Perpetual Risk, Security Adaptation and Changing Threats: The Infinite Game of Resilience and Sustainability

Safety, security, risk management and resilience are endlessly personal, public and corporate pursuits involving individuals systems of interest (SoI) and systems of systems (SoS).

That is, as threats, hazards, danger, infinite, and peril remain persistent, adaptive, evolving and potentially infinite realities of life, business and survival.

However, unlike other games and leisurely pursuits, there is no agreed conclusion, scheduled finish or 'rules' of engagement or prescribed duration.

"Finite games end with a winner and loser.?"

(Willet, 2022:563)

They also have a set duration, objective governance and set finish. Safety, security, risk management, and resilience to not. Our individual and collective efforts for feeling, experiencing and assuring a safe, secure, agreeable, and desirable environment are not only never-ending but also passed down through the generations.

"Systems thinking provides insight into security as an infinite game."

(Willet, 2022:563)

Therefore, safety, security and risk management can be seen as adaptive, contextual legacy systems requiring constant revision, update and adaptation. Just like our adversaries, threats, hazards, perils and ever-new dangers that nascent technologies and innovations may bring to the local, national and global playing field(s).

However, change, transition and uplift are dependent upon foreseeable, known, proximal and calculated threats, vulnerabilities and the resulting risk(s).

"The primary goal of all systems is to provide value-delivery within constraints of cost/benefit.?"

(Willet, 2022:564)

In other words, security, safety and risk need to be right sized or fit for purpose.

Too much results in waste, fatigue and deprivation of liberties.

Too little results in frequent negative events, greater bad actions/actors and diminished asset value or utility.

Moreover, yesterday's security is not tomorrows security and the risk of exposure, loss or damage changes with the threat and array of potential, negative outcomes.

Quite often the value of loss grows with our value creation or generation.

That is, the more we make or more efficient we become, disruption, delay, harm or destruction draws from this greater value base and future earnings.

Hence, the infinite game by all parties or stakeholders. Declared or not. Known or otherwise.

In sum, security, safety, resilience and risk management are dynamic, evolving systems which are interrelated to one or many more other systems.

They are not static artefacts, widgets, spreadsheets, guns, guards or gates. Socio-technical systems consist of human actors, machines, technology and environment in differing measures or scales.

Automation and digital twins routinely conceal or obfuscate such systems and interactions, in addition to adding and amplifying complexity, dependency and ultimately risk.

In short, systems can be mapped.

Systems can be studied, understood, influenced and improved.

But you need to know or approach the issue as a systems challenge in the first instance.

Otherwise, you just end up administering things, tasks, reports, views and assets.

Hence, at an elevated level, safety, security, risk and resilience remain amalgams of hard and soft sciences, routinely interacting and influenced by emergent research, theories, discoveries and actors. This too is a contributing system.

Making the task all the more complex, infinite and potentially rewarding, if done well.

Ridley Tony

Security, Risk, Resilience, Safety & Management Sciences

Reference:

Willet, K. (2022). Systems thinking in security, in Masys, A. (ed) Handbook of Security Sciences, Springer, pp.553-572