The challenges of the protection of critical services cannot be accomplished by government alone, despite responsibility for public security and safety. Nor can industry, which owns or operates most of the critical infrastructure, be expected to protect it alone. Given the emergence of a larger threat spectrum, combined with the growing globalization of economic activities, nations cannot expect to be successful without effective cooperation among each other. The world grows smaller as its components become more interdependent. How societies learn to work collectively to achieve the goal of safety and security and to sustain it in the long term is thus of prime importance. This collective approach would require, at a minimum, several mutual understandings and the trust to make them work. There is sensitive information to be shared – proprietary information from firms, intelligence information from government – shared accountability and responsibility to be negotiated, costs to be allocated, and benefits to be divided up, to name a few.

Creating and developing collective actions among commercial and government institutions is not an easy task. The habits and cultures and the legal, political, and financial power among a complex mosaic of stakeholders differ in many ways. This leads us to an essential element of all enduring and successful partnerships: the necessity for building trust between the parties.