Addressing UG’s “Institute of Human Resiliency, Strategic Security and the Future” (IHRSSF) last week, President Irfan Ali announced that his government would develop a “National Defence Institute” (NDI) at the University – as it seeks to become the premier security institution in the region. The IHRSSF had received the 2023 prestigious Perry Centre for Hemispheric Defense Studies Award for Excellence in Security and Defense Education. What the president’s announcement and the award highlight is that the notion of “resilience” is one that includes not only people, but their institutions. We should note that NATO and the European Union (EU) have recently introduced “resilience” at the core of their strategies, especially after facing hybrid threats that demand cooperation of the state, its institutions, the society, and citizens.
One expert defined ‘resilience’ as “the capacity of an actor – be it state, nation, society, company, city, or human community of any kind – to survive and to recover from the turbulences coming from the day-to-day life.” From this perspective, the geopolitical capability of a state, nation, or community can possibly be quantified with a very balanced combination of indicators that represent and aggregate a sum of qualities that mirror the capability of a country. This must go beyond the usual evaluations of power, military power, economic resources and political leadership that all arise from the same family of thinking about the perspectives of resilience.
For sure, a resilient country is not necessarily a powerful one, yet the geopolitical capability can provide us with numerous useful indicators for measuring resilience. For instance, NATO considers that for national resilience, there are seven basic requirements or conditions that must be addressed: 1) ensuring governance continuity, especially for critical governmental services; 2) constant and sustainable energy supply at affordable prices; 3) the ability to confront and cope efficiently with the uncontrolled migration of citizens; 4) constant water and food resources for the population; 5) the ability to manage high level casualty crises; 6)functional and resilient communication systems at all times; and 7) ensuring resilient transportation systems.
The EU also crafted a strategic document, the Strategic Compass, defining resilience (European Union 2022). It is also a combination of the security approach and crisis approach to resilience. The themes involve focusing on climate change, disasters, and civil emergencies. The EU, however, is also looking into the economic resilience, discussing supply chains, transport routes, freedom of navigation, supplies security. Societal resilience is focused on informational warfare and democracy, insisting on securing access to credible information, and independent media tackling manipulation and foreign interference at an informational space level. Additionally, there is the resilience of democratic processes and that of the society facing disruptive technologies used by the strategic competitors of the EU or by third-party states. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, these strategies of resilience have come to the fore with a vengeance: there is the disruption of energy supplies; supply chains for wheat etc; transport routes via the Black Sea; and the distortion of information coming out of the battle field.
If we look at a possible project of resilience, let us say vis-a-vis Venezuela, relevant characteristics have to include democracy and freedoms versus authoritarianism and closed, dictatorial regimes. They are related to the strength and depth of national identity; the degree of revisionism, measured at the level of international actors; and the global relevance and influence of one’s system of values and ideology. We cannot ignore the fact that the regional hegemon – the US – use institutionalisation of democracy as the major criterion for its approval.
One authoritative study has proposed seven fundamental societal characteristics, all of them part of societal resilience, even though they are not easily quantified. The work in this field that lies ahead of us are: national ambition; shared opportunities and competitive access for all citizens; a common and coherent national identity; an active state; efficient social institutions; a major interest for learning and adaptation; and a high degree of diversity and pluralism in the society.
