The terms security and resilience are often used together, in particular at the national level. Both share common roots and requirements: the need to assess threats and vulnerabilities; the need to develop plans and procedures; and the need to have access to accurate and timely information.

There are advantages in bringing together national security and resilience. First, the large investment which governments are making in national security, such as hardening their country’s critical infrastructure including utilities and transport, is also making each country more resilient. Also, by bringing together resilience and national security, governments are better able to encourage a greater degree of standardisation and interoperability between first responders such as the police, fire authorities, health bodies and volunteer emergency services.

There are, however, significant areas of difference and departure between national security and resilience. The threats to national security are usually inspired by the security forces or agents of other countries, terrorists or anarchists who aim to destabilise a government and its people, and national security aims to block or defeat such threats. In contrast, resilience involves an ongoing process of assessing a broad range of risks and threats, preparing to face such threats, accepting that some threats will become disruptive events, reducing the impact of events when they occur, and then recovering afterwards.