The Resilience Imperative

I wanted to share my short guest letter in the latest "In The Grayzone" update from Elisabeth Braw with you. You can subscribe here:?https://hello.aei.org/Braw-In-The-Grayzone-Subscription.html

The Resilience Imperative

These are overwhelming times. Skyrocketing inflation, supply chain pressures, energy crisis in Europe, an upcoming food emergency are but symptoms of the world defined by the lack of resilience.?

How did we get here and how can we leap out of it? Two trends are evident - geostrategic competition is here to stay, while climate change effects are inescapable. Russia’s chosen and unprovoked war against Ukraine has been a spark that boosted volatility, which further splintered the global commons, on values and valuables. Climate change continues to bring havoc through once-in-centuries floods, droughts, and other natural anomalies.??

Hence, the resilience imperative is here, posing complex challenges that require, first and foremost, a shift in thinking. First, everything now is grayzone and, thus, collaboration at scale is needed to “unblur” the lines. While the “whole of government” approach to complex national problems is valuable, to tackle bigger cross-border resilience challenges collaboration at much greater scale should be built.

Second, investing means leadership. For example, both defense spending and climate-focused investments are relevant and needed to build a more resilient future. In the end, a NATO-run venture capital fund or climate investments seeded by US or other governments are about leadership where the biggest outcome will be an emergence of other capital providers, accelerating innovation and, hopefully, strengthening resilience.?

Resilience is also about courage to ask complex questions. If energy powers progress, how do we transition to renewables, while mitigating economic, social, and political fallouts? Given that physical goods are essential, how do we build supply chains resistant to geopolitical and climate risks? If the future is inevitably more digital, how do we build trust in an increasingly connected world?