"The answer is simple: Build in resilience as a hedge against future shocks ... It inverts the old mantra that says the best defense is a good offense. When the goal is to stabilize the system, the best offense is a good defense." Thoughts in thread: https://twitter.com/WarOnTheRocks/status/1249638583071313920

"Societies at large must prepare to respond to crises before they occur, building in the adaptability and resilience required to pick up the pieces when the system falls apart."

Key to this is "when system fall apart". Focusing on defense is not focusing on resilience. Not the author's claim, but a reader could make that assumption. Across domains, it's common to think of defense as hardening: being resistant to stress such that impact is avoided.

To consider resilience, the scenario and subsequent analysis is conditional on a bad thing happening. The bad thing could be something the entire organization is working to avoid!

In my mental model, I add another requirement for resilience analysis: the post event system must adjust its behavior and resources applied to overcome the disruption and recover. Why? Otherwise the hazard wasn't enough to really impact business as usual, the system kept rolling.

Example: you get a flat tire. So you pull over and swap in the spare. What that a disruption? Sure. Does that scenario rise to the level or resilience analysis? Nah, the response was pretty much the same system as before the event.

There's nuance there, and this is just my mental model, but it's important to ensure the resilience analysis is expansive enough.

Otherwise, "we have a spare tire" would be treated as an effective resilience posture. And it isn't. Having a cell phone is. Having friends to call is. Having an appointment that can be rescheduled is.

But to consider the importance of such related systems and their properties, one must allow for the possibility that preparation and hardening failed.

I think the author here knows that. But it's a common blind spot. End of thread (for now).