Atlantic Voices Special Issue - The Future of NATO
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Transcript of Atlantic Voices Special Issue - The Future of NATO
ATLANTIC TREATY ASSOCIATION
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 1
- Dr. Magdalena Kirchner
Last September, NATO leaders and
partners from around the world gathered
in Cardiff (UK) to discuss a wide range of
challenges to international security.
Although questions of global stability can
rarely be seen as “business as usual”, the
months leading up to the Summit and the
decisions made in Wales made two points
crystal-clear: First, a rapidly changing and
highly fragile security environment calls
for new thinking on what NATO’s
functions and priorities are and what it
should be capable of. Second, the political
decision to maintain readiness on several
fronts requires more than symbolic
commitments from all allies and partners.
This special issue reflects the Summit
and its outcome from a different
perspective: the transatlantic youth.
Those that will shape the Alliance in the
future provide us with new ideas on how
to implement the decisions made at the
Summit. Furthermore, several authors
explicitly took up issues that were not
discussed in Wales but should remain at –
or even make it to – NATO’s future
agenda.
The Future Of NATO
Young Perspectives On Key Challenges To The Alliance
Special Issue - June 2015
Group picture of the participants in the 2014 `Nato‘s Future‘ seminar in Berlin
(Source YATA)
Contents: Young Perspectives
Twenty-one students and young professionals from 16 NATO member and partner
states share their views on the future of NATO and potential challenges the Alliance
might face. In their essays, they highlight issues such as cyber, the Ukraine-conflict, the
partnership with Russia and hybrid warfare. On November 4th 2014, the authors con-
vened for a day-long seminar on NATO’s Future in Berlin.
NATO’s Future Today Are Those That Will Shape It Tomorrow
Magdalena Kirchner (YATA Germany) discusses the role of the younger generation in
NATO’s assessment of its future challenges - and opportunities. Addressing the genera-
tional gap should not only be a priority when it comes to raising public support for the
alliance among member state constituencies. It furthermore provides NATO with a key
source of innovation and inspiration for future endeavors.
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 2
Turkey, determined to stand up for NATO’s members
with borders to conflict and war zones. Some NATO
members, albeit not through a NATO initiative, are
supplying weapons to opposition forces and/or are par-
ticipating in military operations in Iraq and Syria,
bringing together an opposition strong enough to force
ISIL from NATO’s borders. However, experts main-
tain that ISIL cannot be defeated through air strikes and
armed forces, but by stopping the recruitment of new
members from the West and hence letting the self-
declared state dissolve from within. This has an impact
to NATO’s future and the security situation in Europe.
The volume of the US defence expenditure currently
represents 73% of NATO’s total defence spending,
leading the Alliance to heavy dependence on continued
US investments in Europe. Should the US start consid-
ering reducing their engagement in NATO, out of a
consideration that their interests are insufficiently rep-
resented and a desire to shift focus towards Pacific
Asia, Europe would most likely be facing an immediate
security vacuum. Keeping in mind the Chinese territo-
rial challenges against US allies such as Japan and South
Korea, a US shift is inevitable and foreseeable. In that
case the EU, with its Common Security and Defence
Policy (CSDP), needs to play a more prominent role in
the European security architecture. CSDP has held var-
ious peacekeeping missions worldwide, but due to the
lack of troops and institutional framework, it does not
have the same operational qualities as NATO possesses.
EU’s largest countries, France, Germany and the UK,
proved unable to agree in 2011 on the case of Libya.
France also failed to play a constructive role as Hol-
lande’s persistence to sell the Mistral-class warships to
By Øystein Andresen
T he Wales Summit Declaration
stands out as an atypical document
for NATO, given its crass rhetoric
regarding the threats of Russian expansionism, cross-
border terrorism from the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) and heavy condemnation of the As-
sad regime in Syria. Collective defence is more im-
portant than ever, but in a time of austerity in Europe
and with countries focusing more on domestic issues
than they do on solidarity with Allies, the challenge is
to turn these threats into actions taken by Allied gov-
ernments.
NATO was created to be a safe haven against
external threats, which in the Cold War were com-
munism and the Soviet Union. Now they are mainly
represented by ISIL, international terrorism and Rus-
sian aggression following the globally condemned and
illegal annexation of Crimea and recent initiatives for
talks on upgrading nuclear arms. Russia also faces a
gigantic increase in defence expenditures, with an
extensive upgrade in the last years. This can be inter-
preted as Russian ambitions to become a militarily
superpower. One may, however, also argue that the
current military equipment is obsolete and has been
so for decades, so an upgrade is purely inevitable in-
dependent of the situation in Crimea.
The uprising of ISIL, labelled as a terrorist
organization by both the United Nations and the Eu-
ropean Union, and its expansion in the region around
Iraq and Syria, leads to new threats to NATO’s bor-
ders. The new NATO Secretary General Jens Stolten-
berg made his first two official visits to Poland and
Wales2014:NATOOnAPivot
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 3
Russia despite agreed EU sanctions jeopardized the EU’s
unity. Ultimately, however, France halted the delivery
due to diplomatic pressure from Brussels and Berlin and
as a protest against Russia’s role in Ukraine. If Europe
wants to remain secure from external threats also within
a NATO without the US, these conflicts need to be both
prevented and resolved in a more efficient way than they
have been until today. With two Scandinavian Secretary
Generals consecutively, no one needs to remind Brussels
that a focus on Sweden and Finland remains crucial to
NATO’s future. Will the current undertakings by Russia
in Ukraine lead to a serious NATO membership debate in
these two countries? Russia and Finland share a border
and have a long history of both cooperation and confron-
tation. Putin’s personal envoy has warned Finland that a
Finnish NATO membership might lead to World War 3.
At the same time there is an ongoing debate about NATO
membership in Finland where the military sector advo-
cates an application, in contrast to a reluctant majority in
the population.
Sweden’s new government recently confirmed Swe-
den’s neutrality policy and thus killed speculations about
a Swedish NATO application. Recently, however, Rus-
sian military jets violated Swedish airspace leading to re-
actions from Swedish politicians. If NATO would need to
mobilize in the Baltic States, both the Finnish and Swe-
dish airspace and the Baltic sea will be of great strategic
importance. Thus, an unclarified agreement of the per-
mission to use this area to access the area of mobilization
could turn Sweden and Finland into an unwanted security
vacuum.
The current threats to peace and stability in Eu-
rope from the East and South are serious. The Wales
Summit Declaration in September announces measures to
address these threats. Until the next Summit the Alliance
will go through a difficult time with unclear outcomes
both regarding Russia, ISIL, a US pivot and possible
consequences of Swedish and Finnish NATO member-
ship debates and potential accessions. For now, the
consequences for European security remain uncertain.
Øystein Andresen holds a MA in modern Western
European history from Kassel University and currently
functions as President of YATA Norway. Since he
graduated in 2011, he has worked for the Norwegian
Ministry of Labour, the Norwegian Permanent Mission
to the United Nations in Vienna and the University of
Oslo, which is his current professional position. With-
in his professional career he has specialized in project
management and has been an active member of YATA
and worked with security policy issues since 2012.
Øystein has his specialty within EU affairs, the EU
Common Security and Defence Policy and Nordic for-
eign and security policy in general.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 4
The results of the Wales Summit regarding cyber
are defined in Articles 72 and 73 of the summit’s decla-
ration. It was emphasized that “[…] cyber-defence is
part of NATO’s core task of collective defence”. To
fulfil this task effectively the Enhanced Cyber Defence
Policy (ECDP) was endorsed at the Summit. According
to the ECDP, every member state is primarily respon-
sible to defend its own networks, with the assistance of
NATO and other member nations. Furthermore, the
declaration emphasized that member states have the
responsibility and are committed to develop the needed
capabilities for the protection of national networks and
also to support other member states if necessary. It is,
however, questionable in how far more advanced
member states are willing to reveal and use their cyber
intelligence and capabilities in support of less advanced
member states. Their behaviour could be somehow
similar to the nuclear extended deterrence dilemma,
where NATO member states in possession of nuclear
arms feared Soviet retaliation during the Cold War pe-
riod, if they would have made use of their weapons on
behalf of other states.
The second cyber defence challenge was only
briefly addressed in Article 73 of the declaration by
acknowledging that the Alliance “will continue to inte-
grate cyber defence in NATO operations and opera-
tional and contingency planning […]”.
Thirdly, the question as to when Article 5
would be invoked was addressed, but not satisfactory
answered. The Alliance agreed that a serious cyber at-
tack would eventually lead to the invocation of Article
5. However, the ambiguity remains about the degree of
intensity and what kind of circumstances would trigger
By Carolin Allenstein
T he nature of war has changed immense-
ly over the last couple of decades. Espe-
cially the technological progress result-
ed in an extensive dependence on cyber systems,
which in turn bear great security vulnerabilities.
NATO placed cyber defence on its political agenda
for the first time at the Prague Summit in 2002.
When in 2007 Estonia experienced several-week long
cyber attacks, mostly directed against both govern-
ment and private-sector web sites, NATO declared
that urgent actions are needed and started to-
thoroughly debate the issue. As a result the Alliance
approved its first policy on Cyber Defence in January
2008.
Nowadays, cyber plays an integral part of all
wars and conflicts around the world. According to
Jarno Limnéll, professor of cybersecurity at Finland's
Aalto University, it was high time for the Alliance to
address three major cyber defence challenges at the
2014 NATO Wales Summit. Firstly, the Alliance
must address the development of their cyber capabili-
ties and secondly, find a way to integrate them effec-
tively with other military and operational concepts for
defence. Eventually, a coherent and clear interpreta-
tion of the famous Article 5 of the North Atlantic
Treaty must be agreed on, including a statement on
how the collective defensive clause shall be handled in
the face of cyber threats. Particularly against the back-
drop of the Ukraine crisis, where Russia is intention-
ally blurring the lines between war and peace with the
aim to not trigger NATO’s collective defence clause,
such an interpretation is indispensable.
CyberSecurity—LackingACoherentApproach
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 5
an Article 5 response. The decision will rest with the
North Atlantic Council, which has the authority to decide
on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, member states
should not be too happy about such a formulation, be-
cause as long as no actual threshold warranting Article 5
exists, they cannot be completely sure about the deploy-
ment of collective defence when they actually need it. On
the other hand, it would be dangerous to disclose what is
accepted and what is not to potential opponents, especial-
ly in times where wars are taking place in so-called “grey
zones”. The adversary would intentionally act just below
the defined threshold, in order to avoid a collective de-
fence response. NATO will face challenges in the future,
when it eventually will have to define what amounts to a
cyber attack. Also in terms of its reactions it will be diffi-
cult to determine who waged the attack and how to react
proportionately. Besides these three crucial areas, active
engagement on cyber issues with relevant partner na-
tions, other international organisations as well as with
industry and NATO’s cyber defence education, training
and exercise activities were underlined.
