To date, NATO has always relied on its defensive mandate to battle cyber threats. In its capacity to reconcile Allies’ strategies, foster the sharing of sensitive information between its members, and advocate for education and technological innovation, it has erected a multitude of training centres and cooperated with member states’ national military cyber trainings. However, amid a tremendous, rapid evolution of cyber technology, stretching from government misinformation campaigns to newly emerging critical infrastructure, there is growing potential for this technology to be used in cyber warfare. This article will discuss NATO’s position vis-à-vis the two greatest future cyber threats: China and Russia. First, a discussion of the emergence of 5G networks and Huawei’s dominance of this technology will reflect on the question of if military safety can outweigh economic benefits. Second, the article will examine threats to the Alliance’s critical GPS infrastructure, particularly Russia’s meddling with foreign satellites. Subsequently, examining these threats highlights the main future challenges and how this forms the stepping stones to move to the next chapter: NATO’s major policy shift from defensive to offensive cyber defence policy, as stated in the Brussels Summit Declaration of 2018. To conclude, a multitude of policy recommendations will set out the way toward success for NATO’s new offensive Cyber Structure Command of 2023.

Interoperability is essential to successful NATO joint and combined operations. NATO has built interoperability among Allies since its foundation. However, due to changes in the security environment since 2014, Allies now face new threats and challenges that require significant political, military, and institutional adaptation from the Alliance. Military adaptation has increased the multi-nationality of NATO’s tactical-level formations, especially those postured at high readiness. These developments require forces to integrate more deeply with a greater number of nations, which demands commensurate interoperability efforts from the Alliance. This requirement is predicted to continue to rise due to Alliance priority initiatives such as readiness, enablement, continued adaptation, and increased burden sharing.

This paper describes NATO’s new model for expanding interoperability to tactical echelons in response to those increasing demands. First, the article addresses why interoperability is more important now than ever for the readiness of NATO forces. It describes the Alliance’s five tools for interoperability and introduces a proposed sixth tool. The paper focuses on the recently introduced interoperability model, which will maximize the synergies between these interoperability tools. The model is illustrated with examples of building such synergies in NATO Exercise Specifications and Evaluation Plans. Finally, the paper addresses recent NATO insights and decisions and suggests a way ahead, recommending actions that defence leaders should take to expand interoperability.

Russia’s illegal annexation and militarization of the seized territories in Eastern Ukraine is an integral part of the country’s much more ambitious plan to reinstall itself as a superpower, something akin to the long-gone USSR. In its actions aimed at undermining the European and Euro-Atlantic political and security structures, including NATO, Moscow desires not only to restore its military and political potential but also to revive the Cold War reality. Tactically, Putin needs either total control over Ukraine as a way to achieve former USSR-style geopolitical reign or, at least, the creation and maintenance of permanent “controlled chaos” within Ukrainian territory: the vaster the scale, the better for Moscow as an instrument for solving various domestic problems. Strategically, Putin uses this situation to further destabilize the Euro-Atlantic security system to force Washington to negotiate the new “spheres of influence” in Eastern Europe by threatening the US, European allies, and NATO itself. Russia’s actions add complexity to the already complex set of various asymmetric security challenges (such as terrorism, cyber threats, and WMD proliferation) by mixing them with the more traditional threat of full-scale nation-state conflict and the new “hybrid” playbook. Thus, NATO’s objective as a security organization is aimed directly at addressing these “hybrid” threats. Reacting accordingly to this set of old and new challenges, NATO once again has to prove its ability to remain capable of dealing with the risks of the modern world. To this end, this paper asks the following questions: What is the Kremlin up to, and how can NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) counter Russian forces?

The terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the start of the war in Afghanistan, and NATO’s initial involvement are now 18 years behind us. NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan has shaped the alliance over the course of nearly two decades. From the first and only invocation of Article 5, to taking command of the International Security Assistance Forces in 2004 and the start of the Resolute Support Mission, NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan has been an era of adaptation for the alliance. However, young people who are reaching the age they go to university or the military and vote are mostly unaware of the war in Afghanistan, its origins, its objective, and its operation. This article analyses the defining moments in the Alliance’s longest military operation, calling for NATO to clarify its mission in Afghanistan for the benefit of both younger generations and NATO’s public outreach.