Setting the Stage and Outlook: Investing in Resilience

One of the hard lessons that pandemics and infodemics, conventional and less conventional threats, electricity blackouts, hacked pipelines and other systems, and malign interference in democracies teach us is that investing in the resilience of our societies is essential to effectively adapt to, plan, withstand, and recover from crises and burgeoning challenges. Resilience is NATO’s first line of defense. Military forces increasingly rely on civilian services and infrastructure, while potential adversaries use military, political, and economic tools to undermine Allies’ security. This panel will focus on the importance of investing in an adaptive, integrated, and coordinated approach to resilience among NATO Allies. It will zoom in on various actors and tools of interference and address ways to raise NATO’s level of ambition on resilience.

What makes successful resilience a linchpin for national and collective security and defense? How can Allies do more together to effectively maintain, empower, invest, and further capacities and commitments to resist asymmetric threats and outperform malign actors in a transforming geopolitical landscape? How should NATO work together with national governments, partner countries, and other international organizations when it comes to democratic, societal, and economic resilience?