMMON-SENSE NOTES // By Idris B. OdunewuDiversity as National Security: Why Retreating from DEI Risks Repeating Pre-9/11 Failures

    One of often overlooked lessons of the 9/11 intelligence failure is that diversity — linguistic, cultural, experiential — was not simply a “nice to have” in intelligence work. It was essential infrastructure. The absence of diversity in America’s national security workforce thus represented more than a demographic imbalance; it represented a structural blind spot.

  • AI RISKS: UNSETTLING DEMONSTRATION AI-enabled Intrusions: What Anthropic’s Disclosure Really Means

    By ASPI contributors and External contributors

    Last week, AI company Anthropic reported with ‘high confidence’ that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group had weaponized Anthropic’s own AI tools to run a largely automated cyberattack on several technology firms and government agencies. The September operation is the first publicly known case of an AI system conducting target reconnaissance with only minimal human direction.

  • DEMOCRACY WATCHFake survey Answers from AI Could Quietly Sway Election Predictions

    Public opinion polls and other surveys rely on data to understand human behavior. New research reveals that artificial intelligence can now corrupt public opinion surveys at scale—passing every quality check, mimicking real humans, and manipulating results without leaving a trace.

  • TECH SECURITYBuilding Trust into Tech: A Framework for Sovereign Resilience

    By Jason Van der Schyff and James Corera

    Governments are facing a critical question: who can be trusted to build and manage their countries’ most sensitive systems? Vendor choices, for everything from cloud infrastructure to identity platforms, are no longer just commercial; they are strategic.

  • CHINA WATCHU.S.–China Cyber Relations and the Weaponization of Microsoft Platforms

    By Ishanya Sharma

    Cyber tensions between the United States and China show Microsoft’s central yet fragile role in global cybersecurity, where its platforms serve as both assets and targets. While both nations have exploited vulnerabilities within the platform to conduct cyber-espionage against each other, China has been particularly persistent in its operations.

  • CHINA WATCHReaction Isn’t Enough. Nexperia Case Shows We Must Pre-empt China’s Tech Grabs

    By Fitriani and Bart Hogeveen

    The Dutch government’s decision on 30 September to impose a last-resort restraint order on China-owned Netherlands-based chipmaker Nexperia is more than a trade dispute. It’s the consequence of a belated realization that technology competition with China is real. Economic security in open and liberal democracies demands foresight, not last-minute intervention.

  • UNILATERAL DISARMAMENTRising and Falling Tides: How Russia Has Benefited from Cuts to US Government-Funded Media in Moldova

    By Bret Schafer and Larissa Doroshenko

    On 28 September, the Moldovan parliamentary election ended with a decisive victory for the pro-Europe, pro-democracy party. The victory was especially satisfying because it was the first election held since the Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. capabilities to track, monitor, and respond to Russian and Chinese anti-American disinformation campaigns and election interference around the world and in the United States.

  • CYBERSECURITYRemote Work Has Opened Australia’s Cyber Backdoor

    By Isaac Sharp

    The choice is stark. Either we treat remote-work infiltration as a national security priority now, or hostile operatives will continue slipping into networks under the cover of legitimate employment. By modernizing vetting, tightening oversight and raising awareness, we can turn the remote workforce from a vulnerability into a frontline defense.

  • CHINA WATCHChina’s “Super Embassy” Proposal in London Sparks Spying Fears

    By Patrick Daly

    Fiber optic cables running near the proposed Chinese embassy’s Royal Mint Court site could make it “very easy” for hostile actors to intercept communications, says an expert. “This is what makes the proposed embassy site’s proximity to telecoms infrastructure significant from a security perspective.”

  • CHINA WATCHThe American TikTok Deal Doesn’t Address the Platform’s Potential for Manipulation, Only Who Profits

    By Andrew Buzzell

    If we want to protect democratic information systems, we need to focus on reducing the vulnerabilities in our relationship with media platforms – platforms with surveillance power to know what we will like, the algorithmic power to curate our information diet and control of platform incentives, and rules and features that affect who gains influence. The biggest challenge is to make platforms less riggable, and thus less weaponizable, if only for the reason that motivated the TikTok ban: we don’t want our adversaries, foreign or domestic, to have power over us.

  • CHINA WATCHElon Musk’s SpaceX Took Money Directly from Chinese Investors, Company Insider Testifies

    By Justin Elliott and Joshua Kaplan

    The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most important military contractors.

  • CHINA WATCHPentagon Bans Tech Vendors from Using China-Based Personnel After ProPublica Investigation

    By Renee Dudley

    The Defense Department has tightened cybersecurity requirements for its cloud services providers. The changes come after ProPublica revealed how Microsoft’s use of China-based engineers left sensitive government data vulnerable to hacking.

  • CHINA WATCHPentagon Warns Microsoft: Company’s Use of China-Based Engineers Was a “Breach of Trust”

    By Renee Dudley

    The Defense Department is opening an investigation to determine if the tech giant’s use of overseas engineers to maintain sensitive U.S. government computer systems compromised national security.

  • UNILTERAL DISARMAMENT What Just Happened? Dismantling the Intelligence Community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center

    By David Salvo

    Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the functions of the intelligence community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) would be significantly reduced. Gabbard has thus dismantled the last remaining U.S. federal government organ dedicated to tracking and analyzing state-sponsored efforts to interfere in U.S. institutions, elections, and society – following the Trump administration’s shutting down of related units at the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and Department of Justice earlier this year.

  • UNILTERAL DISARMAMENT Silencing America’s Voice

    The Trump administration has taken a series of steps which have substantially weakened U.S. government-funded media outlets whose task it was to tell the American story and counter the global propaganda and disinformation efforts of U.S. adversaries. These moves greatly benefit the anti-American propaganda efforts of Russia and China, which will now go unchallenged.