Critical Thinking:Moving from Infrastructure Protectionto Infrastructure Resilience
CIPP Discussion Paper Series
Shifting Security Paradigms.Toward Resilience.
Lewis J. Perelman
October 2006
Series Outline
The goal of this working paper series is to point out trajectories of the concept of criticalinfrastructure resilience in theory, policy, and implementation. On the one hand, “resilience”may just be another policy buzzword; but on the other hand, it might indicate a shift inperception and priority of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences. Indeed, the CriticalInfrastructure Task Force (CITF) has recently presented to the Homeland Security AdvisoryCommittee (HSAC) a recommendation to “Promulgate Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR)as the top-level strategic objective -the desired outcome- to drive national policy and planning.”Defined as the ability of a system to withstand to and recover from adversity, resilience isincreasingly applied to larger social and technical systems. Stress and adversity are experiencednot only by individuals and groups, but also by organizations and institutions. In the context of increasing natural and man-made threats and vulnerabilities of modern societies, the conceptseems particularly useful to inform policies that mitigate the consequences of such events.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program (CIPP) at GeorgeMason University School of Law, which is funded through grant #60NANB2D0108 from theNational Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST). Any opinions, findings, andrecommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflectthe views of NIST or CIPP.
Suggested Citation
Perelman, L.J. (2006).
Shifting Security Paradigms. Toward Resilience.
CIPP Working Paper 10-06. Arlington, VA: George Mason University.
Shifting Security Paradigms: Toward Resilience.
Lewis J. PerelmanSenior Fellow, Homeland Security
Policy
Institute
Resilience
has been a progressively crystallizing theme as the
U
nited States
and
other na
tions have grappled with the dilemmas of homeland security in what often
has
been called the ‘post-9/11 world.’ What resilience (or resiliency) means in discus
-sions of security strategy is variable and often cloudy. But the notion of resilienceas an organizing doctrine continually appears as a counterpoint to the typical, re-flexive actions of governments to defend their territory and people against catas-trophic attacks, natural disasters, or industrial accidents.The allure of resilience is stoked by the contradictions and thorny tradeoffs in-
herent in traditional concepts of national security in an age of increasing social-
technical complexity, transnational globalization, and asymmetric conflict.
Certainly, homeland securit
y
has realized, since 2001, both political impetus and
bureaucratic mass. Nevertheless it has been fraught by a tumultuous and yet unre-solved quest to reconcile legitimate but competing social objectives:
•
Security against attacks vs. security against natural disasters, disease, accidents,etc.;
•
Intelligence operations vs. privacy;
•
War-fighting vs. human rights, civil liberties, the rule of law, etc.;
•
Needs for secrecy vs. needs for information sharing;
•
Federal responsibility vs. state/local/private authority;
•
Centralized command and control vs. communal collaboration.As the alignment of the above examples suggests, these and similar dichoto-mies are not self-contained but cluster within broad constellations that representtwo common but fundamentally different human impulses about the problem of security.In purest form, one seeks the
prevention
of harm, through the elimination of risk and uncertainty. The other, accepting the irreducibility of risk and uncer-tainty, seeks
adaptation
through flexibility and agility. The first aims for triumph;the second aims for endurance.Within this social dialectic over security strategies, the snowballing interest inresilience should not be viewed merely as a rhetorical finesse of established prac-tice, albeit that the words ‘resilience’ and ‘adaptation’ can be and have been usedas just new labels on old wine. Rather, behind the rhetoric of ‘resilience’ and ‘ad-aptation’ is an insurgent, alternative vision contending for the leadership of socialpolicy.GMU-CIPP Critical Thinking Series
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Shifting Security Paradigms - Toward Resilience
The concept of resilience is not merely an enhancement of "critical infrastructure protection" but a paradigm shift: The established paradigm seeks the prevention of harm though elimination of risk and uncertainty. The resilience paradigm accepts that risk and uncertainty are inevitable, and seeks adaptation through flexibility and agility
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