The Heads of State and Government of the mem-
ber countries touched upon the central issues of cyber
defence previously anticipated by experts in this field. It
must be criticized, though, that cyber defence seemed to
play only a secondary role during the Wales Summit, as
the policy formulations remained rather vague. It is now
up to the member states to implement the policies in such
a manner that NATO can transform into a dependable
player in the cyber domain in the future.
Carolin Allenstein recently graduated with a Master
in International Security and Law from the University
of Southern Denmark. In her thesis she wrote about
sentencing at the ICTY. Previous to that, she complet-
ed a Bachelor in European Studies with a strong focus
on Eastern Europe. Carolin has been on various study
trips to Russia and also spent an exchange semester in
Murcia, Spain, where she studied at the Faculty of
Law. She has interned at the Embassy of the Federal
Republic Germany in Astana, Kazakhstan and at the
German Bundestag for the politician Gernot Erler. At
the moment she is working at the German Atlantic
Association in Berlin.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 6
this strategy is short selling, i.e. to sell stocks you do
not own but borrow. Employing this strategy against an
economy's main financial institutions has the potential
to effectively shatter the trust in the whole financial
system and to create financial turmoil. For various rea-
sons Bear Stearns would be our first target. A classic
short selling strategy combined with a negative infor-
mation campaign is successful to shake the confidence
into the bank's liquidity. The stock is pushed down
from almost 170 dollar in January 2007 to a mere 2
dollars in March 2008, so that to prevent further tur-
moil eventually the Federal Reserve intervenes and
finds a buyer in JP Morgan.
At the same time the peak of the housing bub-
ble is reached, making it ever more evident that with
stagnating real estate prices many homeowners will not
be able to pay their mortgages. Our next short selling
campaign aims at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and
eventually at Lehman Brothers, a firm heavily engaged
in the mortgage backed securities business. With Leh-
man Brothers eventually filing for bankruptcy, our cri-
sis is there. Money flows cease and the trust in the fi-
nancial system evaporates. To mitigate the situation the
700 billion dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program
(TARP) is set up, allowing the government to buy as-
sets and equity from banks and other financial firms.
Leaving our scenario: A rising US national debt
could be the ideal setting for the final stage of a finan-
cial war: to attack the dollar and try to trash its value.
But even if its status as the world’s reserve currency
should not be shattered, the US still faces tremendous
debt and budget cuts. This could weaken the US’ will
By Dr. Matthias Bange
T he future of modern covert warfare is
asymmetric. So called “unrestricted
warfare” holds sway: sabotage, assassi-
nations, special operations, psychological operations,
attacks on critical infrastructure and cyber warfare.
But one powerful weapon among the means of mod-
ern warfare is often forgotten and – even worse –
almost completely neglected by policy makers, strate-
gy planners and even academia: Financial Warfare.
To understand what financial warfare is and
what it can do, maybe a scenario might help. Let us
go back a few years and assume that the late-2000s
financial crisis was not just a short-time failure in the
long run of capitalism, but was intentionally triggered
by outside forces, in other words, that it was an act of
financial warfare.
In this scenario the target, the financial system
of the United States and the (Western) world, was
fairly weak. The regulatory system was insufficient,
debts were piled up, money was cheap, interest rates
low and the housing bubble was a home grown prob-
lem that would have had to affect the financial system
sooner or later. But would a “regular” crisis have
reached this extent? Let us for a moment assume that
there were “outside factors”. How could they have
done it? How would we do it? Our task in this scenar-
io: We are back in the mid-2000s and want to attack
the Western financial system.
First thing to do would be to test how weak the
financial system is. So called “Bear raids” would be
our financial weapon of choice. The means to conduct
FinancialWarfare–AStrategicThreat?
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 7
to engage in conflicts abroad – nefarious forces around
the world would stand to gain.
As stated above, this is only a scenario how the
late-2000s financial crisis could have been employed or
triggered by outside forces. It illustrates the potential
damages of financial warfare and shows that everyone
with proper means would have been able to seriously in-
fluence the events of this crisis by pursuing the strategies
described above.
Stupefying is that even though the possible dam-
ages of financial warfare are tremendous, it almost plays
no role in strategic considerations of countries whatsoev-
er – maybe because of one central problem: How to dis-
tinguish between financial warfare and market activity?
The late-2000s financial crisis example has shown that it
could have been an attack that caused the turmoil, but
that it would also be perfectly explainable with profit-
seeking actions of private market participants. Where to
draw the line? When the outcome is the same, does the
intention matter? Does it call for different responses, if
private companies or foreign actors attack a financial sys-
tem, the ones seeking profit, the others trying to harm a
(potential) enemy?
The matter is yet more complicated, because even
if financial warfare was conducted as part of a foreign
nation's attack strategy, it could easily be covered by the
employment of brokers, foundations, hedge funds and
shell companies, making it impossible to track down the
kingpins of those attacks. All these problems given – a
thorough investigation of financial warfare strategies is
overdue.
Dr. Matthias Bange is an officer in the German
Armed Forces, who received his specialized training in
Psychological Operations. He has just returned from
Mali, where he served five months as Chief Infor-
mation Operations Officer for the European Union
Training Mission Mali (EUTM MALI). His next assign-
ment will be in the analysis branch of the German
Armed Forces' Operational Communication Center,
where he will focus on conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa.
He has studied history in Hamburg, Calgary and Mont-
pellier and has just finished his PhD thesis on credit
money creation at the Helmut Schmidt University in
Hamburg. His next project will deal with financial
warfare. Matthias academic interest is financial history.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 8
liance's post-cold war transformation is the second par-
amount perception challenge for the Atlantic Alliance.
As NATO's purpose is no longer self-evident, too many
ordinary people do not understand what the Alliance is
good for. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union
NATO's role has extended to partnership and crisis
management. However, all too often NATO is publicly
still associated with hard power exclusively. This no-
tion neglects the Alliance's various dimensions such as
humanitarian assistance in Pakistan and Bosnia, coun-
tering piracy off the Horn of Africa and reconstruction
in Afghanistan. Facing globalized insecurity issues such
as terrorism in the Mediterranean, failed states, the
quest for energy security and the challenges of cyber
space, the Alliance needs to authentically communicate
its relevance in a post Cold War world and promote
the notion of NATO as a reliable and innovative part-
ner. This also might lay a foundation of trust and can
serve as a constructive approach with NATO partner
countries, particularly Russia. Given the recent turmoil
in Ukraine and the timeless critique of NATO's en-
largement policy, it is essential to emphasize that
NATO is no military bloc anymore but rather an alli-
ance of free and democratically legitimized nations op-
erating by consensus.
The third public perception challenge is the
missing transatlantic narrative. A common narrative
determines how people make sense of the world and is
the vital glue that traditionally hold European and
American elites together. However, today's stereotype
driven post-Cold-War »successor generation« in Eu-
By Cedric Bierganns
“ Sometimes they'll give a war and nobody will
come” Carl Sandburg's famous hyperbole has
become a bitter truth for NATO, which
above all is a military as well as political organization
that heavily depends on broad public support in its
democratic member states. As the Wales Summit
2014 has shown, the Atlantic Alliance confronts three
urgent public perception challenges, which, if not
adequately addressed, will compromise NATO's rep-
utation, endanger its cohesiveness and finally make
Article 5 an empty phrase.
The first public perception challenge is the in-
constant support for the Alliance and its specific mis-
sions. As the world slides back into Realpolitik after
Russia’s annexation of Crimea, deterrence once again
can be a powerful instrument in conflict management.
However, hard power that is not credibly under-
pinned by public support is perceived by both adver-
saries and allies alike as an idle threat. As recent poll
ratings indicate, only a minority in Germany approves
Bundeswehr operations beyond the purpose of nation-
al self-defense and humanitarian aid. Others see
NATO as the last international organization that
should lead in a crisis. Given the large number of Alli-
ance casualties in Afghanistan and the general opposi-
tion towards military means in peace-loving and risk-
averse continental Europe, NATO needs to generate
public support by explaining why the military success
of missions beyond NATO's borders matters at home.
The general lack of public awareness of the Al-
TimeToGetBackInTheGame
NATO'sPublicDiplomacyEffortsForATransatlantic
21stCentury
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 9
rope and the US shows no understanding for NATO's
new security challenges and hardly knows anything about
the transatlantic values and solidarity that the Atlantic
Alliance historically stands for. At this point, NATO's
public diplomacy should develop a new grand narrative
and explain to the future elites why the shared values of
»democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law«, as
presented in the North Atlantic Treaty preamble, do mat-
ter for them since NATO is the ultima ratio guardian of
liberty and security in the 21st century. As it is only a
matter of time that rising powers challenge the transatlan-
tic narrative, which for so long consensually guaranteed
America's hegemony and Europe's security, it is crucially
important for NATO's outreach efforts to always lead the
public debate, set the agenda and shape the strategic envi-
ronment. Otherwise the Alliance will lose the interpreta-
tional sovereignty it gained after 1945.
In conclusion, Benjamin Franklin's bold prediction
has never lost its relevance for the transatlantic communi-
ty that must remain strong and unwavering: “We must all
hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Cedric Bierganns studied modern history, interna-
tional relations and American studies in Bonn, St. An-
drews and Washington State with a strong focus on
transatlantic relations. His master's thesis deals with
the United States Information Agency's public diplo-
macy activities in West Germany during the imple-
mentation of the NATO Double-Track Decision in the
1980s. Cedric interned for the United Nations Region-
al Information Centre (UNRIC) and the German Com-
mission for UNESCO in Bonn. He also worked as a
student assistant for a publisher. Cedric is not only a
YATA member, but also holds an active membership
of the German Council on Foreign Relations (YOUNG
DGAP NRW).
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 10
complex because they are both traditional and non-
traditional ones in character. These new threats have
the capacity of transcending the borders of one country
and hence become a threat for both regions as well as
global ones. Hence, in the Wales Summit Declaration,
the 28 Allies showed their determination to make a
decisive effort to confront both today´s and tomor-
row´s rising threats. Therefore, two important deci-
sions were necessary in
order to achieve these
goals. NATO, in this re-
spect, has underlined once
again the importance of its
collective security mission,
along with its other key
tasks: cooperative security
and crisis management. In
this regard, the Wales
Summit has given two cru-
cial messages both to its members and to the outside
world.
First, concerning the members and international
cohesion of NATO, the Alliance assured them that the
U.S. and NATO’s extended deterrence is valid-and
precautions like NATO's Rapid Reaction Force etc.
would be taken in this regard. The aim was here also to
assure NATO’s allies that their individual security con-
cerns-like Ukraine’s and others- will be dealt with. By
this way, the principle of the Alliance’s indivisibility of
security was emphasized and it is aimed to be strength-
ened.
