NATO leaders met in Madrid on June 29-30, 2022 where they adopted a new strategic concept, the bloc’s major guiding document. In the paper, NATO states ensured the bloc’s enduring ability to guarantee the defense and security of all members. What the Western military bloc identified as top threats were Chinese activities, Russia’s aggressive policy, terrorism, crime, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and threats that countries of the Middle East, Africa as well as North Korea might represent to the defense alliance and its nations. The paper also emphasizes the cross-cutting importance of investing in technological innovation.
NATO’s purposes and principles
In the preface to its newest white paper, NATO allies listed the bloc’s core purposes and principles. It says that NATO is determined to safeguard the freedom and security of allies, with its key purpose and greatest responsibility to ensure collective defense against all threats from all directions. NATO allies said they would strengthen the alliance based on indivisible security, solidarity, and ironclad commitment to defend each other.[1] Its member states are bound together by common values: individual liberty, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. NATO states pledged to fulfill three core tasks:
- deterrence and defense,
- crisis prevention and management,
- cooperative security.
The alliance’s guiding document pinpointed continuous efforts to individual and collective resilience and to integrate climate change and technological advantage into the bloc’s core tasks.
Russia as a major security threat
Russia is the most significant and direct threat to security and peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area, according to the white paper.[2] The Russian Federation has violated the norms and principles that contributed to a stable and predictable European security order, as the guiding document further stated. Interestingly, NATO allies do not discount the possibility of an attack against the bloc’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In its post-Cold War era white papers, NATO claimed unlikely a conventional attack targeting any member state. The new document shows a novel approach to Russia that NATO had seen as its partner till 2014. The 1991 defense white paper outlined continuous efforts to cooperate with former Soviet states, including Russia.[3] A similar approach was echoed in the 1999 and 2010 editions.[4] [5]
The 2022 guiding paper says Russia seeks to establish spheres of influence and direct control through coercion and subversion while using an array of conventional, cyber, and hybrid means to target NATO states. The Kremlin’s coercive military posture, rhetoric and proven willingness to use force to pursue its political goals undermine the rules-based international order. According to the document, Russia is upgrading its nuclear forces and expanding its novel and disruptive dual-capable delivery systems, while employing coercive nuclear signaling to destabilize countries in the east and south. Moscow’s military build-up, including in the Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean Sea regions, challenges the bloc’s security and interests.
NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia, the document reads. The bloc’s member states pledged to respond to Russian threats and hostile actions in a united and responsible way while strengthening deterrence and defense for all allies. Importantly, in light of its hostile policies and actions, NATO states can no longer consider the Russian Federation to be their partner. Notwithstanding that, NATO allies remain willing to keep open channels of communication with Moscow to manage and mitigate risks, prevent escalation, and increase transparency. NATO, however, seeks stability and predictability in the Euro-Atlantic area and between the bloc and the Russian Federation.
China
The new NATO strategic concept says China might be another threat to collective security, saying Chinese ambitions and coercive policies challenge allied interests and values. Beijing, the document says, employs a broad range of political, economic, and military tools to increase its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy or intentions. The paper sets out the alliance’s concerns over Chinese disinformation.
For China, as it is for Russia, disinformation efforts are essential to its foreign policy. These were amplified as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. As early as in December 2019 when some first Covid-19 infections were reported in Wuhan, the authorities in Beijing systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation into the outbreak, which delayed efforts to contain its further spread across the globe.[6]China then stepped up a campaign to deflect theories that the novel coronavirus originated from China by suggesting the pandemic started on U.S. soil. As soon as the disease began, China spread rumors that U.S. soldiers had unleashed the virus in Wuhan while the U.S. government had concealed the real scale of the pandemic within U.S. borders.
China applied a different strategy in Europe, seeking to promote common interests[7]amid cooperation schemes between Beijing and some European states. China sought to boost its popularity ratings in European countries, also through regular medical supplies to Europe. Chinese officials spread an erroneous message saying the country had overcome the outbreak, thus blaming other countries for new waves of Covid amid their irresponsible containment policies.
Chinese disinformation campaigns are also another threat to the alliance and its members. The document’s Paragraph 13 outlines the Chinese threat, saying that its [Chinese] “malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security.”[8]Beijing, the document reads, strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains. Chinese authorities seek to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains. NATO also fears close ties between Russia and China.
Cybersecurity and new technologies
Cyber space is contested at all times, NATO’s strategic concept says. Malign actors seek to degrade critical infrastructure, interfere with government services, extract intelligence, steal intellectual property and impede the bloc’s military activities. Strategic competitors and potential adversaries are investing in technologies that could restrict the alliance’s access and freedom to operate in space, degrade its space capabilities, target civilian and military infrastructure, as well as impair its defense. Emerging and disruptive technologies bring both opportunities and risks. They are altering the character of conflict, acquiring greater strategic importance, and becoming key arenas of global competition. That is why NATO leaders pledged to expedite its digital transformation, adapt the NATO Command Structure for the information age and enhance their cyber defenses, networks, and infrastructure.
“A single or cumulative set of malicious cyber activities; or hostile operations to, from, or within space; could reach the level of armed attack and could lead the North Atlantic Council to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty,” according to Paragraph 25 of NATO Strategic Concept. NATO attaches great importance to cyber threats.
