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The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent targeted attacks on critical infrastructure (CI) have put the country and its population under immense pressure. However, Russian interference with Ukrainian CI did not begin in 2022 but goes back at least as far as 2014 and the events surrounding the annexation of Crimea.

This report represents the third installment in a series focused on identifying and analyzing trends significant for civil protection in Switzerland. It provides insights into trends expected to significantly impact the nation's civil protection system within the next five to ten years. Initiated by the Federal Office of Civil Protection (FOCP), this report aims to enhance horizon scanning capabilities within civil protection, a field necessitating ongoing adaptation. 

Cyber rapid response teams are becoming an increasingly prevalent form of incident response and mitigation at the national and supranational level. Nation-​states and international organizations have begun building out teams to efficiently manage incidents and leverage expertise across borders. 

Increasing natural hazards and complex emergencies require optimizations in the Swiss civil protection system. Joining the EU’s Copernicus program could ensure satellite imagery access for disaster risk reduction, helping to save lives, argues Jurgena Kamberaj in this issue of the CSS Policy Perspectives series.

The increasing frequency and magnitude of climate-exacerbated hazards, coupled with the growing vulnerability of societies worldwide, are raising the financial costs of disasters. Governments finance a larger share of these costs through post-disaster measures. However, reducing risk and optimizing the allocation of pre-disaster resources can reduce the negative financial impacts on governments, writes Simon Aebi in this edition of the CSS Analyses in Security Policy series.

As demand for critical minerals rises, an increase in recycling capacities can mitigate potential supply shortages. Switzerland has a strong track record in e-waste recycling, which it should capitalize on with a bigger emphasis on critical minerals, argues Julian Kamasa in this issue of the CSS Policy Perspectives series.

To identify opportunities for Switzerland to adapt to climate-exacerbated hazards, the latest CSS Risk and Resilience Report by Christine Eriksen, Andrin Hauri, Simon Aebi, and Jurgena Kamberaj examines changes initiated by Germany, Austria, France, and Italy in response to recent disasters.

The supply chain for rare earths needed for green technologies is dominated by China. To mitigate supply risks, European countries must invest in domestic mining, processing, and recycling capacities as well as international cooperation, argues Julian Kamasa in this CSS Policy Perspective.

Kevin Kohler’s CSS Risk and Resilience Report provides a comparative analysis of national risk assessments. It compares the assessments made by nine European countries and Swiss Re respectively of five types of cross-​border risks: electricity supply shortage, nuclear accident, pandemic, severe space weather, and volcanic outbreak. Even though the selected countries have correlated risk profiles for these hazards, the report finds noteworthy differences in their estimated likelihood and impact.

Due to their heightened relevance in the current security discourse, their potential destructive and strategic effects, and their increased use by malicious actors (state-​linked and criminal), software supply chain attacks are the focus of this CSS Cyberdefense Report by Sean Cordey. The overarching aim of this report is to provide an illustrative overview of software supply chain attacks and to raise awareness of the types of attacks, their uses, and their potential impacts.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and scope of security challenges. This calls for greater collaboration across formerly often siloed policy fields, as illustrated in the context of climate change adaptation by Swiss Civil Protection and Switzerland’s priorities on the UN Security Council, argue Christine Eriksen, Andrin Hauri, Joane Holliger, Simon J. A. Mason, Fabien Merz and Benno Zogg in this CSS Analysis.

The increasing frequency and scale of climate-exacerbated hazards require civil protection systems to adapt. Mitigation measures initiated following recent disasters in neighboring countries provide valuable lessons for Switzerland, argue Christine Eriksen, Andrin Hauri, David Nicolai Kollmann in this CSS Policy Perspective.

The triple nexus approach – understood as a more coherent engagement by humanitarian, peace, and development actors – is necessary to deal with the complexity of third-party engagements in fragile contexts. Implementing the triple nexus approach is challenging yet pivotal for more effective third-party impact, argue Fritz Brugger, Joane Holliger and Simon J. A. Mason in this CSS Policy Perspective.

