within them could easily extend beyond their borders.
In this security environment, Chapter 4 of the Strategy addresses “Threats and
Challenges to National Security”. On the one hand, this chapter identifies the threats
that jeopardise or undermine national security and, on the other, the challenges that,
while not constituting threats as such, could generate vulnerabilities, provoke situations
of instability, or propitiate the emergence of new threats. The main threats identified
are armed conflicts, terrorism, organized crime, the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, espionage, cyberthreats, and threats to critical infrastructure. Of particular
significance is the threat represented by jihadist terrorism, one of the main security
problems that the world faces, and which once again showed its unmitigated brutality
in Spain in August 2017.
The challenges to be addressed include economic instability, energy-related vulnerability,
migration, emergencies and disasters, epidemics and pandemics, and climate change.
These threats and challenges do not exist in isolation, but are interconnected; their
effects are not limited by borders, but frequently materialize in global common spaces,
such as cyberspace, maritime space, airspace and outer space.
In the light of these threats and challenges to national security, Chapter 5 of the
Strategy, “National Security: General Objectives and Lines of Action”, identifies five
general objectives guiding State action in the area of national security: develop the
comprehensive crisis management model, promote a culture of national security,
foster the proper use of global common spaces, emphasize the security dimension
in technological development, and strengthen Spain’s international profile. These
objectives are common to all areas of national security policy, and thus enable their
integration.
Moreover, the Strategy establishes 15 areas of action. Some are traditional, such as
national defence, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and combating organized crime.
Others are new, responding to the new security panorama, such as protecting the
environment, and particularly combating climate change, security aspects of epidemics
and pandemics and airspace and outer space security.
10
National Security Strategy 2017
Presidency of the Government
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