Ronald Bearse – “Understanding Critical Infrastructure” from Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1)
Released 6 January 2023
This podcast based on Chapter 1 in Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1 answers the questions: What is critical infrastructure? Why is it important? What is the difference between critical infrastructure protection (CIP) and critical infrastructure security and resilience (CISR)? What are some of the key terms defined in national CISR policy? What are the core areas of activity or work streams involved in implementing CISR policy in and across the North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations?
The answers to these specific questions provide the contextual basis for understanding why CISR is a quintessential societal task for maintaining national security, economic vitality, and public health and safety in a world filled with increasing levels of risk. For NATO member states, building and enhancing CISR at the national level is necessary to safeguard societies, people, and shared values and also provide the foundation for credible deterrence and defense and the Alliance’s ability to fulfill its core tasks of collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security.
Click here to read the book.
Click here to watch the webinar.
Keywords: critical infrastructure, CIP, CISR, CBRNE, cyber threats, security risk assessment, crisis management
Episode transcript "Understanding Critical Infrastructure" from Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1)
Stephanie Crider (Host)
You're listening to Conversations on Strategy.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
Conversations on Strategy welcomes Ronald Bearse, author of “Understanding Critical Infrastructure,” featured in Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure and Resiliency. Bearse is an expert in critical infrastructure protection and national preparedness, with more than 23 years of experience in the US Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Treasury.
Ron, welcome to Conversations on Strategy. You recently contributed to a book, Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency. I'm looking forward to hearing about your chapter, but first, thank you for being here.
Ronald Bearse
Well thanks Steph. Yeah, I'm happy to discuss that with you today.
Host
What is critical infrastructure?
Bearse
Although there's no real global or standard or universal definition of critical infrastructure, most, if not all, European and NATO nations, which have a national CIP or CISR policy or national plan, define critical infrastructure as those physical and cyber systems, facilities, and assets that are so vital that their incapacity or their destruction would have a debilitating impact on a nation's national security, economic security, or national public health and safety.
We kind of understand them (and most people do) as those facilities and services that are so vital to the basic operations of a given society 9like the one we live in) or those without which the functioning of a given society would be greatly impaired. In our book, for example, we talk about critical infrastructure sectors. Here in the United States, for example, we have 16 critical infrastructure sectors where assets and systems and networks, whether they're physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on our national economic security or public health and safety. Those sectors include, here in the United States, and for most Western nations, the same types and same sectors, such as the chemical sector or the dam sector, commercial facilities. Communications sector. Critical manufacturing.
This podcast based on Chapter 1 in Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1 answers the questions: What is critical infrastructure? Why is it important? What is the difference between critical infrastructure protection (CIP) and critical infrastructure security and resilience (CISR)? What are some of the key terms defined in national CISR policy? What are the core areas of activity or work streams involved in implementing CISR policy in and across the North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations?
The answers to these specific questions provide the contextual basis for understanding why CISR is a quintessential societal task for maintaining national security, economic vitality, and public health and safety in a world filled with increasing levels of risk. For NATO member states, building and enhancing CISR at the national level is necessary to safeguard societies, people, and shared values and also provide the foundation for credible deterrence and defense and the Alliance’s ability to fulfill its core tasks of collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security.
Click here to read the book.
Click here to watch the webinar.
Keywords: critical infrastructure, CIP, CISR, CBRNE, cyber threats, security risk assessment, crisis management
Episode transcript "Understanding Critical Infrastructure" from Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1)
Stephanie Crider (Host)
You're listening to Conversations on Strategy.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
Conversations on Strategy welcomes Ronald Bearse, author of “Understanding Critical Infrastructure,” featured in Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure and Resiliency. Bearse is an expert in critical infrastructure protection and national preparedness, with more than 23 years of experience in the US Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Treasury.
Ron, welcome to Conversations on Strategy. You recently contributed to a book, Enabling NATO's Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency. I'm looking forward to hearing about your chapter, but first, thank you for being here.
Ronald Bearse
Well thanks Steph. Yeah, I'm happy to discuss that with you today.
Host
What is critical infrastructure?
Bearse
Although there's no real global or standard or universal definition of critical infrastructure, most, if not all, European and NATO nations, which have a national CIP or CISR policy or national plan, define critical infrastructure as those physical and cyber systems, facilities, and assets that are so vital that their incapacity or their destruction would have a debilitating impact on a nation's national security, economic security, or national public health and safety.
We kind of understand them (and most people do) as those facilities and services that are so vital to the basic operations of a given society 9like the one we live in) or those without which the functioning of a given society would be greatly impaired. In our book, for example, we talk about critical infrastructure sectors. Here in the United States, for example, we have 16 critical infrastructure sectors where assets and systems and networks, whether they're physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on our national economic security or public health and safety. Those sectors include, here in the United States, and for most Western nations, the same types and same sectors, such as the chemical sector or the dam sector, commercial facilities. Communications sector. Critical manufacturing.
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