In my opinion (not OP), a serious country would look at it's basic national security risks, and work to minimise them.
I'm not talking terrorism, far more basic than that.
Food, Energy, Transport Communications, Manufacturing.
Are you either able to be the provider of any of these if it really came down to it, or are you dependent on a single outside source?
Most countries will be unable to fulfill all of these, but they can mitigate by not being dependent on a single source, maybe working together in a union.
Russia has been an unreliable partner for energy for decades (if ever?), yet the UK yoked itself with them relying on their gas for energy instead of diversifying. We are doing it now but it has been far too late to mitigate the damage.
That's not really true. The UK has run an open economy for almost 200 years and has long had one of the most diverse sets of trading arrangements of any country in the world.
For domestic energy, it has never relied on Russia. Natural gas supplies are a roughly equal mix of domestic production, Norwegian pipeline imports, and LNG imports (primarily from the USA, but with no restriction on switching to other providers if needed). Yes, there was a spike in global LNG prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but that was driven by other countries seeking to replace Russian imports.
The same goes for the other areas you mentioned - food, transport, communications, and manufacturing. All have vast diversity of supply, with robust supply chains. None of them are remotely close to being dependent on a single external source.
Clearly that’s not good enough. We’re still not out of the last cost of living crisis and we’re going into the next one. We should be more self-reliant. Diversity doesn’t work in such an interconnected global economy.
