CSS News and Impact

The latest CSS Study on individual disaster preparedness shows a population that perceives hazards such as heatwaves and cyberattacks, yet prepares only selectively. A behavioural-economic reading offers three mechanisms to explain this risk perception paradox.

Young people have become a central target of Russia’s militarisation. Through schools, youth organisations, and military training centres, the state aims to instil patriotism, build loyalty, and prepare the next generation for war.

Technological acceleration, geopolitical uncertainties, and systemic rivalries are reshaping Western intelligence tradecraft, forcing services to balance secrecy with transparency in order to remain fit for purpose.

In Western and Central Europe, summer 2026 is marked by extreme drought – including in Switzerland. At the same time, temperatures are significantly above the long-term average, and wildfire activity is exceptionally high. CSS experts in the fields of resilience and crisis management, as well as fire research, have recently published highly topical studies on resilience to – and responses to – weather extremes. They offer the media a range of perspectives on this phenomenon and its implications.

Extreme drought conditions prevail across almost all of Switzerland, with no relief in sight. How can Swiss civil protection organisations respond at the local and national levels? And how can they prepare for future drought events? CSS experts Jurgena Kamberaj and Simon Aebi explore these questions in their Risk and Resilience Report, "Civil Protection Roadmap  for Drought Resilience in Switzerland".

One of the most anticipated films of the year, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, hit the big screen earlier this month. Based on ticket sales, the film was watched by approximately 15 to 18 million people around the world on its opening weekend alone. While not a policy piece, this latest retelling of Odysseus’ homecoming journey does offer a form of cultural policy reflection about the state of our world, in particular with regards to respect for international law. 

Military small drones have become a central element of modern warfare. A new study by the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich examines how public and private actors in Switzerland can work together to ensure an adequate supply of such systems in times of heightened tensions and national defence.

At a time of global disorder, Switzerland’s foreign and security policy must operate as cohesively and strategically as possible. Potential measures to enhance coherence relate to peace and security, foreign security policy, European security cooperation, and neutrality. Besides the Federal Council and the Federal Administration, other actors including Parliament and the science community can contribute to holistic policy making.

If NATO’s summit last year in The Hague was about finding the lowest common denominator in transatlantic security cooperation and appeasing US President Donald Trump, the Ankara summit did little to move beyond that approach. This year’s declaration reads less like a grand strategic vision and more like an administrative inventory of burden-shifting, offering a statistical overview ofthe contributions made by NATO Europe and Canada. 

This study examines what preparations Swiss authorities can make today to ensure an adequate supply of small military drones for the armed forces in the event of a situation of tension or a defence scenario. The key challenge lies in striking the right balance between quality (innovation capacity) and quantity (scalability). Such a balance is difficult to achieve py pursuing traditional supply strategies.