The term “criticality” is derived from the context of critical thinking. While many scholars support critical thinking in virtually everyone, they often disagree on definitions (Elder & Paul, 2010). The whole way to describe the “criticality” of thinking is by listing the main components of criticality: interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and self-regulation (Facione, 2013). However, these components provide a subjective description of one specific person. It is necessary to scale these components to the entire American nation to consider the critical sectors of the country’s infrastructure from this point of view.
The safety and health of critical infrastructure sectors are vital to national security. The criticality in this case, if we disassemble it into the above stages, is as follows. The destruction of any critical infrastructure sector should lead to a weakening of the health of citizens, a worsening of the economic situation in the country, and a violation of environmental, political, and social security (Department of Homeland Security). However, already at the next stage of the analysis, it is clear that there are examples when the failure of a particular sector does not entail consequences even at the local level. It is the chemical sector in Charleston. Leakage of toxic chemicals into the main water supply has failed a single provider of such services (Riedman, 2016). Here, too, the importance of the real estate sector can be questioned. The most common counter-argument, in this case, is the 9/11 terrorist attacks that destroyed two 100-story buildings. Despite the tragic consequences, the supply of office space far exceeded demand (Moteff, 2015). Such moments lead to activities aimed at planning all hazards and “full preparedness” as paradigms for responding to failures in vital systems; this should also include assessments of the vulnerability of essential systems (Andrew, 2020). Consequently, since national critical infrastructure and production processes are highly dependent on automation, monitoring, and control technologies, such actions are essential given the need to develop cybersecurity (Ogie, 2017). The second case was also an indicator of the need to increase national security. The resiliency of the sectors has shown itself to be outstanding, but such cases contradict the definition of the criticality of infrastructure – these events did not entail crisis consequences.
It can be concluded from the above that the chemical and commercial premises sectors are not vital to national security, but this is not entirely true. The chemical infrastructure sector operates with many specific risks, which in some cases can lead to dire consequences. This sector needs constant expert supervision. Therefore, security management is required by this sector despite the above topic. As for the industry of commercial premises, this sector is essential for the business and economy of the country. However, to this day, it has developed so much that even attempts on the highest buildings pose a security threat only to human lives, which in general is the prerogative of the work of other sectors or national security. Therefore, evaluating the findings against the criticality plan shows that the commercial premises sector is the least important of all.
One of the criticality components is the explanation, which includes a decision or correct answer to a question posed. Several reasons dictate the possible need to have the education sector. Firstly, security experts who oversee the infrastructure activities and the employees of these sectors themselves receive the necessary primary knowledge, precisely thanks to the institute of education. Second, the tragic events in America’s schools underscore the fact that this sector requires special attention to security. Perhaps the failure of this sector will not give immediate crisis consequences. Still, in the long term, the institution of education is the most crucial basis for almost all infrastructure sectors.
References
Andrew, L. (2020). The Vulnerability of Vital Systems: How ‘critical infrastructure’ became a security problem. In Securing ‘the Homeland’ (pp. 17-39). Routledge.
Department of Homeland Security. (2019). Critical infrastructure sectors. Web.
Elder, L., & Paul, R. (2010). Critical thinking: A stage theory. Web.
Facione, P. A. (2013). Critical thinking: What is it and why it counts. Web.
Moteff, J. D. (2015). Critical infrastructures: Background, policy, and implementation (CRS Report No. RL30153). Web.
Ogie, R. I. (2017). Cyber security incidents on critical infrastructure and industrial networks. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer and Automation Engineering (pp. 254-258).
Riedman, D. (2016). Questioning the criticality of critical infrastructure: A case study analysis. Homeland Security Affairs, 12(3). Web.