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Resilience is an increasingly important concept and quality in today’s world. It is particularly important in the area of Critical Infrastructures. It is crucial in the area of Critical Information Infrastructure. This is because, since the year 2000, man has been dependent on information and telecommunications systems for survival, particularly in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and because all other Critical Infrastructures depend upon, to a greater or lesser extent, Critical Information Infrastructure.

In general this book is very OECD focused, and specifically UK, USA, and Europe centric. It discusses, in fairly broad terms, the shape the OECD and these countries are in to bounce back from damage to Critical Infrastructures. It looks specifically at the OECD because its constituents have the greatest reliance on a particular technology: telecommunications. Over 95% of the world’s data traffic goes through the OECD. Such a figure has statistical significance; and defines an approach to life. This book is therefore also focused on Critical Information Infrastructure. It is impossible in a work such as this to review all the threats and potential challenges to such wide-ranging foundations of our modern society. However, it is possible to identify a number of common themes of relevance to each of the main areas. To start, however, we need a common understanding of what Critical Infrastructure and Critical Information Infrastructures are. This is surprisingly difficult, and one of the reasons there is some concentration in this book on the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand is because they have taken the definition and understanding of Critical Infrastructures further than most others in the OECD. There is the start of a common theme in the approaches of these countries.

Resilience has a number of meanings. It is therefore important to be clear from the outset what is meant by Resilience in this book. Some common definitions of Resilience are the following.

This review of Critical Infrastructures and Critical Information Infrastructures looks at the major issues from different geographical viewpoints. The purpose of this is to give some understanding to the issues and importance of the overall subject in a number of different countries. The key countries looked at here are the UK, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Europe is also covered in some detail. This is simply because in any literature search they are clearly leaders in this field.

This Chapter seeks to identify issues relevant to each of the common Critical Infrastructures. Each infrastructure is looked at briefly from a general perspective; then some comments are made about each infrastructure from an international, national, and then a local and individual perspective. There are many threats to these infrastructures and so this review may seem pessimistic. However, it remains a challenge to the society to deliver solutions to problems such as these.

The review of Critical Infrastructure so far gives a somewhat confusing picture. There is a lack of clarity between Critical Infrastructures and Critical Information Infrastructures in almost all documentation related to Critical Infrastructure. Although the terms are not used specifically in an interchangeable manner, it remains the case that there is a considerable amount of overlap in the use of the terms. However, a common list of what are termed Critical Infrastructures has been arrived at. They are complemented by Critical Information Infrastructure. This Chapter seeks to place Critical Information Infrastructure in its correct context.

There are so many political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal, and other effects on Critical Infrastructures that this Chapter can only highlight a few. A reasonable view would be that everything of this nature affects Critical Infrastructure. The major political driver with regard to Critical Infrastructure and particularly Critical Information Infrastructure in the OECD and, arguably, in the rest of the world is the USA government. Therefore much of this Chapter’s political section relates to effects that have an origin in the USA. The economics section looks at some of the actual resilience of Capitalism and some of the dangers marketers face. Social, technological, and environmental sections look at some current issues relevant to Critical Infrastructures. The legal section looks at the USA Patriot Act and the recent Civil Contingencies Act in the UK. Some comments are made about risk management.

This Chapter looks at some aspects of the private sector approach to resilience. There are a number of ways this can be approached by both business and as a subject. However, over the last twenty years or so, there has been continuous development of an approach related to firstly disaster recovery, then business recovery, then business continuity, and, most recently, a move toward business resilience; which will potentially obsolete all the former. This progression has seen the development of some standards. These have been focused on the regulated businesses. This Chapter charts this journey and ends by comparing a significant number of the different standards now in use. As this book goes to press the new Business Continuity Standard in the UK, BS25999, has been published, which is really the next step in the business continuity industry’s development. As with all Critical Infrastructures, the mission critical elements of a business are almost always related to Information Infrastructures these days. Hence the concentration on standards related to Information Infrastructure. This Chapter reproduces text from articles by the author originally published in Continuity Planning’s online newsletter.

This chapter sets out some very general and wide-ranging views, slightly tongue in cheek, about a possible future trading bloc and consequences, based on Critical Information Infrastructure and posing a potential threat to European and OECD resilience in economic terms. This shows that the existing Infrastructure is not just of use to potential asymmetric fighters. The more detailed, and serious, work behind these views has been looked at in the Universities of Northumbria and Nice, at the European Telecommunications Resilience and Recovery Association and the Institut Pericles. The issue dealt with here is about a different type of approach to resilience.

This Chapter seeks to demonstrate that holistic thinking is required when outsourcing in business. Failure to think of the whole picture may lead to Information Infrastructure, in particular, being corrupted. It emphasizes the primacy of Information Infrastructures over other Infrastructures in the private sector. Call centers are Information-Infrastructure-dependent businesses that have been increasingly outsourced over recent years. This Chapter will be an example of how to encourage a strategic approach to Information Infrastructure, as opposed to a tactical approach to a business issue. This should help the distinction between resilience, recovery, and continuity.

This Chapter is concerned with bringing together much of the foregoing. There is a little repetition here of earlier comments and statements. This is supposed to be helpful by way of putting a number of ideas into a context. It does this by exploring the strategic importance of the relationship between Information Infrastructure, telecommunications resilience, recovery and security and both Asymmetric Warfare and Obstructive Marketing. This relationship is neither well documented nor well understood. However, it is important to a philosophical and pragmatic approach for sustaining order, development, and cohesion in Information Infrastructure. This is because it is now clear that the success of the western/northern world economies, and sustainability for other economies, is increasingly dependent on the reliable operation of Information Infrastructure.