CSS News and Impact

In her new CSS Analysis, Gorana Grgić examines how President Trump’s second term has entrenched a foreign policy driven more by transactionalism than by order-building. The result is a US that acts decisively but often unpredictably, extracting accommodations from allies in the short-term and pushing them to pursue greater strategic autonomy over the long-term.

This CSS Cyberdefense Report "Breaking the Final Frontier: Cyber operations against the space sector. Evidence from the Gaza War and beyond" by Clémence Poirier examines 237 cyber operations that targeted the space sector amidst the Gaza War.

The 2025 Bulletin on Swiss Security Policy provides an overview of Switzerland’s security policy in light of current global security developments. This year’s edition examines, among other topics, the importance of a “drone ecosystem” for Switzerland, the need to further develop the civil protection system, and Switzerland’s upcoming chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Russia maintains an ambivalent relationship with the OSCE. It denounces the body as a Western tool while exploiting it to block initiatives, preserve influence, and spread propaganda. Vassily Klimentov and Jeronim Perović explain that, despite tensions over Ukraine, Moscow is unlikely to withdraw from the organization.

This study by Joane Holliger combines scholarly research with the author's experience of peacemaking operations in several countries. It highlights how the Pieri peace process in South Sudan was grounded in strong local ownership, which served as a central pillar of the initiative’s design and implementation. 

Launched by Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.

The demise of the rules-based international order is jeopardising Switzerland’s success model, says security expert Daniel Möckli. He believes the country faces difficult positioning issues.

In the first comprehensive study of Europe’s strategic engagement with the Indo-Pacific, CSS Senior Researcher Gorana Grgić and Gabriele Abbondanza map Europe’s expanding engagement with the Indo-Pacific.

Cross-border data flows are an integral part of the international trade system. The governance of these data flows is caught between the conflicting priorities of data protection, national security and the free flow of data for digital trade. Karin Hess explores in her new CSS Analysis how actors like China, the EU, and the US are shaping their own data flow policies with differing priorities - a process that is also driven by geopolitical tensions.

In this Policy Perspective, Amos Dossi and Mauro Gilli explain how serious efforts to rearm Europe should leverage all relevant industrial capabilities on the continent - including, not least, those of Switzerland.