National security is increasingly shaped by hybrid and systemic threats that operate through economic, technological, and institutional interdependencies. These dynamics challenge a conception of security centered exclusively on military defense and reveal the limits of allocation models primarily grounded in expenditure targets. This article reconceptualizes security as a governance configuration oriented toward systemic protection and examines its implications for public management. Drawing on public goods theory, risk governance, resilience studies, and performance management literature, protection is defined as an institutional arrangement that combines deterrence, risk-based allocation, multi-level coordination, and adaptive learning within an integrated allocative framework. Through a structured comparative analysis of Germany, Canada, and Japan, the study identifies institutional variation across four dimensions: the object of security, the allocative logic, the governance architecture, and the temporal orientation. The Italian case serves as a stress test, highlighting structural tensions between a defense-centered budgeting model and the requirements of systemic risk management. The findings suggest that security outcomes depend not only on expenditure levels, but on administrative integration, the presence of cross-sector performance regimes, and stable coordination mechanisms. Reframing national security as protection clarifies the relationship between defense policy and public management and offers a conceptual lens for assessing institutional adaptation under conditions of interdependence and uncertainty.
Keywords: national security, hybrid threats, public management, risk governance, systemic resilience, defense policy
