Abstract
Aim: The aim of the article is to determine the understanding of the challenges, threats and risks that constitute cognitive factors relevant to the need to assess the impact of these factors on the state and its security. The achievement of this goal has been guided by the working hypothesis: cognitive factors relevant to the needs of assessing the state and its security challenges, threats and risks will probably analytically define these concepts through the complementary use of word formation, induction, philological and intuitive methods.
Project and methods: The scientific problem was addressed, and the working hypothesis was examined, in three stages. First, the author determined how challenges, threats and risks were approached in the literature on the subject. Then, during the second stage, the author used the methods mentioned in the hypothesis to formulate realistic, analytical concepts for these terms. Finally, in the third stage, the author developed a deductive model for evaluating the achievement of national security goals to operationalise and, consequently, verify the established understanding of the terms in question.
Results: The applied research procedure allowed the author to establish the assumed understanding of challenges, threats and risks. As a result, a challenge to national security is considered a situation in the country or its neighbouring areas, which – if not detected and identified in time, and not responded to with appropriately selected and arranged activities taken in the right time and at the right place – can transform into threats to the state. A threat to national security, on the other hand, is a series of events taking place inside and/or outside the country, which undermine its structure and/ or prevent it from fulfilling its functions, which makes it impossible or difficult to achieve: − the inviolability of the territory of the state, its identity and sovereignty, − the survival of the nation, − maintenance of internal order and legal order, − quality of life and development of the nation. Finally, the author established that risk is an indicator of the threats or danger to the state that could lead to losses. This risk can be considered to be the result of the probability of the occurrence of such threats and dangers, and of the likely magnitude of the losses they might cause, as well as the vulnerability of the entity concerned. This approach to understanding risk allows us to analyse national risks in terms of a measurable value of the risk vector and its orientation in the three-dimensional Euclidean space. Moreover, based on own research results, the author developed a graphical model for assessing the achievement of the national security goals. The model operationalizes the proposed conceptualization of the terms in question, and at the same time directs further research towards the identification of measurement methods for such factors as risks inherent in the challenges, risks themselves and risks in the assessment of the effects of such threats.
Keywords: challenge, threat, risk, state security, definition
Type of article: original scientific article