EU as a NATO key partner
The European Union is a unique and essential partner for NATO, according to the military bloc’s guiding document. NATO recognizes the value of a stronger and more capable European defense that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to the bloc.[9]The document sets out some plans to boost NATO-EU partnership and dialogue on the ground of their common purposes and interests. These include:
- military mobility,
- resilience,
- impact of climate change on security,
- emerging and disruptive technologies,
- human security,
- Women, Peace, and Security agenda,
- countering cyber and hybrid threats,
- challenges that China represents to Euro-Atlantic security.
Initiatives to increase defense spending and develop coherent, mutually reinforcing capabilities, while avoiding unnecessary duplications, are key to NATO and EU joint efforts to make the Euro-Atlantic area safer, according to the document.
NATO and the EU started cooperating in the late 20th century. In 1999 the European Union formed what is known as the Common Security and Defense Policy that was the bloc’s course of action in the fields of defense and crisis management.[10] Between December 2002 and March 2003, NATO and the EU negotiated a package of agreements named Berlin Plus following the Joint NATO-EU Declaration of December 16, 2002.[11] The document set out the capacity to conduct EU-led military operations, stressing equality and due regard for the decision-making autonomy and interests of the European Union and NATO.[12] Those were extended by the Berlin Plus agreement. It has been only recently that the EU and NATO forged closer ties. Within the objectives set in the July 2016 joint declaration, the EU and NATO leaders agreed to boost cooperation in various domains,expanded further in 2017.[13] In July 2018, NATO and the EU adopted a new declaration, in which the two blocs aimed for swift and demonstrable progress in military mobility, counter-terrorism, cyber threats, and promoting the women peace and security agenda.[14] Furthermore, NATO and the EU teamed up to fight hybrid threats in the Helsinki-based new European Center of Excellence (CoE) for Countering Hybrid Threats.[15]
Conclusions
In its recent guiding paper, NATO shifted its threats that now pertain to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The document identifies Russian and Chinese cyber threats, which are of utmost concern for the defense bloc. In its post-Cold War era guiding documents, NATO allies identified as top threats ethnic and religious conflicts, territorial disputes, state dissolution, crises outside the bloc, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and uncontrolled migration schemes. They also remained committed to cooperating with Russia. The Madrid document says Moscow can no longer be the bloc’s partner.
In its recent strategic concept, NATO says it reevaluated its 1997 founding act with Russia, in which these two did not consider each other as adversaries and pledged to build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area. The deal has long been applied to curb the bloc’s presence along its eastern flank. With the alliance’s new stance on Russia, the paper offers some fresh opportunities to boost deterrence and defense capabilities, both conventional and nuclear.
The bloc’s deterrence and defense capabilities, the document reads, consist in unrestricted access to cyber space. NATO could soon use available tools to enhance its cyber capabilities to accurately identify and neutralize threats. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, said during a signing ceremony at the close of the alliance’s Madrid Summit the first-of-its-kind fund will invest €1 billion in startups and deep-tech funds, also to promote AI solutions. Investing in cutting-edge technologies is key to retaining military advantage.
According to the document, the EU is a key partner of the alliance and the two blocs will extend their cooperation. These also share common values and face comparable threats and challenges. Most NATO allies are EU member nations. Both blocs have enormous potential for cooperation, which should be encouraged notably for combatting hybrid threats.
Mikołaj Rogalewicz
[1]NATO 2022 Strategic Concept, p. 3. [online] https://www.nato.int/strategic-concept/
[2]Ibidem, p. 4.
[3]The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept 1991. [online] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_23847.htm
[4]The Alliance’s Strategic Concept 1999. [online] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_27433.htm
[5]Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2010, p. 16. [online] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_publications/20120214_strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf
[6]A. Legucka, M. Przychodniak, Dezinformacja Chin i Rosji w trakcie pandemii COVID-19, PISM, 2020.
[7]P. Śledź, Ostry cień mgły: antyzachodnia dezinformacja ze strony Chin i Rosji w związku z pandemią COVID-19, Rocznik Strategiczny 2020/2021, p. 394. [online] https://wnpism.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Sledz_Ostry_cien_mgly.pdf
[8]NATO 2022 Strategic Concept, p. 5.
[9]Ibidem, p. 10.
[10]The Treaty of Lisbon introduced the present name––the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
[11]EU-NATO Declaration on ESDP, 2002. [online] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_19544.htm
[12]NATO, The NATO-EU strategic partnership, 2004, pp.3–4. [online] https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2004/06- istanbul/press-kit/006.pdf
[13]EU-NATO Cooperation. [online] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/pl/policies/defence-security/eu-nato-cooperation/
[14]Joint declaration on EU-NATO cooperation, 2018. [online] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/pl/press/press-releases/2018/07/10/eu-nato-joint-declaration/
[15]A. Hagelstam, Współpraca przeciwko zagrożeniom hybrydowym, NATO Review, 2018. [online] https://www.nato.int/docu/review/pl/articles/2018/11/23/wspolpraca-przeciwko-zagrozeniom-hybrydowym/index.html
