Lecture
Science, Sabotage and Subversion: How covert activity shapes the new international system
- Date
- Tuesday 12 May 2026
- Time
- Address
-
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague - Room
- 2.02
Why are international relations in the tech age so barbaric? We are now in a period of unacknowledged assassinations, poisonings, and sabotage by privateers recruited online, together with AI-driven propaganda. In this lecture, Professor Aldrich proposes that not only have such covert operations been transformed by science and technology, but also that these changes have implications for the international system. Increasingly performative covert operations grab the headlines, but they are often treated as mere epiphenomena, either the legacy of a prolonged ‘war on terror’ or else emblematic of a pugilistic multipolar world. Additionally, the impact of technology on sabotage and subversion is often explained in terms of ‘scale’.
Rather, Professor Aldrich will argue that the expansion of these covert activities is also facilitating cultural change. Moreover, covert operations are not only expanding but also changing in complex ways, bringing a blurring of boundaries and changes of ownership together with opportunity, proliferation, and escalating cycles of violence. Overall, we are witnessing the emergence of a different and more distasteful way of conducting international affairs.
Biography
Richard J. Aldrich is a Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick. His main research interests lie in the area of intelligence, security and cyber communities. He is the author of several influential books and journal articles that have been critically acclaimed by academic, policy, and public audiences. Professor Aldrich has been honoured as a Distinguished Scholar for contributions to the field of Intelligence Studies by the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association. He has been involved in recent major research initiatives including a Leverhulme project investigating the ‘nature of secrecy’ in a world characterised by increasing technology and transparency, a H2020 DigiGen project on ‘The Impact of Technological Transformations on the Digital Generation’, and an EU Erasmus project on ‘Cyberdiplomacy’.
You can find more information about Professor Aldrich’s contributions here.