By Eda Guney
A ccording to most IR specialists, NATO
is the most efficient and successful in-
ternational military organization. Since
its foundation in 1949, NATO has played a very cru-
cial role not just for peace and security but also for
values such as freedom and democracy. Until very
recently, some people were discussing whether
NATO was still relevant
and necessary in the 21st
century. But just as these
discussions were going
on, new crises on the
Western and Southern
flanks of the alliance clear-
ly showed that NATO is
still needed for peace,
security, and stability.
This Summit was expected to focus on Afghanistan
and NATO’s post military withdrawal from Afghan.
The newly emerged security threats, namely the in-
creasing terrorists threats against Western countries
changed this agenda. The rise of the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the crisis in Ukraine
drastically shifted the focus of the Summit which end-
ed up being dedicated to the threats at NATO’s East-
ern and Southern flanks.
We understand that NATO is in need of
strengthening the Alliance’s present capabilities so
that it could act as a credible deterrent against today’s
complex and rising threats. Today’s threats are more
TheAftermathOfWalesSummitOfNATO:WhereTo?
NATO leaders at the 2014 Wales Summit (Source NATO)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 11
Second, conveying a message also to the outside
world, the summit stressed that Article 5 of the North
Atlantic Treaty remains credible and continuous. For
instance, the recent stationing of Patriot Missiles to the
South of Turkey in order to deter any possible assault
from Syria, for instance, made the continuous guarantee
of the credibility of the Alliance’s deterrence mechanism
evident. NATO’s present decision to continue to have
both a conventional and a nuclear arsenal is also the guar-
antee and the proof of the Alliance’s deterrence.
Since the future is full of uncertainties, the Euro-
Atlantic community perceives the value of NATO being
higher than ever. For this reason, NATO seems to work
as the most successful international military organisation
and also constantly up-grades itself. NATO will continue
to do these up-grades depending on the radically chang-
ing geopolitical conditions in its environment. If we look
at the past, during the Cold War and Post-Cold War
years, NATO learned some crucial lessons and these les-
sons will help NATO to mature its overall security for
both its members as well as to the world. In this regard,
the alliance would be both trying to keep securing its
own existence as well as continuing to build democratic,
liberal, and secure areas of peace beyond its borders. To
this end, the continuous work of NATO members to-
gether with partners will be very important and precious
in order to create an area of peace and stability beyond
the borders of NATO. The Wales Summit surely will be
the starting point in this regard.
Eda Guney
is cur- rently
obtaining her Bachelor in sociology at Galatasaray Uni-
versity. She was an exchange student at the Université
Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels form 2013-2014. Eda
has been involved with the Youth Atlantic Treaty As-
sociation of Turkey (YATA-TURK) for the last three
years. Since September 2014 she is working as the
president of YATA-TURK and also keeps providing
reports and analyses for the YATA-TURK’s Facebook
Page. Last year she worked as a communication coor-
dinator for YATA-TURK during the preparations of
the International Student Strategic Studies Seminar,
organized by Yildiz Technical University. Since high
school she is taking part in conferences on internation-
al relations, peace and security as an assistant or partic-
ipant.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 12
states and NATO’s competences contain mostly territori-
al security and defense, energy security is of utmost im-
portance in terms of foreign policy making. Hence, vul-
nerability in terms of energy security may hamper coher-
ence and foreign policy formulation within NATO as
well, since many members rely on a third country - most-
ly on Russia - for their energy supply. This grants Russia a
bargaining chip vis-à-vis individual states to lobby its in-
terests within NATO.
We should not forget that partners such as Azerbaijan
and Georgia are important countries for many European
members of NATO in terms of supply and transportation
of energy resources, transit of military cargos from Af-
ghanistan, and play a bridge role between Central Asia
and the Southern Caucasus. However, both countries
have territorial conflicts with their respective neighbors
Armenia and Russia. These conflicts make them vulnera-
ble to potential war, threats and attacks from aggressor
countries. Therefore, it is important to protect critical
energy infrastructures and react properly.
The strategies formulated within NATO often
neglect the partner countries by showing that “Article 5”
constitutes its main raison d’être, excluding security guar-
antees for partner countries. Loud statements and deep
concerns do not equal action. People are not impressed
by statements anymore. For partner states in the neigh-
borhood, NATO became a declaratory actor. This means
that NATO will not provide any security guarantees for
its neighbors. It was obvious in the Russian-Georgian
war, the annexation of Crimea, and the recent crisis in
the Southeast of Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis proved that
edges of the security umbrella of NATO literally end at
the NATO-Ukraine border. The same could apply to
By Ilgar Gurbanov
O n 4 and 5 September, the Wales Sum-
mit brought together the heads of
NATO’s member states and partner
countries. The main outcome of the summit was that
NATO is an alliance for Allied States only with political
and geographical limits. The summit de-facto “declared”
Russia a main threat, relates to the security of only the
allies themselves.
Most operations of NATO served as the raison d’être
for the Alliance’s reputation. However, it was not that
easy to pool capabilities and resources to send troops to
crisis points. Not all Allied States agree to contribute to
crisis management and certain states abstain because of
their national interests. Therefore, NATO cannot bring
all the member states together to address crisis manage-
ment with one voice.
A key reason was that there was always a cozy
mentality within the Alliance, notably among its Eastern
and Central European members based on the idea that
the U.S. was the main security guarantor. At the Wales
Summit, the Alliance decided to establish the Rapid Re-
sponse Force that would be deployed immediately in
case of an unexpected eruption of the armed crisis at
NATO’s external borders in order to protect its Allies.
This is also what the EU tried to establish since the early
2000s.
The potential threat stemming from Russia and its
“imperialist dreams” should not be underestimated, but
alternative threats might emanate from radical Islam as
well as territorial conflicts of partner countries, which
might hamper their relationships with the Alliance.
Though energy is a national competence of the member
NATOWalesSummit:FailureOrSuccessStory?
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 13
Georgia as well. Despite the fact that Georgia is the biggest
contributor to NATO operations, it could not receive an
invitation to NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) yet,
while it has received “packages of cooperation”. However, if
NATO accelerated its ties with partners and accepted Geor-
gia and Ukraine before 2008, maybe the Georgian occupa-
tion and the annexation of Ukrainian territory could have
been prevented.
NATO should not only rely on its “Partnership for
Peace” (PfP) framework. In order not to lose ties with these
partner countries, which are strategically important for the
Alliance, NATO may initiate new cooperation frameworks,
even if it will not contain a membership perspective. Five
PfP-countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine
– have territorial conflicts, which emanated from Russia’s
aggressive imperialism and flourished by Kremlin-led poli-
cies. However, even without membership, NATO may pro-
mote its ties with partners by providing more training, ad-
vice and assistance opportunities in order to keep them clos-
er to the Alliance, rather to keep them at a distance with
political statements only. This means, “keep partners on
their tracks to NATO, but not in yet”. Actually, NATO’s
neighborhood strategy constitutes a failure from its core.
While enlargement aimed at pulling out post-Soviet coun-
tries from Russia’s orbit, it failed in doing so and certain
countries found themselves in a trap of territorial conflicts.
From the very beginning, Russia opposed NATO enlarge-
ment in what it considered its “area of influence”. Partner-
ship between NATO and Russia was merely symbolic and
the latest sanctions stalled Russia in its policy towards
Ukraine. The ongoing information war, the crisis in
Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, sanctions against Russia
etc., leave very little possibility for future cooperation in the
near future. While the allies do not aim at confrontation,
there is no willingness to cooperate either.
So far, bilateral relations between NATO and Russia
were suspended three times. First, during NATO’s engage-
ment in Kosovo, second, during the Russian-Georgian War,
and third, after the annexation of Crimea. In the first two
cases, NATO decided to break the ice and continued re-
lations. This shows how fragile NATO’s commitment is
for its partners. It may happen in the Ukrainian case as
well. Relations with Russia will be reconsidered again.
Much also depends on the position of the new Secretary
General of NATO. Assuming that old habits die hard,
Russia, which did not stop with Georgia and Moldova,
won’t stop with Crimea either.
İlgar Gurbanov is a Contributing Columnist on Rus-
sian and Energy Affairs for Strategic Outlook from Azer-
baijan. He is an ENP Fellow from the European Commis-
sion and recently graduated from the College of Europe
on International Relations and Diplomacy Studies with a
Master of Arts in Security and Justice Affairs. İlgar got his
bachelor and first master degree from the faculty of Inter-
national Economic Relations in Azerbaijan State Econom-
ic University. He has worked as a Teaching Assistant in
the Azerbaijan State Economic University and as a Project
Consultant in the United Nations Development Program
in Azerbaijan. From 2008 to 2012, he worked and served
in various international organizations, government bodies
as a trainee and participated in the different programs and
projects organized by European NGOs. İlgar is an author
of numerous articles and columns. His main research area
is Russian Foreign Policy, Energy Security and Policy,
Caspian basin, Arctic basin, South Caucasus region and
NATO/EU policies towards neighbors.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 14
ganizational information broker, the Allies are still
missing concrete procedures in the case of a severe
cyber attack both above and below the threshold of
Article 5.
The problem is no longer that NATO lacks
agreement on the danger of cyber attacks, but the
greater problem is the missing link, the same scale of
measure, between the civil, political and operational
level among the Allies. Even today, only 14 members
have established special cyber units within the armed
forces. The lack of highly skilled military personnel
with cyber security expertise, including lack of
knowledge of technical terms on the political level, all
comes down to the lack of common procedures and
same measure of scale on all levels among the allies.
When asked what could invoke an Article 5 response,
one ambassador to NATO answered that it would have
to be on the level of an armed force attack. Why is this
approach problematic? Because even though it might
seem like a step towards acknowledging the damage a
cyber attack could do, it seems very unlikely that NAC
could successfully defend an ally with its existing crisis
management procedures. The problem is very simple.
