WASHINGTON, DC – March 14, 2024 – The Atlantic Council announced today the launch of the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative, a new program focused on advancing resilience as a core tenet of US and allied national security policy and practice.
The creation of the Initiative was made possible by a generous donation from Adrienne Arsht, business leader, impact philanthropist, executive vice chair of the Atlantic Council, and founder of the Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. The Initiative will be housed in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, which is led by Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and director of studies at the Atlantic Council.
Resilience—the ability of individuals, communities, or systems to withstand and recover from shocks—is a national security imperative in an increasingly contested world marred by wars across continents and non-traditional threats from sources such as climate change and emerging technologies. To help the United States better prepare for and succeed amid 21st century challenges, this program will examine sources of, and develop strategies for enhancing, national security resilience across key pillars of individual, community, and systemic resilience. It will study ways to strengthen individual resilience in national security leaders and personnel, including US servicemembers and diplomats, and bolster community and systemic resilience across several fields. The Initiative will examine domains including critical infrastructure and cybersecurity resilience, resilience to terrorist attacks, climate and food system resilience, mental health, PTSD, and more.
“The Atlantic Council is honored to house the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative,” said Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council. “The Initiative comes at a critical time. As the United States works to address today’s most urgent security crises, including the largest land war in Europe since World War II, it must simultaneously develop more ready and resilient strategies to ensure that the US and allies are well-equipped to confront emerging threats and disruptions of tomorrow. National security resilience is an understudied and underserved dimension of US and allied strength that demands greater attention.”
Through coalition-building among national security experts, resilience professionals, US and allied policymakers, and civil society, and through dynamic public and private programming and research, the Initiative will elevate resilience as an integral aspect of national security discourse and decision-making in Washington and around the world.
“I am thrilled to launch the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative,” said Adrienne Arsht. “I have spent much of my life focused on understanding resilience as a powerful source of strength and capacity-building across disciplines – from the arts, to climate change, to the military and veterans. I have seen firsthand the transformative impact that a resilience mindset, backed by action, can have in unlocking the greatness and full potential of individuals and societies. I look forward to the Initiative’s groundbreaking work in pursuit of this mission.”
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About the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world. The Center honors General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service and embodies his ethos of nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders.