Towards a Baltic Sea Region Strategy in Critical ... - Helsinki.fi

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION IN THE BALTIC SEA REGION
economic, political and administrative systems and cultures as well as institutional
solutions as to international cooperation and integration, and very fragmented and
multilayered regional networks.
The introductory chapter goes on by discussing the question of ‘what are
critical infrastructures’. In analytic, academic and practical literature, a wide range
of definitions can be found. Moreover, the definitions vary across the countries
and the exact context, though they have much in common. The concept of critical
infrastructure has also had different meanings at different times.
The chapter reviews some relevant official definitions of critical
infrastructure in the comparative perspectives of the United States, North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, the European Union, and the Baltic Sea Region countries.
This overview shows that though these definitions overlap, they are also in many
ways different in their exact understandings of what are the critical sectors and
also in more fundamental perspective about what to focus on in their strategies.
However, while infrastructures or critical infrastructures were perhaps earlier
understood as something very tangible and concrete, either physical or information
and communication technology systems, there seems to be a trend towards a
broad, holistic understanding of critical infrastructure, where it is understood as
networks or systems of vital functions of the society as a whole, or the
infrastructures embedded in, or supporting, these functions. This trend is
especially visible in the Baltic Sea Region among the Nordic countries.
Another question is that of what kinds of threats the critical infrastructure
should be protected against. It seems that also the threat picture is more of a
variable than fixed, shifting considerably depending on the country in question and
its recent experiencies. The emergence of the United States and European Union
approaches on critical infrastructure protection are closely connected to the threat
of terrorism. However, there seems to be a trend towards approaches based on a
so-called all-hazards approach while countering threats from terrorism as a
priority.
This terrorism-as-a-priority-threat approach has some support in the Baltic
Sea Region when it comes to what the specifically European level of critical
infrastructure protection should focus on. However, many countries in the region
are fundamentally basing at least their own national strategies on all-hazards
approach, which somewhat complicates the harmonization of the national and
European levels of critical infrastructure protection.
There is also a debate rising about focusing more on resilience than mere
protection. A resilient infrastructure is a system that is able to withstand damage or
disruption, but if affected, can be readily and cost-effectively restored. Very often,
achieving the desired level of protection is simply not cost-effective in relation to
the actual threats. As full protection can never be achieved, it has been started to
ask whether the money could be better spent on making the proper preparations in
order to ensure a graceful degrading of the infrastructure when disaster eventually
takes place. It is concluded in the introductory chapter that this is an approach
which would particularly well match the general societal security approaches in at
least the Nordic countries.
Another issue discussed in the introduction is that of interdependencies. It is
a common feature of critical infrastructures that they are connected to other
infrastructures at several different points, forming a complex and dynamic system.
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