By Rachel Miller-Sprafke

The modern security environment presents an unprecedented challenge. Throughout history security requirements and the defence policies initiated therein have been subject to change, yet never before have the concepts themselves been so completely revolutionized. An unprecedented level of risk has compelled people of every stratum in society, from members of the public to those responsible for their defence, to do the impossible: to prepare for threats that have not yet materialized.

Previous changes in security and defence have not been conceptual, but practical. Technological developments and budget increases altered the potential of defensive policies. Political, economic, and social changes affected state relations, and therefore who and what was to be perceived as a security threat. What society faces now, however, is a complete revolution in the concept of security. It is an expansion necessitated by the increasing number of potential risks, which are no longer limited to traditional military notions of security. Threats are emerging from fields that were never previously included in the remit of defence, covering a spectrum from energy shortages to economic recession to climate change to global disease pandemic. The security sector is growing to include these new types of risks, but its expansion does not stop at these borders. Beyond these risks that are quantifiable lies the vast realm of the unknown. Here belong the dangers that have no name, where threats that do not yet exist lie in wait. The definition of security is evolving to include protection from the unpredictable, and thus defence policy must now do the seemingly impossible: to account for dangers that do not exist, to think the unthinkable.