You cannot measure a cyber attack with armed forces
– that would be going back to the basics when leaders
called cyber attacks ‘cyber stuff’. NAC might after
these procedures measure the attack in the proportion
of deaths. But a real devastating cyber attack could do
much more harm than such. By starting with recogniz-
ing that an effective NATO cyber defence needs its
own intensity scale of measure, by for example placing
CallForAClearerCommon
NATOCyberSecurityPolicy
By Maria Mundt Knudsen
T wo months ago, as the NATO Summit
2014 in Wales was approaching, it provided
the Alliance with a much needed oppor-
tunity to review its political principles related to cyber
defence, and hereby rethink strategy outside of its military
comfort zone. And even though, we saw long awaited
policy steps being made by signing the NATO Enhanced
Cyber Defence Policy and initiating the NATO-Industry
Cyber Partnership, the Alliance has shown that cyber de-
fence continues to be a priority, but a priority that lacks a
coherent and common policy among its members. If we
take an even closer look at NATO’s policy developments
and approaches as an international organization, towards a
free and global, yet more secure cyber space, there has
been progress, though at a slow pace and nowhere near a
match to the breakneck speed of development of threats
towards the Allies critical infrastructure. The summit dec-
laration stressed that NATO had become a more fit, faster
and flexible alliance, but that did not apply to the digital
realm. Almost in the bottom of the agenda, we find para-
graph 72 and 73, determining that a cyber attack could
invoke Article 5. Some newspapers declared that was one
of the most important steps made in NATO’s history in
the field, and that the June 2014 Estonian proposal to cre-
ate a NATO Cyber Range in Tallinn, was another step
towards the missed pooling and sharing initiative. The
truth is that far more important steps, such as the estab-
lishment of NCIRC and the information school in Italy,
have already been made. Even though NATO, with ex-
tended information sharing, successfully could be the or-
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 15
a cyber command under the SACEUR, NATO could take
the lead as a mediator between private and public stake-
holders that all together will have the necessary capabili-
ties to defend the allies. Furthermore, the recent attacks
on government stakeholders have shown that the future
wars will be the wireless wars, where viruses and mal-
ware can shut down key infrastructure such as nuclear
power plants, airports and other crucial government in-
stitutions, and a deployment of armed forces will be of
little effect here. Cyber attacks are the new way for non-
state actors, such as terrorists and activists, to demand
the attention of their governments. All this calls for coop-
eration across all sectors, including cooperation with the
EU and private stakeholders. But cooperation can only
find a place with the same understanding of the basic
frame in which the defence planning policy is conducted.
25 years ago NATO had to protect its allies against
the “Soviet threat”. This is the age of firewalls, and they
are of such importance, that we need not only to talk
about NATO developing practises and protecting its own
network, because it has done so very effectively, but we
also need to stress the need of standardisation of policies
and capabilities between the Allies. The Wales Summit
2014 called for a NATO that prioritized a common cyber
defence policy, and in order to do so, NATO has to go
back to the basics and develop a scale that measures cyber
attacks in its own realm, and to make sure that all allies
are using the same scale to measure the attacks. This is
not to say that recent developments within NATO’s
cyber defence has not been successful, and the link to
international law clearly stated so, but the very first step
needs to be rethought, and defined with a common scale
of measure on all levels in NATO and among the individ-
ual allies.
Maria Mundt Knudsen is a Program Assistant at
the Atlantic Treaty Association. Maria is currently
pursuing her master's degree in Political Science at the
University of Aarhus, Denmark. Maria obtained her
bachelor's degree in Political Science with a major in
Middle Eastern Studies and a focus on the classification
of terror organizations in the MENA region. Her pri-
mary academic and research focus includes counter-
terrorism, NATO's strategic culture, cyber security,
intelligence, security and state-building in the MENA
region. Maria is the founder and president of
“International Politics – NOW” and a facilitator at the
Security and Defence Agenda's Security Jam 2014.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 16
ed to lead by example and some positive change has been
achieved already, mainly in the framework of the Euro-
Atlantic Partnership Council. Considerable changes have been
done in operations where inclusion of women has also a sub-
stantial impact. Gender Advisors positions have been intro-
duced in ISAF and KFOR missions. Both the Afghan and Koso-
var societies are perceived as traditionally male-dominated
communities; therefore, broad gender mainstreaming and the
inclusion of women on the tactical and operational level in
international and national forces have been marked as a mile-
stone. On the executive level at NATO HQ, different policies
such as 2007 NATO’s Overarching Policy and 2009 Bi-
Strategic Command Directive 40-1 (pdf) serve as guidelines.
The political commitment formulated in NAC is key, howev-
er, it is up to individual NATO members to keep their govern-
ments accountable. Only 17 NATO Allies and 10 partner
countries have adopted the voluntary National Action Plan to
integrate women into
military in combat or
non-combat units.
Without any doubt the
greatest achievement has
been the open dialogue
itself, which sends a
strong message rejecting
this topic to be inferior
to other security topics.
Yet, more could and should have been done at the Summit in
Newport. Article 90 (out of 113 articles) of the Wales Summit
Declaration leaves the issue at the bottom of the agenda, fol-
lowed by the Open Door Policy, bilateral cooperation, and
environmental security. Article 90 echoes UNSCR1325,
namely ‘women’s full and active participation in the preven-
tion, management, and resolution of conflicts.’ Nothing inno-
By Magda Kocianova
T he issue of women in security and defence
has been increasingly resonant in the last
decade. Getting on board famous faces
such as Emma Watson to tackle gender inequality, and
Angelina Jolie to fight sexual violence in conflicts, have
drawn increased attention to the overall role of women
in security. There have been innumerable debates on the
topic in Brussels and outside (see e.g. the network
called Women in International Security), but has it real-
ly led to a positive change?
In the security field of the Western world,
NATO plays the most important role and belongs to one
of those institutions attaching “a great importance” to
the issue, which made it once again to the NATO Wales
Summit Declaration; nevertheless, it has remained at its
bottom, not at its top, casting some doubt to the seri-
ousness of the mat-
ter. If the latest
NATO Summit in
Wales was about re-
balancing the Alli-
ance in the new geo-
political environ-
ment, it has failed to
tackle thoroughly the
issue of the gender
balance within the
organisation and the question of how to build an institu-
tion of today to deal with the issues of the future.
Since the groundbreaking UN Security Council
Resolution 1325 in October 2000, women’s role during
and after conflicts has caught the spotlight. NATO start-
TheVoiceOfWomenInSecurityAndDefence
Women in peace and security (Source NATO)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 17
vative has been brought to the table. Although the role of
the civil society has been acknowledged, a concrete involve-
ment of these groups, such as for example an establishment
of a permanent advisory panel to NATO in the future,
would be more constructive. At the same time, the fact that
rights of women being the last thing (Article 8) on the
Wales Summit Declaration on Afghanistan, and the topic of
Women, Peace and Security being the last panel at the Fu-
ture Leaders Summit, raises a legitimate question of the
topic remaining still the last thing on the NATO agenda.
Furthermore, out of 28 NATO Heads of State and Govern-
ment attending the NATO Summit at the Celtic Manor Re-
sort in Newport, Wales, 5 were female representatives
(Danish Prime Minister, German Chancellor, Lithuanian
President, Norwegian Prime Minister, and Slovenian Prime
Minister). Along the EU High Representative Catherine
Ashton, there were several female representatives at the
ministerial level. Amid the talks of the latest Summit, some
recent changes and their impact in years to come must be
taken into account. First of all, the former NATO Secretary
General Rasmussen was an eager supporter of the gender
issues within the Alliance, gaining the Hillary Clinton
Award in March 2014. However, the policy of the new Sec-
retary General Stoltenberg remains to be seen in this regard,
noting especially the fact that in his Annual Report 2014 he
tackled the issue of women in security as the very last topic.
Although he inherited most of the achievements mentioned
in the Report, he could have outlined the importance of
Women, Peace and Security better. Second of all, the post
of the first Special Representative for Women, Peace and
Security, Mari Skåre, finished at the end of September 2014
and Marriët Schuurman has taken the post with her policy
yet to be shaped. Third, the first and only female Assistant
Secretary General, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, left her post
in October to run for a president of Croatia (which she
won). All of these bring an internal change in NATO execu-
tive structures and it also brings a temporary uncertainty of
the NATO policies in gender mainstreaming.
The Summit in Wales was certainly not another
missed opportunity but it was an opportunity that was
not used to its fullest potential. It has also marked the
internal change and reshuffling of the key positions. With
including the issue of women in security and defence on
the highest political agenda of the Alliance but usually
leaving it at the bottom, we are left to question whether
it is really an important topic for discussion, one that is
worth a prominent attention. It seems that other topics
steal the attention, not realising that no matter can be
solved sustainably if 50 per cent of the population is left
out or marginalised in the process. NATO must continue
to be exemplary in this aspect. We can hear the voice of
women in security and defence, now it is time for some
more concrete action.
Magda Kocianova holds a MSc in European Studies
from the Institute of European Studies and an LLM in
Public International Law from the University of Kent.
She obtained her BA in International Relations & Diplo-
macy from the Anglo- American University. Magda cur-
rently trains with the DG Trade of the European Com-
missions. She worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Czech Republic and the Atlantic Treaty Association
Secretariat in Brussels where she dealt with security poli-
cy. Prior to that she served as a Political Analyst at the
Global Water Institute. Additionally, Magda co-organised
two editions of the Model NATO Youth Summit in Brus-
sels for 250 international participants in 2012 and 2013.
Her professional interest focuses on transatlantic bonds,
regional military cooperation, European security and de-
fense, and women's participation in the security field.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 18
differently with other armoured vehicles, aircraft or
equipment. Yet, there seems to be little intention to
radically change anything about this practice. In fact,
many multinational defence industry projects are ra-
ther an argument against substantial cooperation than a
success story: The Eurofighter, MEADS or the ar-
moured vehicle Boxer show how - more often than not
- costs explode, participating nations withdraw, and
orders are reduced - while other allied nations simulta-
neously develop a similar system on their own.
The reasons behind this are governments, pro-
tective of their national defence industries. Maybe the
most dramatic display of this protective behaviour
could be witnessed when the merger negotiations be-
tween BAE and EADS were abandoned due to reserva-
tions of the involved governments just a few years ago.
To a rational observer, this seems strange - after all, it
is easily achievable that all participating partners bene-
fit from engaging in far-reaching defence industry co-
operation.
The most obvious benefits deriving from such
cooperation are the subsequent economies of scale:
The price per unit for a tank or an aircraft is substan-
tially lower when higher numbers of units are pro-
duced. This in turn enables governments to buy sys-
tems either in a higher quality or quantity, without
having to take the rather unpopular step of increasing
military spending. It also gives them the freedom to
hold on to otherwise too expensive military capabilities
and therefore not having to rely on partners for that
particular capability. This antagonizes the concept of
By Hendrik Kuckat
A t the Wales Summit, NATO’s mem-
bers agreed that military defence
spending should be increased to at
least 2 % of the respective nation’s GDP. While it
remains to be seen how exactly this project will be
realized by the concerned countries, the fact that the
present security situation requires NATO to over
think defence spending could very well initiate a pro-
ductive impulse to Smart Defence. NATO has a long
standing history of ideas aiming to make the alliance
more effective by having its members work together
more closely. Concepts such as ”pooling and sharing“
are hard to implement with 28 partners, each insisting
upon their own sovereignty. Not even the European
Union can come to an agreement on a unanimous
opinion about most topics, so how could NATO get
there?
