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131. Preparing for “NATO-mation”: the Atlantic Alliance toward the age of artificial intelligence

Author:
Andrea Gilli
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
The unprecedented pace of technological change brought about by the fourth Industrial Revolution offers enormous opportunities but also entails some risks. This is evident when looking at discussions about artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and big data (BD). Many analysts, scholars and policy- makers are in fact worried that, beside efficiency and new economic opportunities, these technologies may also promote international instability: for instance, by leading to a swift redistribution of wealth around the world; a rapid diffusion of military capabilities or by heightening the risks of military escalation and conflict. Such concerns are understandable. Throughout history, technological change has at times exerted similar effects. Additionally, human beings seem to have an innate fear that autonomous machines might, at some point, revolt and threaten humanity – as illustrated in popular culture, from Hebrew tradition’s Golem to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, from Karel Čapek’s Robot to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and the movie Terminator. This NDC Policy Brief contributes to the existing debate by assessing the logic behind some of these concerns and by looking at the historical record. While some worries are warranted, this brief provides a much more reassuring view. The implications are straightforward: NATO, its member states and partners should not be afraid of ongoing technological change, but embrace the opportunities offered by new technologies and address the related challenges. In other words, the Atlantic Alliance should start a new transformation process directed toward the age of intelligent machines: it should start with what I call “NATO-mation”. The goal is not only preserving and enhancing NATO’s military superiority and thus better contribute to global security in the decades ahead but also ensuring that its values, ethical stances as well as moral commitments will remain central in a rapidly- changing security environment.
Topic:
NATO, Regional Cooperation, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

132. NATO’s coming existential challenge

Author:
Karl-Heinz Kamp
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Seven decades after it was established, the North Atlantic Alliance is doing fairly well and fully de- serves being described as the most successful secu- rity organization in modern history. By constantly evolving and adapting, NATO managed to main- tain its relevance on both sides of the Atlantic in fundamentally different security environments. It preserved the territorial integrity of its members during the Cold War and was crucial for bringing down the Iron Curtain. It helped to bring peace to the Balkans and prevented Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for jihadist ter- rorism. Since Russia’s return to revanchist policies in 2014, NATO again guarantees the freedom and security of its members in the East. In the long term though, NATO faces an almost existential problem, as it will be difficult to main- tain its relevance for the United States as the dom- inant power within the Alliance. This will be less a result of the current president’s erratic policy than of the geostrategic reorientation of the US away from Russia and towards China. NATO will also have to fundamentally alter its geographic orienta- tion to avoid falling into oblivion.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

133. NATO’s Futures: the Atlantic Alliance between Power and Purpose

Author:
Sten Rynning
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
This NDC Research Paper argues that in spite of these warning signs, NATO can regain its balance between power and purpose and thus secure its future. NATO’s balancing act is ultimately a question of leadership: it is within the reach of Allied leaders to balance the interests and geopolitics of Europe and Asia, as well as the restrained and affirmative policies that represent Canada and Europe’s inclination for concerted diplomacy on the one hand and the United States inclination for strategic engagement on the other. Regrettably, these leaders may be drawn to some of the easy NATO visions that offer stringency of purpose, as in “come home to Europe”, or inversely, “go global”. Yet the reality of the Alliance’s geopolitical history and experience is that NATO is strong when apparently contrasting interests are molded into a balanced vision. Today, NATO can only encourage European investment in global, US-led policy if it secures stability in Europe, while inversely, NATO can only secure US investment in Europe’s security order if the Allies are open to coordination on global affairs. The report first outlines the basic geopolitical trends with which the Alliance is confronted: an Alliance leader questioning its heritage of overseas engagement, China’s rise as a great power, an emerging alignment between China and Russia in opposition to liberal order, and the track record of southern unconventional threats dividing the Allies on matters such as counter-terrorism, immigration control, stabilization and development. The Allies seem to be hesitating on the West-East axis and paralyzed as a collective on southern issues, which leads the report to sketch three NATO futures.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Liberal Order, and Investment
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, North Atlantic, Asia, and North America

