Assessing Economic Resilience in NATO Countries: A Comprehensive Defence Perspective

Abstract

Economic resilience, considered in this paper as the ability to withstand and recover from economic shocks and disruptions, has become a linchpin of ensuring national security and stability. As demonstrated by conflicts such as the one in Ukraine, where economic sanctions were deployed to diminish an adversary’s capacity to sustain its war efforts, it has become evident that military power alone is insufficient in today’s complex security landscape. A comprehensive approach to defence must incorporate economic considerations, as the economic well-being of a nation is intrinsically linked to its overall security. The main research objectives of this paper are to investigate the concept of economic resilience, from the perspective of the concept of comprehensive defence and the ways it is interconnected with other resilience domains, through the development of an economic resilience index outlining the relative economic resilience of the 29 European countries that are NATO members and to propose a methodology for identifying the main factors that influence the economic resilience from a comprehensive defence point of view.