The initially mentioned tense current security
situation poses a certain challenge to NATO and
should consequently lead to actions. While the funda-
mental problems keeping Smart Defence from gaining
momentum remain unsolved (no comprehensive con-
sensus, too little trust, reluctance to give up sover-
eignty), now could be the time to lay the foundation -
by engaging in actual, comprehensive cooperation in
the defence industry. This idea is not new, but history
shows that multinational defence projects are rarely
successful, nor are they comprehensive. Roughly a
dozen different battle tanks are being used by the
NATO members, and things aren’t looking much
NATOAfterTheWalesSummit
ANewImpulseForSmartDefense?
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 19
”pooling and sharing“, but it possesses the appeal that a
nation does not necessarily have to reduce their military
capabilities while maintaining a given defence budget and
can generally use that budget more effectively. If nothing
else, comprehensive defence industry cooperation is cur-
rently at least not unimaginable, as opposed to compre-
hensive ”pooling and sharing“. (And one thing might very
well lead to the other.) A pleasant side-effect would be
actual interoperability and the ensuing combined train-
ing.
Since such a movement would drive many defence
companies into either bankruptcy or high specialization,
it seems understandable why politicians are typically re-
luctant to choose to go down that road. This is why the
current security situation also offers the chance to break
out of this inefficient circle and value collective security
higher than artificially protecting one’s own national de-
fence industry (whose size commonly does not justify the
received preferential treatment anyway).
Another part of Smart Defence, just like of many
concepts before, is ”burden sharing“. The United States’
contribution to NATO is still many times higher than that
of any other country (and three times as high as the com-
bined contribution of all European NATO members).
The fact that the U.S. bears this much of NATO’s burden
is certainly not the organization’s biggest problem; the
fact that the other nations do not contribute more is far
more profound, especially considering the U.S.’ ”pivot to
Asia“. While European NATO countries seemingly are
not able or willing to contribute more, they certainly are
not interested in taking advantage of comprehensive de-
fence industry cooperation with the U.S. at the price of
damaging their own defence industries - and vice versa.
Despite the aforementioned relative economic irrele-
vance of the defence industry (at least in Europe), gov-
ernments continue protecting theirs even though they
could conveniently bolster up the European role in
NATO by managing their defence budgets more effi-
ciently.
NATO governments insist on their national au-
tarky in terms of their defence industry, even though
NATO’s and especially the European Union’s mem-
bers already have such close partnerships nowadays
that there indeed is no more need for national autar-
chy. On the contrary - comprehensive defence indus-
try cooperation is likely to send out a strong message,
leading to closer cooperation in other fields as well as
visibly strengthening the respective friendships. Either
engaging in extensive defence industry cooperation
(with all its benefits) or protecting one’s national de-
fence industry: You can’t have the cake and eat it - and
now is the opportunity to make the right choice.
Hendrik Kuckat is currently deployed as a platoon
leader in the reconnaissance company of the Jägerba-
taillon 291, an infantry battalion of the German-Franco
Brigade stationed just south of Strasbourg. He joined
the army in 2006 as a conscript, and after a few months
he opted for the officer career. In 2008, he began stud-
ying Economics and Organizational Sciences at the
University of the German Armed Forces in Munich.
During his studies, he completed internships in the
U.S. and in Indonesia (in the field of international trade
and NGOs, respectively). He obtained his Master’s
degree in 2012 and continued his military career with
various officer trainings, most of them specific recon-
naissance and military intelligence courses. In early
2014, he was transferred to his current unit, at first
mostly working in the military intelligence cell of the
battalion (which trained for potential deployments) and
assisting the company commander, until taking over his
assigned platoon in the fall of 2014.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 20
the European security architecture?
The hypothesis of this short paper is: Past efforts
to establish deep defense cooperation in Europe failed,
because a critical mass of possible member states were
overstepped. It is not possible to build a European ar-
my, because the member states of the EU and NATO
are too heterogeneous. Therefore, if states want a deep
cooperation, they must come together on a lower lev-
el. Two European countries succeeded in beginning to
build a common army: Germany and the Netherlands
(referred to as the
“German-Dutch
model”). The two
countries will likely
extend their liaison,
in order to save mon-
ey and benefit from
other advantages. If
we see this German-
Dutch form of coop-
eration as a possible
model for other
states, we have to
draw up some requirements (the stricter they are, the
more stable such cooperation will be in the long-term):
• The countries must have long-term excellent
political relations and they must have close cul-
tural-historical linkages.
• The countries must share the same basic values
and principles (e.g. rule of law, democracy, plu-
By Tobias Lechner
Y ear after year: The evergreen during
NATO meetings on every level is the
defense budget of European NATO
member states. Originally, a rule, it became a far
away aim. At the end of the Wales summit, the mem-
ber states agreed on “trying” to spend two percent of
the GDP in ten years. Most European countries are
small, but of course they have their own armies.
These armies are incredibly expensive, outdated,
and ineffective. Most parts of the defense budget is
used for personnel
costs. NATO must en-
courage member states
to build stronger coop-
eration. Synergies could
be used and money
could be saved in an
unimaginable extent.
Temporarily, there are
already different forms
of cooperation, e.g.
British-French coopera-
tion; the European Un-
ion developed a “Common Security and Defense Poli-
cy” approach with the headword “pooling and shar-
ing”; and there is the NATO concept of SMART de-
fense. “More with less”, is the slogan used in speeches
by politicians. But in fact, European countries do not
use these possibilities; they are afraid of having to give
up a little bit of sovereignty. What’s the problem with
TowardsaNewEuropeanSecurityArchitecture
Military cooperation (Source NATO)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 21
ralism, social market economy, liberal society,
strong civil society).
• The countries should be as close as possible geo-
graphically.
• If there are more participating countries, the coop-
eration must not exceed the so-called critical mass.
The more countries participate, the more unstable
the project will be.
Under the described circumstances, a common ar-
my of various countries creates a win-win situation.
Where are possibilities for very deep and very stable se-
curity cooperation? Surely, the German-Dutch coopera-
tion could be extended also geographically. Next to the
Netherlands, also Belgium and Luxembourg would fulfill
the requirements, and most likely they would be interest-
ed in joining such cooperation. Similar some Scandinavian
states (especially Denmark and Norway); and eventually,
also the Baltic States could be part: They are compara-
tively small and therefore need some protection. In sum,
we have now around ten states fulfilling the criteria in
Northern Europe. I suppose, the critical mass is reached,
a further enlargement would be counterproductive. But
similar transnational cooperation between countries with
strong ties is possible across Europe. Simultaneously, the
military must be modernized: Instead of spending money
on high salaries, money should be spent for innovative
techniques. With a common military budget there could
be so much more done.
Tobias Lechner is a Master student at Andrássy Uni-
versity, Budapest in the field of international relations.
He holds a Magister’s degree in history and German
studies of University of Innsbruck, Austria. For the
program Korean-EU Leaders for Global Education he
spent 2012 one semester at Chungbuk National Uni-
versity in South Korea. Last year, he participated in a
Common Security and Defence Orientation Course,
organized by the Collège Européen de Sécurité et de
Défense, Brussels. This summer, he worked as intern
in the German embassy in Chisinau, Moldova. He is
especially interested in the future of defense and of
security matters related to religious extremism.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 22
capability only. Apparently, most new member states in
Central and Eastern Europe insisted that forward deployed
sub-strategic US nuclear weapons in Europe are necessary.
Besides nuclear posture, NATO had also developed peculiar
structures and mechanisms during the Cold War to ex-
change views on sensitive nuclear issues, to develop nuclear
weapons related guidelines and policies and to facilitate alli-
ance cohesion. The DDPR exercise highlighted the value of
nuclear consultation in NATO as a mechanism to compro-
mise on delicate nuclear issues, even if positions and inter-
ests of individual allies diverged sometimes sharply. Given
the severe tensions between NATO and Russia due to the
Ukraine crisis, the renewed sense of potential instability at
the Eastern borders of the alliance and the chance of Iran
going nuclear, collective defense and deterrence in NATO
will be of highest politico-military importance in the future -
especially in the perception of those who would be most
directly affected by aggressive Russian policy or a nuclear
Iran. US extended nuclear deterrence will continue to con-
stitute the very core of collective defense and deterrence vis
-à-vis Russia. As hitherto, it will be supplemented by the
Western nuclear powers’ deterrents which also contribute
to increase uncertainty about NATO’s reactions in the worst
and probably unlikely case of direct hostilities against
NATO.
Even though we lack knowledge about Soviet views
on US extended nuclear deterrence during the Cold War,
the fact remains that NATO’s position was at no time chal-
lenged militarily by the Soviet Union, besides ongoing geo-
political rivalries and Moscow’s continuous efforts to erode
NATO’s cohesion and to split the US off its Western Euro-
pean allies. In this regard, extended nuclear deterrence may
have been important, if not essential, to maintain alliance
security and stability. Nowadays, non-nuclear protégés who
profit from the nuclear umbrella of the US within the frame-
By Andreas Lutsch
T he new strategic concept and the Deterrence
and Defence Posture Review report (DDPR)
demonstrated that NATO achieved consen-
sus after years of controversial debate that “as long as there
are nuclear weapons in the world, NATO will remain a
nuclear alliance”. At the same time, NATO made a com-
mitment to “create the conditions” for a world without
nuclear weapons. The backbone of NATO security will
continue to be provided by US extended nuclear deter-
rence. This principle carries fundamental political and stra-
tegic weight. To maintain the security of all Allies, the
Alliance will continue to rely on the US nuclear umbrella -
probably for an indefinite period, given the nuclear policies
and strategies not only of Russia, China and North Korea
but also of the Western nuclear powers and especially of
France.
