Disruptive events permanently change our lives. The term “disruptive” means to break apart, to throw into disorder, to destroy. “Events” in this context are isolated events as well as ones that develop over a longer period of time.
In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, the consensus is that this is an unintended man-made event. Indeed, pandemic was one outcome of the 2013 process to identify disruptive event and classified as "probable" by, but not on the radar of, governments/states (see attached Leo - Gadner - Geiger, 2013).
As the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, most western countries were overly optimistic, reacted to late and have been ill prepared even for some of the most basic tasks (e.g. providing protection for medical staff). It was Asian countries - most notably Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore - that tackled earlies and effectivly the spread of Covid-19.
Disruptive events, then, are those that destroy or disintegrate existing things and replace them with something new. This can have negative as well as positive consequences. But what is significant is that they are difficult to predict and thus through ex ante measures can only be partly influenced (cf. Taleb, 2008).
Negative disruptive events are often divided into four categories:
1. Natural catastrophes (epidemics, volcano eruptions, meteorite impact, etc.)
2. Scientific accidents or laboratory accidents (e.g. release of bacteria)
3. Unintended man-made catastrophes (climate change, nuclear accidents, social upheavals, economic crises, corruption, political structures, food shortages, “alien species”, etc.) and
4. Intentional, man-made catastrophes (cyber wars, terrorist attacks, etc.).
This division can be generalised because all disruptive events can be described based the
- Length: Isolated event or longer lasting development)
- Cause: Man-made/human-caused or natural events
- Intention: Intentional or unintended events
It's therefore a question of whether a disruptive event is man-made. And whether a development manifested over a longer period of time depends heavily on individual values and life circumstances.
At the time we implicitly assumed that that most Western countries would be well prepared for such events. Contingency plans that deal with critical infrastructures, civil protection measures, etc. would help deal with almost all types of disruptive events. We formulate that "... this is not an abstract theoretical discussion; it is only a matter of time before an event occurs in which these precautions will be urgently needed. The development of crisis intervention plans, contingency plans and training of the population – also traditional civil protection measures – as well as dealing with critical infrastructure are by no means obsolete."
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