Connections

The Summer 2020 issue of Connections: The Quarterly Journal is dedicated to the concept of resilience, its evolution from the field of engineering, through psychology and to the ubiquitous referencing to resilience in numerous security and defense policy documents. The first article provides an excellent overview of this evolution and highlights the main points of friction between theory and practice. It is followed by presentation of a simple structure of the concept, yet with anticipation of its high utility. Three articles take a deep look into the promise the concept provides for devising advanced security policies. That includes an article of the need for resilient political institutions, co-authored by Ioan Mircea Pascu, former Vice-President of the European Parliament and Romanian defense minister. A contribution from Belgium studies the resilience of the police officers active at the Brussels airport in the aftermath of the 2016 terrorist act. A contribution from Japan wraps up the issue with a review of the experience in increasing resilience to floods.