Given the legacies of the Cold War the US umbrel-
la not only includes a correspondent US declaratory policy
with its core to threaten the use of nuclear weapons initial-
ly, to react defensively to an attack against the US or its
NATO allies with conventional, biological or chemical
weapons. The umbrella still involves forward deployed US
nuclear weapons under US custody in several NATO coun-
tries which were already member states before 1989/1990
while some of the host countries still supply delivery vehi-
cles according to the nuclear sharing arrangement. In some
cases and at least in the medium term, related moderniza-
tion decisions will have to be made by certain host coun-
tries, which - especially in the case of cessation of individu-
al nuclear sharing arrangements - may have wide-ranging
implications for NATO’s nuclear structures and the alli-
ance’s credibility. In any case, the DDPR Report demon-
strated that it is not sufficient in the allies’ perception that
the US will maintain an ‘over the horizon’ strategic nuclear
Re2lectionsonNATO’sNuclearFuture
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 23
work of NATO may also conclude from the recent
Ukrainian crisis that nuclear weapons matter to provide
for the security of states. They may conclude that nuclear
weapons matter, even if nuclear deterrence is not operat-
ed by a state itself, i.e. even if a state benefits from
(inherently less credible) nuclear deterrence, which is
operated by a nuclear protector state that acts as a trustee
of its allies. Ukraine, in contrast, gave up its control of
former Soviet nuclear weapons on its territory and rati-
fied the NPT on 5 Dec. 1994. In return, the three NPT
depository states (the US, the UK and Russia) signed the
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances on the
same day. The memorandum could be understood as a
guarantee of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and as a pledge
not to use force against Ukraine as an exemplary state in
terms of non-proliferation policy. Russian neo-
imperialism and the annexation of Crimea violated the
given nuclear order of the post-Cold War era. It high-
lighted the potential value of nuclear weapons in national
security strategy, which also led to debates within
Ukraine and expert circles in the West whether it was
prudent or counterproductive for Ukraine to take over
the position as a denuclearized non-nuclear weapons
state. The Crimean crisis also showed that non-
proliferation policy in a nuclear world may be accompa-
nied by military power projection of nuclear ‘haves’
against non-nuclear states that are unprotected in terms
of (extended) nuclear deterrence, even if security assur-
ances (like renunciation of forces waivers etc.) were giv-
en beforehand by atomic powers.
Given the most fundamental challenge to Euro-
Atlantic security since the end of the Cold War, due to
Russian policy vis-à-vis Ukraine, and given the fact that
the overall role of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy had
been dramatically reduced since the early 1990s, the nu-
clear dimension of alliance will remain to be of cardinal
importance in the future - especially in the perception of
new member states in the region of the (former) Rus-
sian/Soviet zone of interest who have a strong need for
strategic reassurance. It is likely that the assumed re-
quirements of extended nuclear deterrence credibility
will differ in the future if one assumes that the Russian
perception is probably or very likely to be different
from the perception of NATO allies. Historical experi-
ence suggests that non-nuclear protégé-states in ex-
tended deterrence relationships notably urge the pro-
tector state to take measures steadily to reinforce de-
terrence credibility. As a result, NATO became an
alliance which remained to be interwoven in its nuclear
dimension even after the Cold War. Thus, as long as
US allies in the 21st century will continue to regard the
US nuclear umbrella as indispensable, the global zero
agenda may linger as an unrealizable and potentially
destabilizing vision.
Andreas Lutsch works as an Assistant Professor at
the University of Würzburg, where he teaches German
and transatlantic history of the 19th and 20th Centu-
ries. He wrote a Phd dissertation on West Germany’s
nuclear policy during the 1960s and 1970s. Besides
that he conducted archival research in the US, the UK,
Belgium and Germany with a focus on recently declas-
sified governmental files. He is a member of the Nu-
clear Proliferation International History Project, which
is directed by the Woodrow Wilson International Cen-
ter for Scholars, Washington DC. This project as well
as his own research is devoted to develop a new and
more empirically oriented understanding of the nucle-
ar age, which may also shape our understanding of
problems of the second nuclear age.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 24
territorial defence or out-of-area operations. In addi-
tion, all three tasks are closely intertwined and conse-
quently supportive of one another.
Since NATO is still a defence alliance at its core,
the other two core tasks are essentially a means to bol-
ster the protection of its member states by both con-
taining crises potentially threatening the Alliance and
by establishing partnerships to contribute to crisis man-
agement. Thus NATO must remain prepared to as-
sume all three of its core tasks. This being said, it yet
remains to be seen how exactly NATO’s principles
ought to be put into practice.
In other words: What will hap-
pen to the Alliance once its last
troops will have been with-
drawn from Afghanistan? Is
there any conceivable chance of
NATO members to agree on
deploying troops to out-of-area
theatres again in the near- or
medium-term future? And
what about NATO’s response
to Russia’s latest aggressions in Crimea and Eastern
parts of Ukraine? The Alliances’ firm condemnation of
Moscow’s demeanour notwithstanding it is yet to be
seen how resolved all 28 member states are with re-
gard to its collective defence pledge. It is safe to say
that Russia’s hybrid warfare not only requires a reas-
surance of NATO’s commitment to defend its Central
and Eastern European allies as expressed in the Readi-
ness Action Plan already. Instead, the threat posed by
By Aylin Matlé
T he NSA-scandal is only one of many
issues overshadowing relations on both
sides of the Atlantic – especially bur-
dening German-American ties in recent times. The
future of NATO is equally uncertain, at least its stra-
tegic orientation in the years and decades ahead. Alt-
hough the Wales Summit and the subsequent declara-
tion have shed light on NATO’s general course of
action, i.e. the reaffirmation of its three core tasks
agreed on in its 2010 Strategic Concept, the question
of details and implementation has yet to be debated
and agreed on. In light of
the current crisis in
Ukraine and the ensuing
reemphasis on NATO’s
collective defence, it is of
particular importance to
find common ground on
how to square the two oth-
er core tasks – crisis man-
agement and cooperative
security – with the Alliance’s Article 5 responsibility.
Despite the dramatic demonstration of its continual
significance for the Alliance, NATO should beware of
solely focusing on collective defence in the years to
come. After all, none of the operations the Allied
member states are currently engaged in were planned
for, which should dissuade NATO from the miscon-
ception that the Alliance’s capabilities will not be
asked for in the future – whether it will pertain to
ViewsOnTheWalesSummitAndItsImpactOnTheFutureOfNATO
NATO‘s relation with Ukraine (Source NATO)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 25
this rather new approach to belligerence necessitates an
adaption of NATO’s military strategic posture and its
approach to territorial defence. Hence the Alliance’s
Very High Readiness Joint Task Force for example will
have to be transformed as to enable the rapidly deploya-
ble infantry brigade to be prepared to fend off different
threat scenarios emanating from Russia. In addition, it is
reasonable if not necessary to contemplate how member
countries like France or Spain would act in a scenario of
Putin furthering his aggressions by attempting to annex
parts of the Baltic States for example, members of NATO
as well. Put differently: Will NATO engage in hybrid
warfare in the Baltics if provoked by Putin’s so-called
little green men? And perhaps more importantly: Is the
Alliance even prepared to turn rhetoric into action?
All these are questions demanding a clear-cut an-
swer as to what NATO should emphasize on strategically
in the future. All these are questions concerning matters
of war and peace – a distinction most citizens living in
NATO member states fortunately did not have to worry
about for decades. To ensure that the comfortable situa-
tion we find ourselves in continues, I consider the devel-
opment of strategic thinking of utter importance, espe-
cially in my generation. After all, it seems long overdue
to seriously deliberate issues such as (nuclear) deterrence
in the 21st century, which will be a main responsibility of
people my age. The Wales summit represents a solid im-
petus for contemplating NATO’s future. However, it is
high time to implement the resolutions agreed on to
shape the direction of the Alliance in a responsible man-
ner. A manner clearly articulating how the allies want to
assume their responsibilities committed to and reiterated
at the summit. A manner, which allows for NATO to
remain prepared in order to protect its member states
from already discernible adversaries and – perhaps more
importantly – from unknown threats yet to emerge and
be identified. After all, NATO has been the only institu-
tion we as Europeans and Americans can fall back on
together when it comes to our security and moreover
our freedom. Despite necessary – sometimes more
technical – discussions about the future orientation of
NATO, we should never forget what the transatlantic
community constitutes at its heart: A community of
shared values avowing for the protection of its citizens’
liberties.
Aylin Matlé recently finished her MA in War Studies
at King’s College London. Prior to completing her
postgraduate studies she graduated from Zeppelin Uni-
versität, Friedrichshafen with a BA in Public Manage-
ment and Governance. Her thesis addressed the impact
of the Libya campaign 2011 on the future of NATO. In
addition to her major Aylin minored in Communica-
tion and Cultural Management. In the course of her
BA studies Aylin interned with the Konrad-Adenauer
foundation (KAS) in their offices in Berlin and London
among others. Before starting her studies in London
she worked with the KAS as a student employee assist-
ing the coordinator for foreign and security policy.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 26
ered it necessary to deploy German patriot rockets to
Southern Turkey in order to pick off potentially fired
rockets from Syria, there was no official reaction or
action by NATO with regard to advances and land
gains of ISIS which is pushing toward the immediate
border of Syria and Turkey. On the contrary, the
Western Alliance is not involved in the airstrikes on
ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Although one might be tempted
to understand this aloofness as an expression of a politi-
cal move – including neigbouring Arab countries in the
airstrikes and not acting through NATO as a policy to
counter potential claims by ISIS that it would be a war
of Western States against them – it nevertheless raises
the question of NATO’s legitimacy if it is not even re-
acting to a crisis just beyond its geographical borders.
Unfortunately the African continent remains a
hub for conflicts. Within the past two years, new con-
flicts have emerged in no less than three countries: Ma-
li, the Central African Republic and in South Sudan.
The international community has taken a concerted
approach in order to tackle these crises both politically
and military on the basis of cooperation between a vari-
ety of international organizations including the United
Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS and the EU.
On 28 July 2014, the Security Council adopted Reso-
lution 2167 on the future of partnerships between the
UN and regional organisations in peacekeeping opera-
tions which does not even contain a single reference to
NATO. Of course, there are good reasons why NATO
is not being more active on the African continent, one
being that it is not within the geographical scope of the
Euro-Atlantic area. Nevertheless this fact has not pre-
By Moritz Moelle
L ooking at the current crises the interna-
tional community is confronted with in
various parts of the world - such as the
Ukraine-Russia issue, the threat posed by the terrorist
group known as ISIS or the various conflicts in Africa
- NATO is remarkably absent. Other national and
international actors are steering the wheel whilst
NATO is taking the backseat.
With regard to Ukraine and the illegal occupa-
tion and annexation of Crimea by Russia, the limita-
tions of NATO’s capabilities became evident. An or-
ganization founded on the principle of collective mili-
tary defence with very limited competences and capa-
bilities in non-military matters, all NATO could do
was to watch the events unfold from the sidelines.
The suspension of cooperation with Russia over the
Ukraine issue led to further isolation of NATO as the
OSCE is now steering the political negotiations with
NATO whereas the EU has adopted economic sanc-
tions against Russia. The adoption of the Readiness
Action Plan as part of the Wales Summit is nothing
but a fig leaf. However, the plan is not sufficient to
reassure the Baltic members of NATO, nor does it
address the fundamental problem of declining defence
budgets due to expenses cuts. Germany is currently
not even able to fulfill its obligations under the North
-Atlantic Treaty.
