In the past few years the world has seen a number of huge risk incidents such as the hurricane Katrina with its devastation of New Orleans, the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean with a loss of over 250,000 lives. If an security manager’s organization happened to be in one of these areas while these events had taken place the security manager's organization could have been severely impacted or destroyed all together.  When international or national risk has the ability to render one’s organization to a state where it can no longer operate. one should think that this, indeed, is a concern to any responsible security manager.

A terrorist risk, for example, could come from a “nuclear blast, biological attack, dirty bomb (radioactive) or a chemical attack. An influenza pandemic risk could emanate from the virus H5N1 and could cause local, national, and international casualties as in the Spanish Flu of 1918 with worldwide death estimates from 20 to 100 million people.  Climate change could appear from global warming and thus causing natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and/or floods. Major international and national risk usually start in a specific area of the world such as the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Mumbai, Class 5 Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or earthquakes in Asia. SARS is a good example of this, starting in a small village in China, migrating to places as far away as Canada in only a few short months.  

The world is indeed a ”˜smaller world’. What happens in Katmandu may well affect the security manager's organization in Vancouver or Toronto. As this example using the SARS situation shows, security managers not only should place an emphasis on international and national risks, but perhaps place a priority on all international and national equally as well as local risks.

All responsible security managers must know and review their key international and national risks and hazards and prioritize them. An impact analysis of various international and national risks-such as the effects of a pandemic (H5N1) or a terrorist attack should be done. Quantified Risk Assessment (QRA), which is now being developed into a science, may also be useful in the assessment of such risks.  QRA has three objectives: “ an estimate of the severity of the problem, an estimate of the probality of the problem occurring, and finally some criterion of acceptability of the risk quantified” (University of Leicester, 2006:2-17).