Why Disaster Recovery Plans Fail in Geopolitical Crises
TechCrunch, Tuesday, May 5th, 2026
Geopolitical conflicts are exposing how quickly disruptions cascade across cloud and telecom systems, forcing CIOs to rethink disaster recovery plans.
Recent geopolitical crises, particularly the war in Iran, have revealed critical gaps in traditional disaster recovery plans that were designed for isolated failures rather than cascading disruptions across multiple regions and domains. CIOs are discovering that assumptions underlying their DR strategies no longer hold, as conflicts can rapidly impact supply chains, connectivity, and cloud infrastructure simultaneously.
Organizations must move beyond technology-focused solutions toward cross-functional business resilience strategies that account for scenarios like complete simultaneous system failures and geographic redundancy vulnerabilities.
The shift requires CIOs to think like military strategists, implementing remote-work readiness, cross-training, and alternative connectivity routes while prioritizing employee safety in affected regions.