My new article in The European asks a simple but increasingly important question: what does security mean when it is impossible to protect every critical system against every conceivable threat?
Modern societies become more capable through technology, but also more dependent on infrastructures that cannot simply be allowed to fail. Energy grids, water supply, communications and other critical systems create new forms of vulnerability precisely because they are indispensable.
Using recent disruptions in German energy infrastructure and Israeli seawater desalination plants, I argue that security cannot be reduced to prevention alone. Resilience matters just as much: redundancy, reserves, repair capacity and the ability to restore essential functions quickly after a breakdown.
