National Security in the 21st Century: Resilience, Risk and the Rise of New Threats

The National Resilience College (NRC), Putrajaya, was honoured to welcome Dato’ Dr Jafri bin Abdul Jalil, Deputy Director General (Analysis), Research Division, Prime Minister’s Department, for an eminent session on “National Security in the 21st Century: Resilience, Risk, and the Rise of New Threats.” The session provided a strategic lens on how today’s security landscape is increasingly defined by compound and interconnected risks from geopolitical volatility and economic shocks to cyber disruption, information manipulation, social polarisation, and climate-linked emergencies that can escalate rapidly across sectors. The discussion reinforced the need to approach national security as whole-of-nation risk governance, requiring anticipatory analysis, stronger institutional coordination, and resilience-building policies that protect sovereignty, public trust, and continuity of government in an era when threats are adaptive, networked, and often ambiguous.