SECURITY THREATS, STRATEGY AND PREDICTION SCENARIOS: A NEW SYNTHESIS

Abstract

The paper on security predictions and corresponding strategic documents works on the
assumption that long-term security concepts cannot be based on an estimate of security threats
expressed descriptively, as they are elusive (i.e. unable to be predicted) in this form. The article
is thus grounded in the premise that security planning should be based not on knowledge of
concrete threats, but rather on an idea of a resilient state system capable of adaptive and
transformative response to a wide range of rather vague/unidentifiable security threats. This
state-system approach should include adequate determination of the significance of the
system’s protected assets (interests), ranging from prosperity to integrity. The levels of asset
significance determined in this way should be assigned with specific system parameters (mainly
agent and dynamics) of corresponding threats (i.e. not only on the basis of an ‘experts
estimate’). In addition, the paper states that aside from threats and asset significance captured
as given above, security concepts should also include inspirational scenarios, in which
phenomena formulated on the basis of pre-set system criteria will be the threats of protected
interests of the state.