What once required highly skilled human operators can now be accelerated (or even automated) by increasingly sophisticated AI systems.

It seems like we are at another critical inflection point. The barriers to engage in cyberattacks are falling. The attacker pool is expanding. The result isn’t just more threats, but faster, more adaptive, and more scalable threats that traditional cybersecurity defenses will simply struggle to contain.

We spoke to Dr. Soumya Awasthi, a fellow with the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation. Dr. Awasthi presents a troubling picture of the cyber security challenges ahead but also opportunities to rethink how we design, defend and govern digital systems in the AI era.

We spoke to , a Chinese human rights and democracy researcher and advocate. Yaqiu has worked for Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and held academic positions at the University of Chicago and, most recently, the University of Pennsylvania.

What follows is one of the world’s most respected human rights advocates detailing the breadth of the Chinese government’s human rights violations at home and abroad, the mix of ideological and practical drivers of those actions, and how the global erosion of democratic norms has emboldened the Chinese Communist Party.

If you enjoy, please be sure to like/restack and subscribe to CounterCheck and as well!

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The tiny archipelagic nation, consisting of almost a thousand islands with a population of around 800,000 people, sits in the Pacific Ocean off the east coast of Papua New Guinea and about 2000km northeast of Australia.

Yet the Solomon Islands has been a focal point of strategic competition between China and Australia as both countries seek to exert influence and win over the allegiance of this important foothold into the Pacific.

Today we are talking to Gordon Peake who has spent most of his professional life working on-the-ground in the Pacific Islands. Gordon offers important insights into the challenges that the Solomon Islands have faced this century and the contrasting approaches of China and Australia in their efforts to build stronger bilateral ties with Honiara, and the complex and unforeseen legacies of well-intentioned interventions.

Read Gordon’s latest analysis below and be sure to subscribe to his channel for more frontlines coverage from Antarctica, the Pacific Islands, and his many other journeys.

Gordon’s Latest Work

• ‘Hard to say who’s winning’: China and Australia battle for influence in Solomon Islands policing, The Guardian

• Postcard from Solomon Islands: The legacy of RAMSI, The Interpreter

• Our man in Honiara, DevPolicy Blog

We spoke with Levi about the nature of the attack, what level of responsibility the Australian government bears, and broader failures that contributed to the attack. We also covered the nature of terrorist threats in Australia today, and how to respond in the wake of tragedy.

Our core interview with Levi is available here.

His most recent article, co-authored with Dr. Andrew Zammit and published by the CTC Sentinel, is the most comprehensive analysis of the Bondi attack and its strategic implications to date.

Freedom in the World 2026 marked a sobering and deeply troubling milestone: 20 consecutive years of declining global freedoms.

That means, for every year since 2005, more countries around the world experienced a deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties than countries that experienced an improvement in those rights and freedoms.

The picture is even bleaker because, as freedoms and democracy around the world have gone into a deep and extended recession, there has been a simultaneous resurgence of authoritarianism that has accelerated in recent years. This has created a see-saw effect that has seen global democracy backsliding as autocrats around the world rise.

The trend over twenty years has been unmistakable. About 85% of countries that were categorised as “free” in 2005 remained so twenty years later. About 71% of those categorised as “not free” in 2005 are unchanged in 2025. However, of those countries ranked “partly free” in 2005, fast forward to 2025, and only 9 improved to “free” while 19 dropped to “not free,” slipping towards authoritarianism.

The result? A majority of the world now live in “Partly Free” or “Not Free” countries.

In 2025, political rights and civil liberties deteriorated for 40% of the world’s populations.

The trajectory is unmistakable: freedoms and democracy are in retreat, and momentum favours authoritarianism.

On March 8th, an explosion struck the U.S. embassy in Oslo, leaving no casualties. Norwegian police later said they were investigating whether the attack was carried out on behalf of a foreign government.

