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Begin New Search Topic Defense Policy Author Andrea Gilli

1. Net Assessment: "Competition Is For Losers"

Author:
Andrea Gilli
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Under the guidance of the Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in 2020 NATO embarked on a reflection process aimed at equipping the Alliance for the challenges of 2030.1 Composed of several parts, actors and phases, the process ul- timately aims to make NATO more relevant in the years ahead when technological disruption, climate change, competition among Great Powers and vio- lent non-state actors will pose new and major threats. Ideas, proposals, and recommendations are coming in from within and from outside the Alliance. Inter- estingly, among the recommendations, several voices have called for NATO to expand its net assessment capabilities.2 For most observers, even in the security and defence world, net assessment is an esoteric word. While many may have heard of Andrew Marshall and the US Department of Defense’s Office of Net As- sessment, most would probably struggle to define the term. This Policy Brief provides a short introduction to the topic: what is net assessment, how and why has it emerged, how reliable is it and how could NATO use it?
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Leadership
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

2. Challenges to NATO's Nuclear Strategy

Author:
Andrea Gilli
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
In 2022, NATO will present its new Strategic Concept. Since 2010, when the previous Strategic Concept was published, NATO and the world have changed significantly. At the time, NATO was primarily engaged in crisis management, including in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Strategic Concept enabled the Alliance to further expand – conceptually and geographically – its out-of-area activities, together with the core tasks of cooperative security. Eleven years later, the dominant paradigm of international politics is great power competition: in other words, countries like Russia and China are competing with the West strategically, economically, militarily, and in terms of values. Many things have remained constant, however: one is the centrality of nuclear weapons for NATO’s deterrence and defence posture. Since 2010, Allies have continued to affirm that as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance, notwithstanding the Alliance’s ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

3. Imitation, innovation, disruption: challenges to NATO's superiority in military technology

Author:
Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Analysts, academics and observers are worried that NATO countries may lose their industrial leadership in defence production. Globalization and advances in communications are widely believed to enable enemies and adversaries alike to copy NATO countries’ state- of-the-art weapon systems, and possibly even surpass them by developing next-generation weapon systems. Moreover, so-called disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing and additive manufac- turing are believed to offer cheaper and less technologi- cally demanding options to countries that do not possess the decades’ old defence industrial base of NATO coun- tries. These countries could then use such new technolo- gies for weakening NATO force structure. These concerns are real and deserve close scrutiny. However, adversaries and competitors still face signif- icant challenges which are more insidious than those NATO countries are facing. Because of the complexity of modern technology, imitation, innovation and disruption in armaments production have become increas- ingly demanding over the past decades – especially for naval and aerial platforms intended to operate in com- petitive environments. For NATO this implies more tar- geted defence investments and exploitation of industrial specialisation across the Alliance, as well as experimen- tation and innovation with new technologies to favour their future integration into the NATO force structure.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Globalization, Regional Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

4. After austerity: futures for Europe's defence industry

Author:
Andrea Gilli
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
In October 2012, the merger between BAE Systems (GB) and EADS (France, Germany and Spain), two of the biggest defence contractors in the world, failed. Despite this setback, further consolidation within the European defence industry is likely to occur in the near future. Because of the eurozone crisis, in recent years EU countries have significantly curtailed their public expenditure, defence included. This has important implications for the structure of the European defence industrial base. Specifically, defence companies are dependent on public defence expenditure. When defence spending declines, industrial overcapacity results. This, in turn, calls for restructuring and consolidation. Inevitably, EU countries will have to go down this road. However, given their ongoing concerns regarding sovereignty, technology and jobs, there are good reasons to think that they will promote the consolidation of their defence industry through a mix of Europe, NATO, extra-EU and purely national solutions.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Germany, and Spain