An even bigger threat to the security of the
North-Atlantic Treaty area and the wider internation-
al community is currently posed by ISIS. Once again,
NATO is remarkably absent. Whereas NATO consid-
NATO’sUncertainFuture–WaitingforGodot?
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 27
vented NATO from deploying out of area missions. Fur-
thermore, the European NATO members prefer engag-
ing themselves in Africa militarily and in other forms
through the EU.
These three crises show that NATO is running the
risks of becoming irrelevant in an area which is at the
core of its purpose of existence and legitimacy. The
NATO Wales Summit Declaration is a first step in the
right direction by containing a definitive commitment to
increased cooperation of NATO with other international
actors such as the United Nations and the European Un-
ion. However, more steps are necessary. One important
aspect is NATO-EU cooperation, which has been serious-
ly hampered by division over the Cyprus issue in the past
few years. A reactivation of the Berlin Plus Agreements
would be one first step for NATO to return to the world
stage in crisis management operations. Pooling and Shar-
ing Initiatives also require urgent implementation and
NATO should engage in a serious dialogue with all inter-
national stakeholders, including the United Nations and
in particular recently created international organizations
about the future of partnerships and potential niches for
all organisations and a division of labour in the field of
crisis management operation. So what is NATO waiting
for? May it indeed be Godot?
Moritz
Moelle is a PhD Candidate in International Law at the
Universities of Geneva and Leiden. His thesis analyses
the Cooperation between the United Nations and re-
gional organisations in peacekeeping operations and the
involved questions of international responsibility. As
part of his PhD research, he was a visiting fellow at the
Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University
of Cambridge and a visiting scholar at Columbia Law
School, New York. Moreover, he has worked as an
assistant to Prof. Dr. Georg Nolte, in the International
Law Commission of the UN and as a trainee for the
peacekeeping training program of UNITAR. He was
also a legal intern at ITLOS and an assistant editor of
the Leiden Journal of International Law. Prior to starting
his PhD, he gained a master’s degrees in International
and European Law and in Public International Law
from the Universities of Geneva and Leiden, as well as
the equivalent of the LL.B.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 28
based on an even balance of two functional pillars. The
first pillar is based on the reiteration and reinforcement
of Article 5 core objectives. The second pillar is repre-
sented by NATO´s continual determination to contrib-
ute to security beyond its own boundaries and to act as
a stability provider around the globe when its core in-
terests are being threatened from the outside. Un-
doubtedly, Russia never really found comfort in nei-
ther of the pillars. The crisis in Ukraine shows the Alli-
ance that it must do both – enhance its internal cohe-
sion but also to do a better job in anticipating emerging
threats from outside. While the events in Ukraine rep-
resent a crucially important challenge to NATO-Russia
relations, it is also apparent that Ukraine is more a
symptom of the clash rather than the main causal fac-
tor. Even if the conflict in Ukraine could be settled and
a lasting peace setting found, it is still rational to as-
sume that the potential for confrontation between Rus-
sia and the West will not disappear all of the sudden.
The Alliance must do its best to avoid the reinforce-
ment of perceptions of a “gray zone” of instable and
manipulable states between its own territory and Rus-
sia. While, due to a lasting lack of crucial consensus of
NATO member states, further enlargement is likely off
the table for the imminent future, the Alliance should
reassure countries like Georgia and Moldova that en-
largement will have its rational pace and will not be
stopped indefinitely even if it would be disliked by
Russia. Over the course of the past twenty years
NATO’s open door policy represented a significant
stabilization tool and thus should not be perceived as a
provocation against anybody - including the Russian
By Tomáš A. Nagy
N early a quarter century after the fall
of communism, NATO once again
finds itself in confrontation with Rus-
sia. Since the end of the bipolar world, Europe has
witnessed the expansion of a zone of peace, prolifera-
tion of democratic principles, enhancement of stabil-
ity and economic prosperity in an extent which had
been rare in its own history. However, with govern-
ments focused more on addressing the symptoms and
the causes of the ongoing economic downturn – the
relevance of defense has been largely downgraded on
the list of national priorities and so decreased the ap-
petite to invest in our own security – and that usually
comes with a geo-political price to pay.
The crisis in Ukraine has created a fundamental-
ly new security reality on the “old continent“. Since
the invasion of Crimea it became largely obvious to
everyone that the transatlantic community is being
challenged by a revisionist power – one that clearly
intends to impose a new geo-political paradigm based
on power, intimidation and supremacy. More than
anything else, the Kremlin is interested in establishing
a recognized exclusive zone of privileged interest –
one in which they want freedom to manoeuvre with-
out outside interference and to uphold the existence
of different pseudo-democratic, illiberal and authori-
tarian regimes.
NATO, on the other side, is facing, after more
than a decade of expeditionary orientation, the begin-
ning of a novel chapter in its history. As formalized at
the Wales Summit, the future of the Alliance will be
TheFutureOfNATO-De2iningTheRightWayFor-
wardfortheAlliance
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 29
Federation. Exactly on the opposite side of the argument,
everyone - including Moscow– has to some degree bene-
fited from the stability, security and prosperity of the
"new Europe". The expansion of the Alliance from 16 to
28 members was was made possible because of the com-
bination of two factors. First, NATO had found both
courage and appetite for making itself the greatest securi-
ty-oriented alliance ever - even when it came with politi-
cal cost and created diplomatic hurdles with Russia. Sec-
ondly, the region itself was willing to embark on a chal-
lenging transformation process to make a step through
the "open door" of the Alliance. This must remain to be
the core principle of NATO, even when facing a consid-
erably different Russia than the one it did two decades
ago. NATO’s enlargement will not be directed against
Russia and its existence. The main lesson learned from
the history of Europe is that division creates potential for
instability and insecurity. NATO must not accept new
dividing lines on the European continent and thus must
stand by the principles that made it survive over the
course of previous decades.
NATO soberly recognized the implication of the
conflict in Ukraine, the revisionist nature of Russian for-
eign policy, self-critically recognized the daunting state of
shrinking defensive capabilities and made a solid step to-
ward a new chapter in the history.
The essence of the new chapter in the history of the
Alliance is defined by the change of NATO´s orientation
from being an organization of expeditionary crisis man-
agement to an Alliance that aims to revive the internal
security reassurances of its own members. The result of
this shift in NATO´s raison d´être are Article 5 security
guarantees that acquired a more complex meaning than
ever before.
Tomáš A.
Nagy is an Associate Fellow for Transatlantic Security,
Institutions and Governance at the Central European
Policy Institute - where he contributes to the develop-
ment of a promising research centre that intends to
integrate policy research and advocacy capacities of the
region. Previously, he worked on issues related to Af-
ghanistan and the role of Central European allies in the
stabilization process. Moreover, he is a frequent com-
mentator on security politics in national press and tele-
vision. Besides policy research activities, he contribut-
ed to the organization of the annual Globsec interna-
tional security conferences and to the prestigious trans-
atlantic Marshall Memorial Fellowship. He previously
cooperated with the Bratislava office of the German
Marshall Fund of the US - as administrative assistant
and junior researcher. Mr. Nagy studied International
Relations, European Politics and International Security
at the Metropolitan University Prague, Sciences Po
Paris and the University of St. Andrews.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 30
face both current and future challenges, NATO must
consolidate and promote its own narrative of purpose,
emphasizing core liberal-democratic values and a
shared history, and encourage individual member states
to communicate to their populations that NATO is an
essential part of their national identity.
The Wales Summit Declaration took suitably firm
positions on Russia and the self-proclaimed Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In addition to the
redeployment of physical assets and the advancement
of cooperation and interoperability, NATO should
have taken steps to confront Russian misinformation
and historical revisionism surrounding the recent
events in Eastern Europe (see – Novorossiya). While
most in the West see Russian propaganda for what it is,
Putin’s information warfare continues to play a large
role in the situation on the ground. ISIL makes similar-
ly impressive use of social media in creating its histori-
cal narrative. In its efforts to establish a so-called cali-
phate, ISIL is engaging in a significant media campaign,
appealing to an often-warped historical narrative. In
the future, NATO will need a much more proactive,
Public Diplomacy Division to compete with modern
information warfare globally, and it cannot have this
without a compelling narrative of purpose. Additional-
ly, ISIL will challenge NATO consensus on out-of-area
engagement. Tensions between Turkey, Kurdish forc-
es, and a United States led coalition containing many
NATO Member and Partner countries, could put a
strain on any future NATO efforts to contribute to the
fight against ISIL. Nevertheless, with conflict along the
Turkish-Syrian border, and a terrorist organization that
By Chris Olsen
T he future of the Alliance will be deter-
mined by not only how NATO con-
fronts immediate challenges, but also
whether it is able to bring a unified sense of identity
and clarity of narrative to bear when dealing with new
challenges. The preamble to the Washington Treaty
establishes that NATO is an alliance of states “…
determined to safeguard the freedom, common herit-
age and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the
principles of democracy, individual liberty and the
rule of law.” Born out of the trauma of World War II,
this narrative of common heritage and civilization was
self-evident to both national leaders and domestic
populations at the time.
Through the Cold War, NATO’s identity shift-
ed from an alliance for collective defense to an alli-
ance diametrically opposed to the Soviet Union and
members of the Warsaw Pact. Since the end of the
Cold War, NATO at times has struggled to maintain
a shared sense of purpose, seen in the public as a
holdover from a bygone era of mutually assured de-
struction. The intent of the NATO Summit in Wales
was originally to focus on both the drawdown of ISAF
forces in Afghanistan, and NATO’s future engage-
ment with the global community. With Russia’s chal-
lenge to European peace and security at the top of the
summit agenda instead, NATO no longer needed to
examine its mission and purpose. It could once again
be an alliance predicated on being in opposition to
Russia. However, NATO’s narrative of purpose
should not be contingent on outside influence. To
NATOMustPromoteIt'sOwnNarrative
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 31
has thus far ignored international borders, NATO must
be ready to confront ISIL, should it engage Turkey di-
rectly and trigger Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
Moving forward from the Wales Summit, the approv-
al of the Readiness Action Plan and changes to the NATO
Response Force (NRF), including the establishment of
the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), is a
promising step towards deterring further Russian en-
croachments towards NATO member states. Although it
would also serve as an effective deterrent, the stated goal
of all member states reaching the two percent defense
expenditure guideline within ten years is unlikely to oc-
cur without either new incentives or meaningful reper-
cussions for not doing so.
Having all member states contribute their two per-
cent is critical to creating a sense of shared responsibility
and ownership of the alliance. As former Secretary Gen-
eral Anders Fogh Rasmussen put it at the Atlantic Coun-
cil in July of 2014, “NATO is an insurance policy…All
members must pay their premiums.” Moreover, the argu-
ment that defense spending should focus on the quality
and effectiveness of spending, rather than achieving an
arbitrary quantity of spending as a percentage of GDP,
presumes that quality and quantity are mutually exclu-
sive. All states should commit to their two percent, and
make their contribution as effective or “smart” as possi-
ble. This may be fiscally challenging for some member
states in the short term, and will require national leaders
to forgo domestic political infighting and communicate
NATO’s importance.
