The international system is undergoing a profound global power shift characterized by the resurgence of great power competition and a broad diffusion of technical capabilities. This environment is intensifying security competition across all domains. Concurrently, the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and other disruptive technologies has fundamentally transformed espionage and defense. The traditional landscape of counterintelligence (CI) is obsolete and requires rapid, systemic overhaul to address the increasingly amplified, technologically enabled threats posed by state and non-state actors.

Specifically, the shift to great power technological competition has expanded CI’s mandate from protecting military secrets to securing critical infrastructure, intellectual property (IP), and the integrity of the information domain. The dual-use nature of AI functions as both in support of automated espionage and a critical mechanism for preemptively anticipating and mitigating threats. The failure of the United States to strategically integrate AI into CI methodologies will result in the systemic erosion of national technological and economic advantage.

The Expanded Mandate of Modern Counterintelligence

CI functions to protect a nation’s secrets, personnel, and systems from foreign intelligence entities (FIEs). Yet today, CI must also confront a threat matrix dramatically enlarged in scope, sophistication, and velocity. The current geopolitical climate has necessitated a significant expansion of the traditional CI mission. In the context of great power competition, the most significant threat has shifted from the theft of classified military and diplomatic secrets to the large-scale acquisition of IP, trade secrets, and technological data, as highlighted in the recently released Annual Threat Assessment.

FIEs are aggressively targeting the private sector, academia, and research institutions, the very engines of national innovation through sophisticated economic espionage. Their strategic goal is not merely to obtain information, but to erode a nation’s competitive advantage and accelerate the adversary’s technological timetable, thereby shifting the global balance of power. CI must establish robust protective mechanisms that extend deep into the non-governmental technology and research ecosystem.

The dissolution of a clear distinction between peacetime competition and active conflict has resulted in a continuous state of confrontation known as the ‘gray zone’. This strategic domain is characterized by persistent, non-lethal, yet tactically damaging activities designed to achieve political objectives without triggering traditional military responses. CI must now defend against a spectrum of subtle subversion, including large-scale cyber operations, persistent penetration of networks for reconnaissance and preparatory measures, and covert attempts to manipulate political discourse and decision-making.

The globalization of commerce and technology has created intricate, interconnected supply chains. These networks present significant CI risks, as adversaries seek to compromise the integrity, trustworthiness, and authenticity of products and services. By inserting “backdoors” or creating exploitable “choke points” at various nodes, adversaries establish capabilities for future exploitation. CI efforts are essential to conduct comprehensive due diligence and risk mitigation, securing these complex networks against both hardware and software compromise.

Artificial Intelligence: The Dual-Use Catalyst

AI and emerging technologies are not merely targets of modern espionage; they are simultaneously the most potent tools and the most necessary defenses in the counterintelligence battleground. This dual-use dynamic creates a challenging “AI vs. AI” scenario that demands immediate, radical adaptation. Adversaries are leveraging AI to dramatically enhance the speed, scale, and sophistication of their intelligence operations:

Automated Espionage and Big Data Analysis: AI-powered tools can automate and scale the processing, translation, and analysis of vast, heterogeneous datasets (Big Data), vastly increasing the volume and velocity of intelligence collection from both open-source intelligence and classified sources.

Adaptive Cyberattacks: Machine learning (ML) algorithms enable the development of more elusive and adaptive cyber threats. This includes automated exploitation of vulnerabilities, dynamic creation of polymorphic malware, and rapid penetration of defenses, operating at speeds that effectively outpace traditional, human-centric cybersecurity responses.

Generative AI for Influence: Generative AI can create highly realistic deepfakes (synthetic videos and audio) and synthetic narratives at scale. This facilitates sophisticated disinformation and propaganda campaigns to manipulate public opinion and conduct advanced social engineering, severely compromising the ability of institutions to discern truth from falsehood.