134. “NATO@70”: still adapting after all these years

Author:
Julian Lindley-French
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
In April 1949, at the signing of the foundation doc- ument of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Treaty of Washington, the Western Allies had twelve active divisions. They believed, erroneously as it turned out, that Stalin’s Red Army had 175 di- visions on the other side of the River Elbe which marked the then inner-German border. At the time the West consoled itself with the monopoly that the United States had on atomic weaponry. Such com- placency ended on 29 August 1949 with a nuclear shock when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic device. The new NATO was also tied inextricably to Europe’s then recent past. Soon after the Treaty of Washington was signed the French newspaper Le Monde suggested that the creation of NATO repre- sent a big step down the road to German rearma- ment: “The rearmament of Germany is present in the Atlantic Pact as the seed in the egg”.1 April 1949 thus encapsulated both the ambition and the tensions that were to mark the three strands of post-World War Two European security and defence: transatlantic relations, the German Question and the road to European Union and how to both engage Russia and defend against it.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, North Atlantic, Germany, and North America

135. NATO is doing fine, but the Atlantic Alliance is in trouble

Author:
Bruno Tertrais
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Twenty years ago, as the Atlantic Alliance was get- ting ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary, this au- thor published a piece entitled “Will NATO still exist in 2009?”.1 It argued that NATO’s lost sense of mission after the disappearance of the Sovi- et threat, disagreements over peacekeeping, and a growing US disinterest for Europe legitimately raised the question of the Alliance’s ability to sur- vive ten years from then. Today NATO’s Article 5 missions are once again taking center stage and the relevance of the Alli- ance is hardly questioned. But questions are still being raised about its political solidity. Is it more le- gitimate today to wonder about NATO’s existence ten years from now than it was in 1999? To a point, no. There is no longer a significant debate about NATO’s relevance. However, there are severe ten- sions in the transatlantic relation, which Russia’s aggressiveness is unlikely to dampen. NATO has remarkably adapted and has even been rejuvenated: but the Atlantic Alliance remains in trouble. And this, in turn, could have consequences on NATO’s ability to deter and act.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, Peacekeeping, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

136. NATO at 70: enter the technological age

Author:
Tomáš Valášek
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
As NATO celebrates its 70th anniversary, it has re- turned nearly all the way to its original deterrence and defence roots. While it remains in the busi- ness of collective security and crisis management, for the past five years – since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – Article 5 tasks have come to dominate the agenda of the commanders, plan- ners and policy makers. As for the years ahead, the challenges come in three forms. The first is to finish the transition to common defence. 2019 is not 1949; the nature of the technologies that determine winners and los- ers has changed. And while NATO has adapted admirably in many ways, it has work left to do, par- ticularly in addressing cyber vulnerabilities. The second challenge is also related to technolo- gies, and it is to start preparing for the next gener- ation of partly or fully automated warfare, which will make use of artificial intelligence (AI). The re- search and development is well under way, on the part of the Allies as well as potential adversaries. A lot less thinking is taking place with regard to how defence politics – the way Allies agree on plans and guide operations – will be affected. That is a mistake. The changes which automation will bring to NATO deliberations will be no less dramatic than those which will happen on the battlefield. The third challenge is more immediate and po- litical in nature: it is to keep the Alliance unified inthe face of unprecedented soul-searching on the part of the biggest Ally, the United States. And while by virtue of its size and dominance Wash- ington tends to be self-referential, reactions from the rest of NATO member states do make a dif- ference, both positive and negative. Their track re- cord over the past two years has been mixed.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, North Atlantic, Ukraine, and North America

137. Building the airplane while flying: adapting NATO’s force structure in an era of uncertainty

Author:
Sara B. Moller
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Since the 2014 Wales Summit, NATO has made a series of reforms (“Adaptation Measures”) to the NATO Force Structure (NFS), the pool of conventional national and multinational forces and headquarters placed at the Alliance’s disposal on either a permanent or temporary basis.1 Designed to strengthen NATO’s long-term military posture and enable quick response to emergencies wherever they arise, the post-2014 initiatives constitute the most ambitious attempt at modernizing the NFS in a generation. While NATO deserves praise for the speed with which it reacted to security developments on its Eastern flank in recent years, the importance Brussels placed on responding quickly has come at the expense of a comprehensive theater-wide strategy for the new force structure. Because the new Adaptation Measures were adopted largely on an ad hoc basis, with different framework nations often taking the lead, the question of their relationship with existing NATO initiatives and structures received insufficient attention early on. Indeed, within the Alliance, many officials continue to liken the post-Wales force structure adaptation process to the act of building an airplane while flying. The political expediency which initially gave rise to the Adaptation Measures has since given way to intra-Alliance debates about burden-sharing and the appropriate number of resources to commit to one flank. At the core of these disagreements lie members’ differing threat perceptions. To succeed, however, the new NFS will require the support of all members. For this reason, it is imperative that NATO officials and member states redouble existing efforts to forge consensus on an Alliance-wide threat assessment.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

