The end of the Cold War and the shock of 9/11 have forced defence and security planners to consider the realities of a new and radically different international security environment. We no longer face the nuclear threat of theSoviet Union but, instead, new and more insidious threats, such as international terrorism, now constitute a real danger to our increasingly interlinked, interdependent society. Governments and international organisations are urgently reviewing the significance of this new situation. They recognise that it has created new security architecture: new enemies, a new battlefield and, most importantly, new combatants. Security is no longer simply the preserve of the military or even the nation state. Now it directly involves a broad cross-section of civil society.

At the forefront of modern civil society, international business is one of the most important elements of the new security architecture. Economic damage is increasingly the main objective of international terrorists and the inevitable consequence of other threats, such as organised crime. The interdependent nature of the modern global economy, which in the past has been the source of our productive strength, is now also a source of vulnerability. So, business itself is a target but it is also a major part of the solution to the frightening array of complex new security problems.

Modern businesses realise that the new security environment has important consequences for them. They know that, over the next decade, the pattern of defence spending and procurement will have to change significantly to reflect the new priorities. Expenditure on 'homeland security' and 'counter-terrorism and resilience' will assume a greater proportion of overall budgets and traditional areas of defence spending will be increasingly under threat.