Three interconnected factors fundamentally redefine the scope of CI responsibility: target expansion, the blurring of conflict lines, and supply chain vulnerabilities. To effectively counter these technologically enabled threats, CI must aggressively embrace and integrate these same technologies, transforming them into proactive defensive tools:

Threat Anticipation and Predictive Analysis: AI can process and analyze massive amounts of threat data, identifying subtle, non-obvious patterns, trends, and anomalies. This capability allows CI to transition from merely reacting to threats toward predictive modeling, allowing one to forecast adversary actions before they materialize and enabling preemptive defense.

Enhanced Surveillance and Anomaly Detection: ML algorithms are crucial for the detection of subtle anomalies in network traffic, user behavior, and physical security systems that a human operator would miss. AI-driven monitoring provides real-time, large-scale pattern-of-life analysis that significantly exceeds human cognitive capacity.

Counter-Disinformation and Integrity Checks: CI requires AI-driven tools to effectively identify, analyze, and flag AI-generated propaganda, deepfakes, and synthetic media. Systems designed for content provenance and authenticity verification are essential to safeguard the integrity of the information domain and maintain public trust.

Insider Threat Mitigation: Defensively, AI can monitor internal networks to flag anomalous user behaviors such as unusual data access attempts, large data transfers, or deviations in an employee’s digital pattern-of-life. As such they assist in identifying potential insider threats before significant compromise occurs.

The Strategic Imperative

The shift of global powers and the proliferation of disruptive technologies have thrust counterintelligence into an even more important aspect of national security. The stakes of this technological arms race transcend traditional security concerns, encompassing the integrity of a nation’s innovative ecosystem, its economic competitiveness, and the resilience of its democratic institutions.

CI must rapidly evolve its strategies to prioritize the defense of economic and technological assets, and it must integrate AI as a foundational defensive technology to achieve predictive, scalable threat mitigation. Failure to aggressively master and deploy AI defenses against technologically augmented adversaries risks the systemic erosion of national advantage in a world where technological leadership is increasingly synonymous with global power. The future success of great power competition hinges directly on the adaptive capacity and technological sophistication of CI’s function.

Joshua Thibert is a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS) with over 30 years of comprehensive expertise. His background encompasses roles as a former counterintelligence special agent within the Department of Defense and as a practitioner in compliance, security, and insider risk management in the private sector. His extensive academic and practitioner experience spans strategic intelligence, multiple domains within defense and strategic studies, and critical infrastructure protection. The views of the author are his own.

Redefining Espionage: The Unseen War for Technological Dominance was originally published on Global Security Review.

Nuclear incidents could lead to catastrophic radioactive contamination and a global emergency. In this regard, the South Asian model for the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement is a milestone achievement in nuclear risk reduction. It was a breakthrough agreement that prevented two arch-rivals from attacking each other’s nuclear sites despite several intense standoffs. It played a crucial role in ensuring nuclear facilities remain off-limits by preventing catastrophic escalations and reinforcing stability.

Contemporary conflicts are increasingly defined by disruptive and cutting-edge technologies, such as drone and cyber attacks that introduce a new dimension to conflict and exposed nuclear infrastructure to unprecedented vulnerabilities. It is thus time for P-5 states and the IAEA to formulate an international non-attack agreement to ensure nuclear restraint. The world cannot afford another nuclear disaster due to the negligence of the international community and the absence of a proper enforcement mechanism.

After the nuclearization of South Asia in 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test, Smiling Buddha. Pakistan sensed a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear research labs. The rivalry got more intense when India hedged against blowing up Pakistan’s Kahuta Nuclear Research Laboratories. In return, Pakistan assured India that any attack on Kahuta would evoke a retaliatory strike on its Bhabha Atomic Nuclear Plant.

To avert such future scenarios, both states agreed to sign the bilateral accord. Since doing so, and despite several conflicts like the Kargil conflict (1999), the 2001–2002 military standoff, and the Pulwama-Balakot crisis (2019), neither state has targeted the other’s nuclear facilities. Therefore, the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement’s successful implementation in a highly volatile region, where nuclear-armed neighbors are eyeball-to-eyeball, sets a precedent that serves as a model for other states to follow.

