This study examines the legal framework for the protection of classified information in Kosovo, focusing on the role of the Agency for the Protection of Classified Information (APCI). The selection of APCI as the focal institution stems from its central role in implementing Kosovo's legal and institutional framework for classified information, following the country's efforts to align with Euro-Atlantic standards. In a newly established state like Kosovo, protecting sensitive information is crucial for national security. The study compares Kosovo's model with those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), and Western Balkan countries, highlighting its alignment with international standards. Through a comparative analysis, it evaluates how these practices affect APCI's operations and its significance in strengthening Kosovo's security capacities. The findings show that while Kosovo has made significant strides in establishing its legal infrastructure, APCI faces challenges related to human resources and technical capacities. The study suggests concrete measures for the full operationalization of APCI, including improvements in professional resources and international cooperation. These recommendations are essential to ensure that APCI fulfills its duties in line with international standards and successfully protects Kosovo's classified information.
In the context of growing competition in the information space, digital diplomacy is gaining key importance for the strategic security of states. This study analyzes how Russia and Kazakhstan use the YouTube platform to promote their foreign policy narratives, shape the image of the state, and strengthen digital sovereignty. Based on a qualitative analysis of 60 videos (30 for each country) published by official government channels between 2020 and 2024, differences in strategies, visual codes, tonality, and patterns of interaction with the audience were identified. The Russian approach is characterized by an aggressive narrative, antagonism to Western structures, and a high degree of ideologization. Kazakhstan, on the contrary, relies on the pragmatic promotion of the image of a stable, open, and modernizing state. The article documents that digital diplomacy in the context of platform algorithms is becoming an element of both foreign policy projection and ensuring internal stability. The conclusions emphasize that digital content management and citizen participation in international dialogues are becoming new challenges and opportunities in ensuring the strategic security of states.
This article examines human-artificial intelligence (AI) teaming in Ukrainian combat operations from 2022 to 2025, exploring the integration of AI systems with human decision-making in military contexts and how crisis-driven innovation can lead to human-AI teaming. The research addresses three questions: the effectiveness of human-AI teams compared with human-only or fully autonomous systems; the effect of organizational structures on the sustainability of AI integration; and strategic implications for the development of the doctrine and international security governance in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The methodology uses mixed-method comparative case study analysis of three different Ukrainian systems: the Geographic Information System (GIS) Arta geospatial intelligence platform, the reconnaissance-strike unmanned aerial vehicle complex, and volunteer-supported decentralized targeting networks. Data collection was a combination of technical reports, operational battlefield metrics, and the standards of the NATO doctrines. Findings show that Ukrainian human-AI systems show good tactical performance in permissive electromagnetic environments with response times of 30 to 45 seconds and targeting accuracy of two meters but have significant vulnerabilities to electronic warfare—31% mission failure rates. Volunteer networks are highly resilient and have slower decision cycles. The research adds to strategic security, deterrence theory, military innovation theory, and organizational theory through the identification of mechanisms by which human-AI systems affect the stability of deterrence and offers recommendations for the development of the doctrine and international governance of AI for NATO.
This article critically examines if the public-private partnerships (PPPs) help the European Union strengthen its cyber resilience, a challenge that is now closely tied to the Union's broader strategic security goals. The discussion does not rely on one single angle. It moves back and forth between the legal side—looking at instruments such as the Network and Information Systems 2 (NIS2) Directive, the Cybersecurity Act, the proposed Cyber Resilience Act, and the Cyber Solidarity Act—and the lessons that come from practice. Examples include the dismantling of Operation Avalanche, the experience of the European Cyber Security Challenge, and the information-sharing efforts of the European Financial Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). These are not abstract cases: In several member states, incident detection became roughly a quarter faster and the volume of ransomware attacks fell once cooperation mechanisms were put in place. At the same time, nobody would claim the situation is solved. Trust between institutions and companies is still fragile, national responses remain fragmented, and the lack of trained professionals is felt everywhere. Complex interdependence is a useful concept here because it shows why PPPs cannot be treated as quick technical fixes. They are, instead, part of the structural foundations of cyber resilience in a digital environment. What the EU needs, therefore, is not only harmonized legislation and reliable incentives, but also workable ways to build and sustain trust among very different actors who often approach the problem from opposite perspectives.
Debates on military artificial intelligence (AI) remain skewed toward great power dynamics, oscillating between techno-optimist celebrations of speed and techno-pessimist warnings of collapse. This binary overlooks how middle powers, operating under nuclearized rivalry and asymmetric sanction risk, embed restraint into organizational and technical practice. This article develops Systems Restrained Realism (SRR), a framework that extends defensive realism into the machine age by theorizing restraint as a deliberate doctrinal posture rather than a symptom of incapacity. Using Pakistan as a critical case, the study draws on expert interviews, procurement manuals, and UN submissions to demonstrate how restraint is operationalized through latency as doctrine, embedded organizational oversight, and localized training regimes designed to mitigate classifier fragility. The findings reveal that while India's accelerationist AI trajectory projects capability and ambiguity, Pakistan engineers restraint into systems and decision loops, externalizing it through normative signaling at UN forums. This posture highlights a structural asymmetry: Great powers can afford AI misfires under the banner of innovation, while middle powers face punitive scrutiny for errors, incentivizing opacity over transparency. By foregrounding SRR, the study challenges dominant narratives that equate restraint with weakness and automation with stability. It argues that in an era of machine-speed conflict, survival may hinge not on what states automate but on what they refuse to.
