Critical infrastructures: a perspective from systems of systems

This paper introduces a system of systems (SoS)-based perspective for critical infrastructure (CI) and derives implications for future development of the CI field. At a most fundamental level, CIs provide goods and services essential to public wellbeing. The importance of the CI field has never been more pronounced as the 21st century continues to unfold, beset by unprecedented levels of complexity, emergence, interdependence, and uncertainty. There are legions of threats to CIs and so too are the emerging and fragmented array of methods and tools to address different concerns within the field. This paper suggests that since SoS is concerned with integration and coordination of multiple systems to act in unison to achieve higher levels of performance, it offers a unique perspective on how we might address different concerns at systems level in the CI field. The paper examines that state of knowledge for the CI field and introduces an organizing construct within which the CI field might be framed.