The provisions of the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement, require that both states refrain from “undertaking, encouraging, or participating in any action aimed at causing the destruction or damage to any nuclear installation or facility in the other country.” This is a model for a global nuclear security non-attack commitment. The agreement clearly defines nuclear installations to include research reactors, uranium enrichment plants, reprocessing facilities, and storage sites for radioactive material.

The second provision of the agreement is the Classification of Protected Sites. The Annual Exchange of Nuclear Facility List is the most important clause. Under this clause India and Pakistan exchange lists of their nuclear facilities every January 1, ensuring transparency, avoiding miscalculations, and implementing risk mitigation. This agreement sets the ground rules that even hostile states can uphold nuclear restraint, and the international community must take a lesson from this model to formulate an international nuclear non-attack agreement.

Moreover, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of nuclear incidents, with radiation leaks contaminating large areas and causing long-term ecological and health crises. While commenting on an attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a drone hit the concrete shelter, sparking a fire that caused significant damage, but radiation remained under control. Both Ukrainian and Russian officials released their respective statements, denying the responsibility for the drone strike.

The pertinent question here is not who is responsible, but rather the safety and security of nuclear facilities during conflict and the need for militaries to exercise restraint. The war might end one day, but the hazards of nuclear radiation persist far longer. Meanwhile, existing international laws provide some protections for nuclear sites, but they lack enforceable mechanisms to deter attacks. The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I (1977) classify nuclear power plants as civilian objects that should not be targeted. However, these clauses are not binding under all circumstances, leaving loopholes for states to exploit during wartime.

Furthermore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguard protocols primarily focus on nonproliferation and the safety of nuclear materials, rather than averting military strikes on nuclear sites. Here the absence of clear, legally binding enforcement mechanisms in international law means that states can act with impunity while targeting nuclear sites in conflict zones. Hence, the Chernobyl drone attack demonstrates the urgency for a comprehensive and enforceable global agreement.

The new international nuclear non-attack agreement should essentially address the weaknesses in existing laws. The P5 (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US) and the IAEA must spearhead a legally binding comprehensive treaty prohibiting any form of attack on nuclear infrastructure. This new agreement should explicitly include these several nuclear restraints. Starting from the military restrictions that should prohibit all military operations in the vicinity of designated nuclear sites. This includes ground forces, aerial strikes, reconnaissance missions, and drone activities near nuclear installations.

Further states must ensure annual transparency measures to prevent miscalculations. Each party must be required to exchange lists of their nuclear facilities annually, similar to the India-Pakistan model.

Most importantly, there must be severe consequences if any state violates the agreement by conducting a strike, covert operation, or cyberattack on nuclear facilities. Such a state must face severe economic sanctions, diplomatic consequences, and potential designation as a rogue state. Finally, there must be a prohibition on cyber and non-kinetic attacks.

The UN Security Council and leading nuclear powers, the P5 states, should take the responsibility of drafting and enforcing the agreement. These nations must set aside geopolitical rivalries and recognize that the threat of nuclear facility attacks endanger global stability. Additionally, the IAEA must play a more proactive role in integrating nuclear facility protection into global conflict prevention strategies.

The Chernobyl drone strike and the volatile situation in Zaporizhzhia is a wake-up call, a warning that nuclear security cannot be taken for granted in modern warfare. As conflicts become increasingly complex, nuclear sites will remain vulnerable unless strong, enforceable international agreements are put in place. The world cannot afford to wait for another disaster before taking decisive action.

Sana Ahmed is an MS scholar at the Center for International Peace and Stability (CIPS), NUST, and a researcher at the Islamabad-based independent think tank Strategic Vision Institute (SVI).

A South Asian Blueprint for Nuclear Risk Reduction was originally published on Global Security Review.