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Resilience and National Security

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The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence

Abstract

Although “resilience” is a commonly used term, it has multiple meanings and lacks precision. The aim of this chapter is to provide a scholarly review of resilience for national security, including future directions and needs. The chapter considers problems that have been raised about resilience in the literature, and then analyses these when applied to national security. The method used was a researcher review of the substantial, growing, inter-disciplinary and largely immature body of literature. Resilience for national security is an area that extends far beyond military concepts. Current diverse issues include the transfer of some resilience responsibilities from governments to communities, managing private sector partner collaboration and the limited empirical research available on how to build resilience in organisations. Future empirical research undertaken in organisational settings will provide more guidance on how to develop resilience. This review is indicative that much of it will be transferable to a national security context. The chapter points to future directions and research opportunities. For a life-critical issue like resilience from a national security context, there is obvious value in increased clarity of understanding.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia

    Gail Ridley

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  1. Gail Ridley
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Correspondence to Gail Ridley .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Robert Dover

  2. Department of War Studies, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

    Huw Dylan

  3. Department of War Studies, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

    Michael S. Goodman

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Ridley, G. (2017). Resilience and National Security. In: Dover, R., Dylan, H., Goodman, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53675-4_5

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