Geopolitical instability underpins the short-term energy-saving measures adopted in Europe in preparation for winter. Climate change’s impact on energy insecurity highlights an urgent need to simultaneously integrate longer-term climate mitigation measures, argue Christine Eriksen and Andrin Hauri in this CSS Policy Perspective.

This CSS Risk and Resilience Report analyzes the crisis management of the canton of Grisons during the coronavirus pandemic from the beginning of the international spread of the new virus until the lifting of the special situation by the Federal Council in April 2022. The focus of the evaluation is on the further development of the cantonal crisis organization with regard to the entire spectrum of threats in the canton and the cantonal cooperation with federal authorities and other cantons.

While there are many different forms of public warning systems, the ones that use means of electronic communications services offer several advantages, such as increased reachability, as a large part of the population always has a mobile with them. This CSS Risk and Resilience Report by Andrin Hauri, Kevin Kohler and Benjamin Scharte identifies challenges for such multi-hazard warning apps and makes several recommendations on how to overcome them.

This CSS Risk and Resilience Report by Kevin Kohler reviews methods in strategic foresight that can help organizations to deal with and reduce uncertainty. The report uses examples from the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) domains and discusses some caveats, such as information hazards that are particularly relevant to this context. The overview it provides can be useful across a wide range of strategic decision-making processes.

Climate change will increasingly impact everyday life in Switzerland. Collaboration and swift adaptation measures are required to mitigate and cope with the consequences, argue Christine Eriksen and Andrin Hauri in this CSS Analysis.

Crisis situations require an enormous amount of flexibility from local administrations. Flexibility in the sense of changes in decision-​making structures, the recruitment of personnel and organizational processes, which lead to greater freedom of action for the actors involved. This practice paper summarizes the findings of the HybOrg research project and, based on its scientific results, it presents six recommended actions for successful and flexible administrative action in times of crisis.

This practice paper summarizes the findings of the HybOrg research project and uses its scientific results to derive concrete recommendations for action that should help to better coordinate local administrative action and civil society engagement in crises. The findings and recommendations are intended to also provide those responsible in the administration with practical decision-making support when dealing with the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Disasters know no political and geographical borders. International assistance can therefore play a crucial role in saving lives, livelihoods, and assets in disasters. This new CSS Risk and Resilience Report by Christine Eriksen, Andrin Hauri, Jan Thiel, and Benjamin Scharte provides an independent evaluation of the benefits, costs, opportunities, and risks for Switzerland in becoming a Participating State of the UCPM.

Artificial Intelligence, Digitalization, Climate Change – many overarching trends and developments have the potential to alter the lives of billions of people in the coming years. This CSS report aims to provide a systematic analysis of twelve technological, societal and environmental trends for the next ten years, and makes recommendations on how the civil protection system in Switzerland could be optimized in view of their impact.

Climate change plays a crucial role in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires. While the US and Australia have been particularly affected this year, Europe will increasingly face similar challenges, argues Christine Eriksen in this CSS Policy Perspective.

This Risk and Resilience Report by Kevin Kohler, Andrin Hauri, Florian Roth and Benjamin Scharte provides an overview of recent individual preparedness research. The report discusses a broad variety of indicators that can help to measure individual disaster preparedness and explores the data availability of these indicators for Switzerland.

In this CSS Corona Blog, Henrik Larsen writes that although the coronavirus pandemic did not trigger a transatlantic response, NATO found relevance in support of the civilian response: airlifting medical equipment and countering disinformation. The pandemic gives Allies renewed impetus to strengthen resilience and NATO to complement the national efforts in doing so.

Whether by predicting the global spread of the novel coronavirus originating from China or detecting wildfires in California, the use of artificial intelligence in civil protection promises to improve the prevention of, response to, and recovery from disasters. However, getting there requires rethinking data silos and assessing high-risk applications.

