Resilience and Defence in an Era of Global Tensions and Uncertainty

Resilience is critical to NATO, but its implementation is challenging. Stig Rune Sellevåg, Peter D E Biggins and Paul Martin argue that NATO’s approach to resilience should build on knowledge of how natural systems persist and evolve. The selection of advantageous configurations for systemic persistence is important for resilience. This requires, as a minimum, maintaining stability, learning and novelty generation. NATO should consider capabilities for anticipating tipping points and a reconfiguration strategy for dealing with risks for systemic collapse. Importantly, resilience requires active processes where ‘blue-sky thinking’ and novel ideas are turned into practical solutions, taking into consideration human thinking and behaviour.