NATO’s Posture: Deterrence and defence in the 21st century
NATO’s principal task is to ensure the protection of its citizens and to promote security and stability in the North Atlantic area1. To that end, NATO’s overall posture is intended to deter and defend against the full range of threats to the Alliance, protecting Allied territory and populations.
NATO’s posture has evolved significantly over time. During the Cold War, NATO sought to deter the Soviet Union while defending against it if necessary. In the post-Cold war era, the focus shifted from collective defence towards cooperative security and crisis management as NATO engaged in missions outside of Allied territory. However, in the wake of the illegal annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the allies sought to refocus efforts on deterrence and defence, while also retaining the ability to conduct out of area operations, contributing to the broader fight against terrorism and building partner capacity2.
Strengthened deterrence and defence posture
At the 2016 Warsaw Summit Allies took critical decisions to strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, building upon the work undertaken since the Wales Summit of 2014. These decisions aimed at increasing responsiveness, heightening readiness, and improving reinforcement, the three areas of strategic importance that underpin NATO´s deterrence and defence posture3.
• Increasing responsiveness entails being prepared to decide and act quickly. This requires having the capabilities to respond (right forces, in the right place at the right time) and timely and effective decision making.
• Heightening readiness means ensuring that forces are prepared to deploy and respond effectively in any scenario, including those that require large combat formations moving at short notice.
• Improving reinforcement requires being able to move enough forces sufficiently promptly to support any ally under attack, with a particular focus on transatlantic reinforcement.
A key element of the strengthened deterrence and defence posture is NATO’s forward presence. Allies have deployed multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Allies have also increased NATO’s presence in the Black Sea region contributing to situational awareness, interoperability and responsiveness4. NATO’s forward presence is underpinned by a robust rapid-reinforcement strategy to ensure that, in a collective defence scenario, it would be backed by the NATO Response Force, which is now 40.000 strong with a brigade-sized Very High Readiness Joint Task Force5.
Exercises are particularly important to test NATO’s ability to defend in any given scenario but also to communicate that ability beyond the Alliance, thereby contributing to deterrence
Responding to today’s threats and challenges
Today NATO faces an increasingly complex security environment, with enduring challenges and threats from all strategic directions. State and non-state actors are actively undermining the rules-based international order, profiting from and contributing to widespread instability. Their combination of military and non-military instruments in a hybrid approach is blurring the lines between peace, crisis and conflict. This makes attribution and anticipation more difficult.
To continue to serve its purpose, NATO must be able to deter and if necessary defend against a conventional attack, but also against non-conventional aggressive actions, such as cyber-attacks, and across 360 degrees. As a means to prevent conflict and war, credible deterrence and defence is essential and will continue to be based on an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional, and missile defence capabilities. Following changes in the security environment, NATO has taken steps to ensure its nuclear deterrent capabilities remain safe, secure, and effective6.
Allies are also implementing the NATO Readiness Initiative to ensure that more high-quality, combat-capable national forces at high readiness can be made available to NATO7. This is reinvigorating a culture of readiness across the Alliance, in support of the strengthened deterrence and defence posture. Allies are improving advance plans, as part of prepared response measures, and ensuring that NATO has the proper indications and warnings to detect a crisis in its early stages. NATO is also ensuring that its decision-making procedures guarantee timely responses.
In the same vein, Allies are increasing NATO’s exercise program. Exercises are particularly important to test NATO’s ability to defend in any given scenario but also to communicate that ability beyond the Alliance, thereby contributing to deterrence. Allies are also responding to threats and challenges emanating from North Africa and the Middle East, in line with the need to deter and defend across 360 degrees. Allies are improving regional understanding, preparedness to conduct crisis response operations, and NATO’s ability to project stability through regional partnerships and capacity building.
Another key line of effort is military mobility. Allies are working to improve NATO’s ability to move forces to and within Europe. Allies recently enhanced air lines of communication through rapid air mobility, which allows NATO to move planes across Europe with priority handling. This is one of the main areas of cooperation with the EU.
In addition, Allies are building resilience against cyber-attacks and hybrid threats in general. NATO has declared cyber as an operational domain and has agreed to activate article 5 in the event of a hybrid attack rising to the level of armed attack. NATO is also working to identify and mitigate threats to civilian telecommunications, including 5G, and examining the consequences of foreign investment in critical infrastructure8. Furthermore, NATO is implementing a new space policy given the implications that outer space already has on our security.
Conclusions
All these efforts enhance NATO’s ability to respond to any threats from wherever they arise and to protect Alliance territory, populations, airspace and sea lines of communication9. Supporting these efforts are the increases in defence spending made by Allies in line with the Wales Investment Pledge. Overall defence spending has increased for five consecutive years across European Allies and Canada, reaching an added cumulative total of more than one hundred billion dollars by the end of 2020. Although there is still work to be done, NATO is moving closer to the 2% guideline with more Allies presenting plans to reach the target by 2024.
In sum, Allies have reviewed and adjusted NATO’s posture to a changing security environment and will continue to do so in order to deter and defend in the 21st century. The result is a robust Alliance, ready to serve its purpose, which remains as relevant as ever.