The next day, on March 9th, an explosion hit a synagogue in the city of Liege in Belgium, causing significant damage to the temple and surrounding buildings. The Belgian government has since deployed soldiers to reinforce security at Jewish sites across the country.

Later that week, on March 13th, a synagogue in the Dutch city of Rotterdam was also targeted in an arson attack. The following day, an explosion targeted a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and is being investigated by Dutch authorities for possible Iranian involvement.

And, just a few days ago on March 23rd, four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community charity in London were set on fire in another arson attack. British counter-terrorism police are reportedly leading the investigation. This followed news that two Iranian men were arrested and charged in the UK with alleged surveillance of Jewish targets on behalf of Iran.

A new group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, or The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous, has since claimed responsibility for these attacks. The group’s social media activity is reportedly directed through channels linked to militia groups aligned with Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. However, it is still unclear what formal connections this group has, if any, to Iran and its proxies.

What is clear is that further escalation in the Iran war is likely to produce more plots and violence in coming days and weeks, with local communities paying the price.

We spoke to former US counterterrorism official Michael Jacobson about how the United States led global efforts to counter precisely these types of terrorist threats for years. Mike oversaw the international coordination and planning wing of the U.S. Department of State’s Counterterrorism Bureau until 2025. Since then, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from several international counterterrorism organizations earlier this year. We spoke with Mike about the impacts of this decision, and how the United States went from a position of global counterterrorism leadership, to a position of leadership in decline.

As the war enters its fourth week, it is clear that Iran’s military capabilities have been significantly weakened, and many of Iran’s most senior military, intelligence and security leaders – including Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – have been killed. Yet, so far, there have been no major defections from either Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGC) or from Iran’s Army (known as the Artesh). Iran’s missile and drone attacks across the region have also continued and its proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, may increasingly attempt to mobilise in Iran’s defence.

It is too early for predictions that Iran’s theocratic regime is on the verge of surrender. Instead, let’s pause and look back at the history of US-Iran relations. That context is important for not only understanding how we got to this point but it’s also useful for thinking about how things may play out in the coming weeks and months.

The history of US-Iran relations since World War II is extraordinarily complex and tumultuous. But there are events that, in important practical and symbolic ways, capture the broad trendlines that have characterised different phases in that relationship. So, here are four milestones in the history of US-Iran Relations that can help us to better understand the present.

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We sat down with Michael Jacobson - senior fellow in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Mike’s professional career has been almost entirely spent working in counterterrorism roles for the US government, including in the US State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau from 2010-2025, the US Treasury Department’s office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, the 9-11 Commission, and in the FBI.

Under the second Trump administration, the United States has fundamentally transformed how it engages with the world. On counterterrorism, where the United States has traditionally adopted a central leadership role globally for well-over two decades, that is changing too.

Here we talk to Mike Jacobson about the pivot in US policy that has probably received less attention but it’s a policy area with major implications for global security and stability.

Just before the US and Israel launched initial strikes against Iran, developments in northern Syria concerning the ISIS detention facilities had gone from bad to worse. Thousands are now missing following the emptying of Al-Hol camp, and the international community is now fully distracted by the escalating war across the region. Now, latest reporting is already starting to trace ISIS “emerging from the rubble” in Syria, adding a volatile factor into an already spiraling situation.

Read Dr. Margolin’s latest analysis with Dr. Joana Cook for Foreign Policy: From Bad to Worse in Northeast Syria, and for The Washington Institute: Caught in the Crossfire: Islamic State Detention Sites at Risk

Thousands are now missing following the emptying of Al-Hol camp, and core questions about the international community’s response and willingness to repatriate their citizens remain unanswered.

We covered Dr. Margolin’s piece for The Washington Institute: Caught in the Crossfire: Islamic State Detention Sites at Risk

Read Dr. Margolin’s latest analysis with Dr. Joana Cook for Foreign Policy: From Bad to Worse in Northeast Syria

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