After Russia’s worst attacks on Kyiv in months damaged the European Union delegation’s office — and the British Council’s — all of Europe should realise it may be under threat. New warnings from France’s outgoing Chief of Defence General Thierry Burkhard and from former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi only serve to reinforce the awareness of Europe’s vulnerability.
Moreover, during the summer just ending, newly released official documents have stressed the importance of a much-neglected subject: the readiness of European countries to withstand and recover from a wide variety of threats which would imperil the functioning and perhaps even the survival of their societies — especially threats emanating from a hostile Russia. Much of that readiness depends not only on governments but on the private sector, both operating independently and working together with public authorities. Their joint goal should be to pursue 360º resilience – a whole-of-society comprehensive security model – across all of society and across all of Europe.
In June, the UK issued its 2025 Strategic Defence Review, composed of five pillars, the fifth of which is a ‘whole-of-society approach widening participation in national resilience’. Also in June, the final declaration of the NATO summit in The Hague explained that the additional 1.5 percent of defence expenditure beyond core NATO spending of 3.5 percent of GDP was designed ‘to inter alia protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience’. France’s National Strategic Review in July adopts as one of its eleven core priorities ‘a united and resilient France contributing to the moral rearmament of the nation’.
Yet none of the Western European countries — including Germany and the Netherlands — is even remotely prepared for 360º resilience. This summer’s five-part podcast by SkyNews, The Wargame, showed just how far the UK might be from the ability to anticipate, manage, or recover from a surprise external shock successfully.
By contrast, Finland has developed an effective whole-of-society comprehensive security model over decades, in which business and government coordinate intensely and permanently. Sweden, too, implements a ‘total defence’ model. But go further away from the Russian border in Europe, and any acute awareness of threats from hostile sources seems to diminish rapidly. Yet the mantra repeated by Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, sums it up: we are not at war but we are not at peace.
The majority of society’s critical functions throughout Europe today are performed by shareholder-owned companies, not under the control of the state. Nicholas Dungan
Unlike during any previous ‘wartime’ in Europe, the majority of society’s critical functions throughout Europe today are performed by shareholder-owned companies, not under the control of the state. Private-sector businesses ‘own and operate the majority of the infrastructure, services and production that are critical for security in society’, as the Finnish Security Strategy for Society, published in January 2025, recognises. Admiral Rob Bauer, the former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands, says in a new book that CEOs should ask themselves whether their company is prepared for war and what their company can do to prevent war.
Private-sector companies conduct their own emergency response planning at the corporate level, including cybersecurity, but in most cases have yet to be fully mobilised against, or even begun to prepare independently for, direct or asymmetric hostile actions threatening the vital functions of society as a whole — non-military threats requiring a non-military response.
What’s at stake for businesses may be the success or, again, even the survival of their own enterprises. Moreover, any catastrophe or disaster will not just produce society-wide impacts but will directly affect a business’s own stakeholders. Business leaders need to focus on at least four key areas of preparedness: systems, society, finance, and private-public coordination.
Systems includes how your company would fare in case of severe damage to critical infrastructure, cutoff of communications networks, loss of electricity, lack of fuel availability, system-wide data and cyber security attacks beyond the company itself, the sabotage of transport systems, scarcity or spoiling of food supplies, poisoning or lack of availability of public water supply.
Companies’ preparedness vis-à-vis society must include policies to respond to disruption or catastrophe concerning employees, customers, suppliers and communities. They need to anticipate issues related to disaster relief, health care emergencies, political disruption and the civil disorder that could ensue if societal unity collapses.
Financial readiness means formulating plans for the failure of payment systems and interruptions to the functioning of capital markets, banking and insurance, and financial media. It requires moving well beyond legal and regulatory constraints, questions of legal or financial liability or a compliance mindset.
Coordination demands that companies maintain continuous pre-crisis interaction with civil and military authorities at local, regional, national, and European levels, as well as with other companies and civil society organisations, to be prepared to respond together when the crisis comes.
Trust in politicians and governments has plunged to all-time lows across many European countries. It is up to business leaders to seize the initiative and assume their own responsibility for the implementation of 360º resilience across the European continent, together with their political and military counterparts. It will be a test of the character, courage and citizenship of CEOs to see whether they are prepared to step up to the challenge.
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
Image: Alamy, Vladyslav Sodel
