For a long time, the prevailing opinion was that Russia and China were reliable suppliers. However, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the emerging critical situation in East Asia, the supply of energy and raw materials as well as the protection of critical infrastructure need to be reconsidered. The current issue of SIRIUS now addresses the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and the dependence of Germany and other nations on external resources such as energy or raw materials.

• Frank Umbach in his essay "Energy security under the conditions of the decarbonisation of the economy and transport" critically examines the expectation that the decarbonisation of the economy, transport and other energy consumption will lead to a decrease in geostrategically relevant dependencies.
  
• The article "An EU commodity agency - a useful instrument for European commodity security?" from Jakob Kullik, Jens Gutzmer and Ludwig Gramlich is intended as an open impulse and hypothetical preliminary consideration in the current debate on Europe's multiple raw material challenges and addresses the problem of critical raw materials raised by Frank Umbach.
  
• The contribution "Toxic door openers - smart ports as a geo-economic field of action" from Heiko Borchert, Tim Rühlig and Valentin Weber is developing a German smart ports approach in a 5-point plan in order to actively shape this dynamic field of action for the modernisation and digitalisation of overseas ports as critical infrastructure under conditions of geopolitical rivalries.
  
• The contribution "The protection of maritime critical infrastructure and the concept of deterrence" from Julian Pawlak deals with the protection of maritime critical infrastructure and shows possible solutions. It is shown that the protection of maritime critical infrastructure should be seen as part of effective deterrence.

In the Brief analyses two contributions deal with regional areas of conflict:

• "Unrest factor Iran - What are the risks of war in the Middle East?" presents the results of a study by the ISPK on the prospects for war in the Middle East.
• "The dispute over the THAAD missile defence system in South Korea - How Seoul pursued its national interests in the context of Sino-American strategic competition" from Maximilian Ernst deals with South Korea's decision to deploy the American THAAD missile defence system despite massive Chinese sanctions.

The current issue of SIRIUS also closes with several Book reviews from.

As usual, the entire current issue is available online under the Open Access licence via De Gruyter Verlag HERE freely available.