On 10 September 2001, the global security agenda was primarily focused on the actions of rogue states and the competition for global dominance between the world’s most powerful countries and alliances. By the afternoon of 11 September, following the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, terrorism had reshaped the world’s sense of vulnerability and the trajectory of international security policy.
On 22 February 2022, just over two decades later, counterterrorism still dominated the agendas of many national-security apparatuses. So when large-scale conventional war returned to Europe after Russia attacked Ukraine, it exposed a lack of energy resilience, years of underinvestment in stockpiles of weapons and worryingly depleted industrial capacity.
But it is not only hostile acts that catch governments off guard. In the past five years, societies around the world have been shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic, devastating wildfires, unprecedented floods and record-breaking heatwaves. These events resulted in human, economic and political consequences that were often more devastating than acts of war or terrorism. These were not “threats” in the traditional sense; rather, they were what those in the risk-resilience space call “hazards”, and they highlight an ongoing convergence between civil preparedness and national security.
Political leaders cannot foresee every crisis. But they can build resilience into the system, ensuring their countries are tracking the evolution of risks and preparing contingency plans. By doing so, they give their countries the best possible chance of mitigating the impact of potential catastrophes.
The New Risk Landscape: Threats and Hazards
Risk resilience is about more than defending borders. It is about protecting what countries value most: human life, sovereignty, cultural identity, public services, economic stability, democratic integrity and the environment. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s work with governments today shows that this requires a broader definition of security than in the past.
The 21st-century security environment is an “imperfect storm” of interconnected risks: intensifying geopolitical rivalries and sophisticated disinformation campaigns in the context of climate change, pandemics and critical infrastructure failures. Meanwhile, a poor response to a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake can create conditions for rioting and looting, or even the weakening of already fragile states.
The evolving risks that countries face require a whole-of-government approach, whereby civil preparedness and national security are closely integrated; entities that once might have been remote from the work of national security now have a bigger role to play in risk preparedness. And given that budgets can never match the entire spectrum of possible risks, disciplined prioritisation is essential. This effort cannot be a one-off exercise: it must be dynamic and flexible, given that hazards and threats shift in likelihood and impact.
The Role of the National Risk Assessment
A national risk assessment (NRA) is essential if governments are to keep track of and adapt to the changing risk environment. It enables leaders to:
Clarify what they are trying to protect, known as “objects of value”
Identify and then track specific risks to those objects of value
Reassess and prioritise threats as their likelihood and impact shift
Drive planning and investment decisions that reflect the latest balance of risks
In this way, NRAs are not static documents but living frameworks. They allow governments to adapt to change rather than being locked into yesterday’s priorities. TBI has supported clients in conducting their own NRAs, some for the first time.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has witnessed first-hand the benefits and challenges that come with implementing a comprehensive NRA. One specific example was a client country in Eastern Europe, whose security environment has been threatened by constant hybrid attacks and destabilisation efforts.
The NRA process was enabled by the TBI country team, which facilitated cross-government discussions on a bilateral basis. The team worked hand in hand with government staff to provide capacity where needed and upskill when appropriate, including workshops for institutional risk owners on how to score and analyse risk.
By helping ministries and agencies understand the risk methodology underlying the NRA and facilitating discussions between departments, the TBI team made sure that the assessment was thorough, inclusive and practical. The NRA represented a strategic shift in resilience planning for this country; by contextualising the threats posed by hybrid pressures, it helped with the prioritisation of mitigation efforts. This included analysis of which cross-sector risks would have severe and cascading impacts, therefore requiring joint response plans. The NRA also strengthened preparedness and informed on directing investment in resilience; for instance, it highlighted where risks fell in between the gaps and were not being managed by any departments.
Most importantly, the process has bolstered institutional capacity, ensuring that departments within the government better understand their risk environment and can make decisions accordingly. Ministries and agencies are now required to incorporate risk evaluation into their annual planning cycles and assign dedicated roles for risk analysis using the NRA framework. “Thank you for helping us grow our security and risk resilience capacity,” said a senior official from the country in question, in correspondence with TBI. “[You are] helping us grow our capabilities in a manner that I hope will outlast those of us here in government today.”
While the path to national resilience can look long, investing in the process has helped the country’s government to better understand the risk environment, assign accountability to departments and highlight where further resources are needed.
From Assessment to Action
TBI’s experience supporting governments shows that conducting an NRA clarifies accountability, strengthens coordination and gives senior leaders a comprehensive view of their risk landscape. In the context of our Eastern Europe case study, the NRA process revealed that certain risks had no clear owner within the system. This insight prompted political leaders in the country to assign accountability and close those preparedness gaps.
But the real value lies not in the document itself, but in how political leaders use it to inform their decisions. The lesson is clear: assessment needs to guide action. When this happens, resources are aligned with the greatest risks, institutional knowledge is preserved and countries are ready to meet both the threats they see and the ones they know are coming.
In a world of constrained resources and expanding risks, governments cannot afford to prepare reactively. By examining hazards and threats together, NRAs provide the strong foundation from which to build national resilience in the face of crises to come.