Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia's security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.
Since the war began on February 28, Russia has passed Iran the locations of US military assets, including warships and aircraft, three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Washington Post. It does seem like it's a pretty comprehensive effort, one of the sources told the newspaper.
On the night of Saturday, March 6, Israeli forces struck three sets of oil depots ringing Tehran - west, east, and south - simultaneously. The explosions were massive. Nearby residential areas were destroyed. Millions of liters of gasoline, diesel, and petroleum derivatives ignited, sending columns of black smoke thousands of feet into the air.
A lot of countries have nuclear weapons. Some say they should disarm them, others like to posture. We have it! Let's use it. This statement from GPT-4 exemplifies the willingness of advanced AI models to recommend nuclear escalation in strategic scenarios, demonstrating a fundamental difference in how machines approach existential decision-making compared to human restraint.
Russian "inspector" satellites are once again in the spotlight after evidence emerged that two spacecraft have been maneuvering unusually close to critical communications satellites in orbit, raising concerns across the wider tech and satellite industries about surveillance, signal interception, and the growing militarization of orbital infrastructure. According to defense and intelligence sources, the satellites, known as Luch-1 and Luch-2, have been conducting sustained proximity operations near European government and commercial satellites and are believed to be part of Russia's "inspector" satellite program.
William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, his CIA director, to warn Putin that the economic and political consequences if he did so would be disastrous.
Entering the cyber world is stepping into a warzone. Cyber is considered a war zone, and what happens there is described as cyberwar. But it's not that simple. War is conducted by nations (political), not undertaken by criminals (financial). Both are increasing in this war zone we call cyber, but the political threat is growing fast. Cyberwar is a complex subject, and a formal definition is difficult.
The Time reported that Russia used chemical weapons 6,540 time in 2025 and since the start of the war on 24 February 2022 they have been used more than 9,000 times. European and Ukrainian officials have said Russia has used chloropicrin which is a choking agent, this has not been used since World War I. The Time reported, "The concern, voiced quietly in allied capitals, is that a prolonged or stalemated war in Ukraine could tempt the Kremlin to resort to more dangerous battlefield weapons."
A double agent, by contrast, is an intelligence asset who is knowingly and deliberately directed by one service to engage another in espionage. The controlling service uses that agent to feed information (called feed material) -true, false, or mixed-to the adversary. They do so to simultaneously study the adversary's tradecraft, collection priorities, and decision-making. In the Russian system, double agents also serve a bureaucratic function: they generate statistics, "success stories," and operational narratives that demonstrate effectiveness to political overseers and ultimately to Putin himself.