138. What NATO’s counter-terrorism strategy?

Author:
Kris Quanten
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Until 2001, NATO considered the terrorist threat as a secondary phenomenon with a limited impact on the Alliance. The 9/11 attacks marked a radical turnaround: suddenly terrorism became a top secu- rity priority. This was also the first and only time in NATO’s history that Article 5 was invoked, further- more for a terrorist attack. Initially, the reaction to 9/11 was purely military. However, it soon became clear that there was lit- tle strategic vision underlying the initiatives to fight terrorism at the operational level. Hence, the hasty approval, at the NATO Prague Summit in 2002, of a Military Concept for Defence Against Terrorism.1 This Concept foresaw a number of new initiatives, such as intelligence sharing, CBRN measures, the establishment of a Terrorist Threat Intelligence Unit, and Civil Emergency planning, as a priority. Yet all these separate initiatives lacked coordination and an overarching vision.
Topic:
NATO, Regional Cooperation, Terrorism, Military Strategy, Counter-terrorism, and War on Terror
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

139. Why the Baltics matter. Defending NATO’s North-Eastern border

Author:
Sven Sakkov
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most of Europe went on a “strategic holiday”. The West had won and the future was bright. Even the fact that at its weakest the Russian Federation was still able to create frozen conflicts at its borders did not dent this optimism. Defence spending in Eu- rope was plummeting throughout the 1990s, and all the way to 2014. NATO’s prevailing paradigm changed from being a collective defence organi- sation more to something of a collective security actor, with many main missions and a plethora of partnerships. After the shock of 9/11, the Alliance focused on counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. Military capabilities required to fight a modern near-peer adversary atrophied even further. In this context, some Allies did not take their eyes off Russia – primarily Poland and the Baltic States. Yet they were perceived by major Western Allies as nuisances requiring psychological counselling, as countries who had been traumatised by their harsh history and hence had become incapable of embracing this new reality of partnership with Rus- sia. Even the Russian military aggression against Georgia in 2008 did not change that Zeitgeist. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented her “reset” button to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just seven months after Russian tanks rolled into Georgia.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, Eastern Europe, North America, and Northern Europe

140. A Strategic Odyssey: Constancy of Purpose and Strategy-Making in NATO, 1949-2019

Author:
Diego A. Ruiz Palmer
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
In this Research Paper, Diego Ruiz Palmer argues, that in spite of the many crises over seven decades, NATO has been a forum in which Allies were able to stand together, build a common purpose, most notably through a process of strategy- making. What is strategy-making and why is it important? Strategy-making is mainly about building a shared sense of strategic thinking and doing within the Alliance; it is about making the Alliance a cohesive and credible defence actor that draws on a solid and Alliance-wide political and military posture. This is achieved through a process of constant consultation, planning, policy-making, shared threat assessment and buy-in by all member states. Strategy-making is important because it determines the long-term success of the project. This was true in the past, but still holds today, at a time when the Alliance is re-embracing a deterrence and defence agenda. If, as Diego Ruiz Palmer puts it, strategy-making has been the “key ingredient in sustaining a constancy of purpose in often turbulent times”, then it must continue to be so, as external and internal challenges – in the post-Cold War era more than ever – question the relevance of the Alliance. Diego Ruiz Palmer recounts the strategic odyssey in systematic and meticulous detail: from the very first steps of the Alliance’s establishment, to the post-Cold War adaptation, through the doctrinal evolutions of the 1960s, to NATO’s strategic and operational renaissance in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Throughout, Diego draws on a rich mix of NATO’s archives and declassified documents, secondary sources, and his own expertise of the institution’s life. The result is inspiring, and will no doubt become a reference document on NATO’s nature and ability to navigate through turbulent strategic waters. One may simply hope that the fate of the Alliance does not resemble that of the Odyssey’s hero.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America