Research shows that close social ties, personal networks and helping each other are crucial in dealing with severe crises. This includes the current corona crisis. Thus, fighting the virus is about physical and not “social distancing”, argues CSS’ Benjamin Scharte in his contribution for the CSS Blog.

The ongoing corona pandemic will certainly lead to a variety of security policy implications, which we will investigate thoroughly in due time. However, some of our existing publications on resilience and disaster preparedness can already help us to better understand how societies react to emergencies such as the one we are facing today.

Supplying modern societies with important goods and services has become more volatile due to the globalization of the flow of goods. In Switzerland, enterprises and the state cooperate on national economic supply to ensure the provision of vital requirements in times of crises. Changes are required if this system is to continue in the future, argues Andrin Hauri in this CSS Analysis.

In this CSS Risk and Resilience Report, Marco Käser, Linda Maduz, Tim Prior & Florian Roth investigate the drivers of information seeking and hazard preparedness behaviour in the German and French speaking parts of Switzerland. The results show that people appear to be seeking more information about risks and demonstrate higher levels of risk perception, but this does not necessarily correlate with increased knowledge about potential preparations or actual preparation.

In this CSS Policy Perspective, Benjamin Scharte argues that critical infrastructures are becoming more complex and interdependent, which in turn is increasing their vulnerability. The resilience of these systems against disruption and failure is thus crucial. According to the author, engineers can help increase critical infrastructure resilience if they acknowledge the complexity and socio-technical nature of such infrastructure.

Collaborations of civic society and public administration play a key role for successful disaster management. This report by Tim Prior and Florian Roth addresses the challenges and opportunities of integrating volunteers in disaster management and civil protection. Further, it details 1) the relationships between state crisis management and the social environment in they take place, and 2) the instruments available to support volunteerism in the context of disaster management.

Disaster risk reduction policies can mitigate the most harmful impacts of natural hazards. This new CSS Analysis by Tim Prior and Florian Roth argues that lack of political support has often hamstrung effective prevention and preparedness, even though early action yields multiple benefits – to more than just the economy. A global conference in Geneva in May 2019, co-hosted by the UN and Switzerland, calls for political, financial and societal investments to reap the ‘resilience dividend’.

Smart cities need smart critical infrastructure protection. This means trusting technology to play a more substantial role in securing infrastructure for the resilient provision of critical services. Adapting to a future that includes artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things is a necessity, not a choice.

Switzerland’s contemporary threat and risk landscape has changed in recent years. But which risks do the Swiss public perceive as the most worrisome and what are the information needs of the Swiss public with regard to these threats? This CSS Risk and Resilience Report addresses these questions and more.

This new CSS report analyzes the economic, demographic and cultural factors influencing social vulnerability towards  major disasters in Zurich. The results suggest that social vulnerability can most effectively be addressed by a network of various governmental and non-governmental actors. Above all, actors in the social welfare domain and disaster management must be better integrated.

On 1 February, the CSS, LMU Munich and the University of Konstanz will launch a joint research project on local crisis management solutions in complex organizational settings.

On October 23rd, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin gave a presentation on the national and international aspects of Switzerland's security policy at ETH Zurich. Among other things, he underlined the importance for Switzerland to establish a cybersecurity unit.  

Global connectivity presents new security challenges for NATO, especially in relation to critical infrastructure interdependence. Building resilience though civil preparedness will be a paradigm changer for deterrence. 

Due to the growing importance of urban security issues, national and regional population protection structures are also under pressure.

The dividing lines between domestic and international security, police and defence, diplomacy and development, and federal and cantonal security actors are increasingly blurred. As a result, also professional careers and fields of work become strongly intertwined. This collaborative research project between the CSS and the University of Geneva, co-funded by the SNSF, draws on primary data of Swiss security professionals to analyse this ongoing reconfiguration of the Swiss security landscape.