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Purpose: This article lays the foundations for the Sustainable Security Paradigm (SSP), which features national security as a holistic and synergistic complex-adaptive system that can integrate various domains of international, social, and individual activity in a long-term, sustainable fashion. The novel paradigm informs the original Sustainable Security Culture Development Cycle (SSCDC) that provides a model of transformation for organizations that wish to act sustainably in the security realm. Design/Methodology/Approach: The theoretical framework is centered around three pillars, the scientific study of the socio-ecological systems of the Anthropocene, a holistic understanding of security, and the realization of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. During research, the study adopted the pragmatic, critical world view with the grounded theory approach and employed mixed methods of research. Case studies of the global security consequences of the COVID epidemic, the paradoxes of the 2020 Polish National Security Strategy, and the military impact on environment, provided a cross-cultural and cross-contextual proof of data. Findings: Contemporary global security paradigm is unsustainable and unjust. Both in security studies theory and security policy at various levels, a shift is imperative. We need to move from a narrow understanding of security (in national security/defense terms) and replace it with a holistic and synergistic system. We also need a re-orientation of philosophical approaches, knowledge systems, principles, values, management practices, behaviors, and governance arrangements to ones that build sustainability in an increasingly interconnected, turbulent, and unpredictable world. Practical implications: The above allowed to create an operational SSCDC, designed to facilitate the transformation of security and defense organizations into institutions that continually create an environment of sustainable security and just development for all. Originality/Value: This is the first article that systemizes a comprehensive SSP, accompanied with an original and operational SSCDC. ; peer-reviewed

The article focuses on the need for a paradigm shift in diversity management for sustainable peace and security. We discuss the bidirectional influence of security and defence organisations and society; the intersectionality of issues related to social justice, health, race, and ethnicity; sexual abuse and exploitation; and cultural factors that influence the functioning of LGBTQ+ personnel and the gender/technology nexus in the context of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). During the application of the Sustainable Security Paradigm to gender diversity management, we found that ecofeminism and the ideas of post-colonial theory should inform the transformational shift of contemporary security and defence organisational cultures. This approach was used by the multinational NATO Science & Technology Organization Exploratory Team ET-197 Gender, Peace and Sustainable Security (2022-23) and its successor, the NATO HFM-368 Research Task Group (2023-26). Our research efforts were triangulated by an analysis of doctrinal textual, audiovisual and art sources that relate to gender diversity and its management. Given the complexity of future warfare, there is a strategic imperative to develop an inclusive defence strategy that reconfigures the traditional white male-focused military paradigm. It is evident that the root cause of gender inequality cannot be solved solely by doctrine and training solutions—rather a transformational organisational culture shift is pivotal and critical to the future global security. This is the first article that addresses the issues of gender diversity management for sustainable security and peace in an interdisciplinary and holistic manner. Our approach is relevant to any organisation with internal gender and intersectional diversity and systemic discrimination.