The Arctic arguably remains the most complicated legal landscape in the world, with eight states raising their own claims in the region. Unlike the Antarctic, it is too valuable to submit to international governance. This is an area in which every state has its own goals and still relies mostly on its own capabilities.

Recently, however, the Arctic has become more than just a frozen asset of resources, as climate change has raised concerns for both environmental activists and military leaders. As ice caps melt, a new front of transatlantic security is opening, where any concept of unilateral activity seems outdated at best. It is time to undertake collective action and give up national claims both for the sake of common security and environmental stability.

The purpose of this article is to discuss potential frameworks of cooperation within NATO in the Arctic, including joint defence investments and joint Arctic Command. NATO is the entity most capable of stepping up an effective defence initiative in the region. It is the best forum for Western countries to create a common stance on Arctic matters and firmly reply to foreign adversaries. The Arctic additionally creates an opportunity for NATO to show its modern, ecological approach to security. There is no other place where climate change interferes with security to such an extent, and if NATO genuinely wants to reinvent itself, the path to reinvention clearly leads north.

After the end of the Cold War, the Arctic shifted from a heavily militarised area to a hub of peaceful cooperation under the premises of the Arctic Council; but today, climate change threatens to change the High North's equilibrium, again. Rising temperatures and melting ice have opened new commercial routes and disclosed natural resources previously unavailable. As a consequence, Arctic and non-Arctic countries are directing their strategic focus to the North Pole. Russia, in particular, is renovating its military assets and enhancing its economic presence. NATO faces a security dilemma: ignore Moscow’s Arctic stance and let member states handle the situation or militarise the Arctic with the risk of escalation. This paper examines this dilemma in order to answer the following question: how can NATO play a role in the Arctic by balancing climate and security implications? This article proceeds as follows: after analysing the impact of climate change on the Arctic, it scrutinises Russia and China's interests in the region to assess the margins of collaboration on military topics through the current cooperative frameworks. The conclusions find that the Alliance is walking on thin ice: whereas militarisation is not an option, the fora to discuss military issues are limited. While NATO Arctic members should continue participating in regional cooperative mechanisms, like the Arctic Council, the Alliance should increase its situational awareness in the High North. In this way, NATO would find its place in the Arctic by balancing climate and security considerations.

At the NATO Engages Conference on the sidelines of the 2019 High-Level Meeting in London, in which I had the opportunity to participate, NATO officially declared space as its fifth operational domain. The overarching theme of the NATO Engages conference was “innovating the alliance”, both at the technological and the political level. As NATO is yet at another important juncture, the conference aimed to define how the organization could contribute to a more secure world.

The latest entity to come into the fold among NATO's hybrid units is the Counter-Hybrid Support Teams. The need for such a unit arises from member states' requests to combat hostile hybrid campaigns that (potentially) threaten community cohesion, (critical) infrastructures, stability of government and decision-making processes, and essential services. As Montenegro dreaded a repeat of its calamatious 2016 parliamentary elections, NATO deployed its first Counter-Hybrid Support Team there in late 2019 upon the government’s request. Considering that information regarding the first NATO Counter-Hybrid Support Team’s mission to Montenegro is general and scarce, this article proposes a realistic and forward-looking course of action and endeavours to contribute to the discussion by elaborating on a four-pronged practical model aimed to inform, deter, debunk and denouce, disrupt, attribute, sanction (ID4AS).

Information in the 21st century spreads incredibly quickly. The combined powers of social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and the internet at large give organizations the ability to quickly and cheaply spread information to previously unimaginable audiences with limited oversight. These tools have significantly increased the effectiveness of disinformation campaigns against Western liberal democratic nations. Furthermore, there exists significant evidence that, by leveraging these tools, foreign actors have conducted disinformation campaigns against Western liberal democratic nations. Building upon that, there is also evidence suggesting that current disinformation campaigns may be reducing public faith in democratic institutions, exasperating existing social tensions, and unduly influencing the outcome of elections. Given the increasing effectiveness of disinformation campaigns, fighting disinformation is more important than ever. National security organizations from the United States and across the world are taking steps towards combating disinformation with varying degrees of success. Based on an analysis of current US policy, there are several counter disinformation policy gaps. To address these deficiencies, this paper suggests three key policy recommendations that would significantly boost the ability of the US to counter the threat of disinformation in the 21st century information environment.

The 2020 US presidential election is being reported as a pivotal moment for NATO. The election will determine the US relationship with fellow NATO allies, affecting the defense strategies of all partner countries. Due to the critical outcome of this election, pro-Russian actors are flourishing ahead of it, strengthening concerns of another large-scale misinformation campaign, an echo of the hack-and-dump campaign of the 2016 election.

While the Mediterranean has for a long time been the ‘NATO sea’, today the status quo has changed and given way to incipient chaos. Tensions have flared between two NATO members, Greece and Turkey, and the dispute has spread across the Eastern Mediterranean to the point that the region could potentially rekindle the fire of military conflicts. As such, the Turkish-Greek skirmishes seem to have opened Pandora’s box in a region where a bazaar of interests collide, a scenario which leads one to ask: What is next for NATO and the US in the region?