4. A dual/multiple use of forces for, both national operations and international deployments, must be ensured. National defence 5. For this Security Strategy, independent military national defence is an indispensable precondition for protecting Austria’s sovereignty and integrity. This means, in particular, ensuring or restoring its ability to function and survive in the event of attacks against the state, the society and the livelihood of the people. As situations can escalate unex-pectedly, the ability to mobilise forces rapidly and flexibly must be ensured. The ability to make the transition from protective assistance operations to independent military op-erations must be guaranteed. In order to achieve this, the Austrian Armed Forces must, therefore, avail of adequate, robust and sustainable forces. 6. Forces must be capable of being built up as appropriate to the situation, depending on the combined arms combat capability which is to be enhanced. An important precondi-tion for this is the capability for early recognition of strategic changes of the situation, incorporating the results into the collective national assessment of the situation. Further-more, the ability of flexible personnel mobilization must be ensured. Additionally, the preservation and creation of military competences, which are adequate to the collective European stability requirements and future challenges, for example in the area of tech-nological developments, must be ensured and correspond to the anticipated risk profile for the next decade. 7. From the current perspective, 55,000 soldiers with varying levels of readiness are re-quired for the forces as a whole, including short-term deployments in humanitarian aid operations. 8. 9. Airspace sovereignty and surveillance as well as air support must be ensured. The protection of military institutions against cyber threats must be improved, also by cooperating with competent partners. The military capabilities developed for this pur-pose must also be incorporated into the Austrian Cyber Crisis Management 10. The Austrian Armed Forces’ ability to support the political and military capabilities of anticipation and leadership and the collective national assessment of the situation is to be enhanced. Assistance tasks and military disaster relief 11. The Austrian Armed Forces must continue to be equipped for assistance tasks. 12. In particular, the capabilities to provide support for ensuring leadership and nationwide communication, for ,special pioneer operations and transport tasks, for search and res-cue and the protection of the population, for instance in the event of NBC hazards, acci-dents in nuclear power stations or in the health sector, for protecting critical infrastruc-tures, including high-technology components, for developing expertise and capabilities for cyber security and for providing specialised infantry units must be further developed. 13. The Austrian Armed Forces’ contribution to national and international humanitarian aid and disaster relief must be improved and provisions must be made for the presence of at least 12,500 soldiers to be deployed in the event of domestic disaster relief operations. 14. The Austrian Armed Forces’ contribution to protecting critical infra-structures, cyber space protection, dealing with possible challenges in the area of border security, supporting the maintenance of public order and internal security, according to Article 79 of the Constitutional Law of Austria, must be improved, taking into consid-eration the possibility of simultaneous requirements. The capabilities and manpower re-quired for such operations must be determined in a collective national planning process in cooperation with the authorities requiring assistance and updated on a regular basis. Provisions must be made for joint exercises. 21