The head of news reports presented the information after Tuesday’s meeting with President Petr Pavlo.
“We can see an effort to get closer to the European trend, where intelligence services communicate with the public more than through annual reports,” said Oldřich Bureš, a security expert from the Metropolitan University in Prague.
He understands the statement of the news director as an attempt to stir up not only politicians, but also the public, a warning that the threats are real and concern the Czech Republic as well, whether it is Russian aggression, Islamist terrorism or illegal migration.
“The historical parallel with the period since the Second World War seems exaggerated to me. Before 1989, there was a completely different international political system. We’re talking about the Cold War, but it was very hot at times, almost World War III,” Bureš described.
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An example is the Caribbean crisis of the 1960s or the situation in Berlin at the end of the 1940s, when the Soviet Union tried to isolate its western part.
Josef Kraus, a security expert from Masaryk University in Brno, sees the situation similarly. “These are incomparable matters. In the post-war period, Czechoslovakia experienced a communist coup in 1948 and a military invasion from abroad in 1968,” Kraus described.
But both experts agree that after 1989 the security situation is probably the most serious.
“We did have a significant regional conflict during the breakup of Yugoslavia. However, it never threatened such problems as a conflict with such an important nuclear power as Russia. Until recently, it was unthinkable in Europe that one state would attack another,” said Kraus.
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As other threats, he mentioned, like the head of the BIS, Islamist terrorism or illegal migration. Oldřich Bureš also added the effects of artificial intelligence. He mentioned, for example, so-called deepfake videos, where a fraudster puts a sentence in a person’s mouth that they never said.
“I think that in the Czech Republic we still underestimate AI. The development continues every day, the elections will be affected more and more,” Bureš described.
It probably won’t get any better
Deepfake videos were one of the topics that President Pavel and Koudelka discussed on Tuesday.
“All the mentioned threats are connected vessels that lead to the biggest problem, which is the fragmentation of society. We can observe an increase in political extremism in Germany or France, also under the influence of the information war led by Russia,” Kraus described.
“In the black scenario, there could be mass riots or civil wars. We are far from that, but that doesn’t mean they won’t happen if we don’t pull the emergency brake,” Kraus added, emphasizing the need to fight disinformation and develop civil society.
“I cannot say whether the security situation will fundamentally worsen, but there is not much room for improvement,” said Kraus. President Petr Pavel also mentioned a not very optimistic outlook.
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