Internally consolidating and agreeing upon its own
narrative will challenge NATO. However, should NATO
take advantage of the current shared sense of purpose
between member states, reinvigorated by threats to secu-
rity, and engage the public and a new generation of lead-
ers by emphasizing core liberal-democratic values and a
“common heritage,” NATO will be well prepared for
the challenges yet to come.
Chris Olsen is a Project Assistant at the Atlantic
Council’s Young Atlanticist Program, where he con-
tributes to the development of Atlantic Council pro-
gramming for young and emerging leaders. Among
other initiatives, he helped to organize and coordinate
the 2014 NATO Emerging Leaders Working Group
and the 2014 Future Leaders Summit alongside the
NATO Summit in Wales. Prior to joining the Atlantic
Council, Chris worked as an Economic Security Intern
at the EastWest Institute. He received his BA in Inter-
national Relations and History from James Madison
University and minored in Middle Eastern Communi-
ties and Migrations.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 32
The climate change threat has a full spectrum of
implications to the transatlantic community – direct
and indirect ones, with short and long term conse-
quences. With unseen heat waves, floods and other
climate extremes over the past decades, North Ameri-
ca and Europe have been directly affected by climate
change and required to mobilise a quick emergency
response. These climate changes will only become
more frequent in the upcoming decades.
Looking from an indirect perspective, the trans-
atlantic community will see the already conflict bat-
tered countries in the Middle East, the South and East
Africa and the South East Asia plunging into an increas-
ingly deeper devastation due to water and food insecu-
rity. That, coupled with overpopulation, economic
hurdles and weak governments, has a potential to push
these regions into armed conflicts and sore humanitari-
an crises. These seemingly remote developments can in
fact have very tangible consequences for the transatlan-
tic security. In the current situation of its over-reliance
on imported energy resources, climate change has di-
rect implications for energy security. It happens to be
that most of the US and Europe’s oil and gas are being
imported from volatile regions. Not only can the sup-
ply be disrupted as a result of a natural disaster, but the
energy supply infrastructure in conflict regions may
also come into the hands of militarised and illegitimate
groups.
Another direct impact of climate change initiated
developments in conflict regions is migration. Immi-
grants, refugees and asylum seekers already cause seri-
ous problems mainly in Southern European countries.
By Areva Paronjana
T here is an abundance of security threats
and challenges in our complicated glob-
al security environment. The NATO
Summit in Wales tried to address them all with issues
ranging from the IS and post-2014 Afganistan, to con-
cerns over the Cold War adversary Russia and its ac-
tivities in Ukraine. These are all very serious security
threats with grave consequences and are generally
agreed to have been well handled at the September
summit. There is, however a challenge that did not
receive the attention it deserves – climate change.
Climate change is not only the most overlooked secu-
rity challenge, but potentially the most dangerous and
irreversible one. Human-created climate change has
already led to water and food shortages and climate
catastrophes in certain parts of the world. Continued
climate change will only worsen the situation causing
more severe humanitarian crises, migration and will
eventually fuel ethnic tensions and armed conflicts of
economically desperate populations. Consequences
caused by continuous climate chance are where na-
tional and international security is at stake. It is easier
to find a solution to a challenge that has been general-
ly recognised. It is different with security challenges
that are unprecedented and invisible.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
change in its Fifth Assessment Report clearly states:
Human influence on climate change is clear. Continued
emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and
changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting
climate change will require substantial and sustained reduc-
tions of greenhouse gas emissions.
TheClimateChange&GlobalSecurityNexus
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 33
There is no reason to believe that in case of worsening
climate conditions and their impact of livelihood of popu-
lations in the poorer parts of the globe, there will be de-
creased levels of emigration to the wealthier countries.
What makes climate change and its consequences over-
looked is the invisible and unprecedented nature of it.
Either due to short term gains or pure ignorance, there
are still political leaders refusing to accept the realities of
climate change and its disastrous nature. There are some
basic underlying principles that have to be put in place to
successfully overcome the threat of climate change and its
implications for transatlantic security.
First, climate change is a scientifically proven fact.
Thus, all talks and discussions about the existence of cli-
mate change should be disregarded and the international
community should stand strongly together against such
populist and potentially disastrous claims.
Second, following the spirit of the first principle,
there should be more discussions and debates about the
dangers and threats of climate change and to its implica-
tions on national and international security. The public
has to fully acknowledge the risks and be fully aware of
the consequences of human made climate change.
Third, the current leaders are responsible for cre-
ating a comprehensive energy policy, promoting not only
fuel efficiency, but also the cleanliness of it. It should also
create incentives for developing renewable and alterna-
tive future energy resources. The future leaders are re-
sponsible for implementing such an energy policy to its
fullest.
Fourth, when debating climate change, the biggest
and fastest growing developing nations contributing the
most to climate change, like India, China, Brazil, South
America, should always be engaged and on board even if
disagreements exist. Probably the most important in
solving climate change is promoting limited and de-
creased consumption. Consumption is currently the
basis of our capitalist societies built on economic
growth. Economic growth is directly linked to con-
sumption, which is in turn linked to increased produc-
tion and excessive use of energy resources. Unless un-
sustainable consumption is limited, all these other ef-
forts of fighting climate change will not be fully effec-
tive.
Climate change is not a local or regional threat,
there is no short time solution and it cannot be solved
with efforts of only some dedicated members of the
international community. The climate change is not
and cannot be addressed as a regular and typical securi-
ty threat. This is a threat asking for both, a top down
and bottom up approach.
Areva Paronjana has experience in EU’s foreign
affairs and transatlantic security. She holds a MSc in
Development and International Relations from Aaborg
University in Denmark. She wrote her Master thesis
about the causal mechanism of Taliban re-emergence
in Afghanistan. Areva has worked as a research fellow
at the Regional Studies Center, an Armenia-based
think-tank. She then worked for the Security & De-
fence Agenda, a Brussels-based think-tank. Recently
Areva worked for the AeroSpace and Defence Indus-
tries Association of Europe and now deals with strate-
gic communications at the European External Action
Service.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 34
only military but also political cooperation. The role of
governments is to give a political sense of the Alliance,
a community of states that share some values on which
we cannot compromise: the rule of law, respect for
human rights, democracy, and freedom of expression.
We must first eliminate all possible sources of criti-
cism, all lack of respect for human rights, in order to
not be criticized when we stand in defence of the rights
of civilians in third states, often dictatorships or au-
thoritarian states. In addition, it is important to give
greater voice to the European members of the Alli-
ance, balancing the American voice. In compensation,
as requested by the United States, European countries
have a duty to increase defence spending in a smart
way.
The attacks in New York, London, Madrid and
other European cities have shown how dangerous the
presence of mainly Islamic terrorist cells are in NATO
member countries. The citizens´ focus on their security
adds another risk: the authoritarian drift in our coun-
tries, giving up some freedom in exchange for more
security. NATO countries must avoid that risk. NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, when he was
Prime Minister of Norway, after the terrible attacks of
right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, boldly said that
we cannot respond to extremism and terrorism with
closure and authoritarianism, but with more freedom
and more democracy. The issue of cyber security is an
issue of cooperation between NATO and the European
Union. It is an issue on which the traditional interpre-
tation of Article V takes on a new nature and poses a
question that is not easy to answer: what is a fact or a
set of facts that can under Article 5 indicate that there
By Matteo Pugliese
W ith the fall of the Berlin Wall,
the traditional mission of
NATO has changed and for the
90s we saw a confused stage, with the advent of mul-
tilateralism and the multiplication of potential
threats. For about twenty years the threats have be-
come asymmetrical, involving non-state actors: the
threat of international terrorism, the cyber threat, the
risk of regional destabilization due to failed states. In
this context, NATO takes on a role of institution-
building, in addition to the traditional Article 5.
However, a series of events at the end of the
first decade of 2000 reported the central issue of the
protection of the NATO member countries: econom-
ic and political recovery of the Russian Federation
after the collapse in the nineties, the rise of new eco-
nomic and military powers such as China, the pres-
ence of new actors such as BRICS, potentially hostile
countries such as Iran, Assad's Syria, North Korea for
our allies of Seoul and Tokyo, the political chaos in
the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, and, last but not
least, the establishment of the Islamic State by ISIS.
The Wales Summit was a historic opportunity to
change the priority of the last decade, dedicated to
policies of global cooperation and the fight against
terrorism. The Alliance cannot and should not bear
the shortcomings and the slowness of the United Na-
tions, it cannot be the 'global policeman', but it must
take the responsibility to protect its citizens. The alli-
ance, with the return of France in the integrated mil-
itary command and new countries as Albania and
Croatia, expands and resembles more and more not
ANewPathfortheAlliance
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 35
is a real and imminent attack to trigger the defensive re-
action? This is a concept always referred to during the
years of the Cold war to defend the country from the
Soviet threat, although fortunately there was never need
to implement it. There is a second issue: we still have
national networks with non-uniform standards. The third
issue, perhaps even more difficult than the two previous
ones, is to create a doctrine on the use of the network
and computing space because now this does not exist.
There are countries that respect the freedom of the inter-
net, while others limit it strongly in the name of security.
The new policies of President Putin, the annexa-
tion of the Crimea and the invasion of Eastern Ukraine, as
well as provocations towards the Baltic countries, Scandi-
navia and North America, make policy measures to pre-
vent a military escalation urgently needed. The task is to
protect NATO member countries being at risk, but also
to find a political solution and an agreement with Russia,
which cannot compromise on respect for borders and
international conventions.
M a t t e o
Pugliese is currently majoring in International law at
the University of Genova. He also studied at the Pon-
tifical Catholic University of Chile and at the Universi-
ty of Zagreb, focusing on comparative constitutional
law, political systems and human rights. Furthermore,
Matteo attended courses on human rights and interna-
tional cooperation projects at the Shandong Jiaotong
University of Jinan, China and at Kobuleti, Georgia,
supported by the European Union. Matteo has been an
international observer in the district of Sofia, Bulgaria,
during the general election in 2013. He is active on
NATO topics as president of the Yata Club of Genova,
Italy. Matteo writes for many magazines about geopoli-
tics and interviewed in this context the former foreign
minister Frattini when he was the Italian candidate as
NATO Secretary General. Besides Italian, he speaks
English, Spanish, French and a bit of Serbian-Croatian.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 36
of Russian interference in other post-Soviet states being
home to Russian-speaking minorities, such as Moldova or
the Baltics. Russia´s aggressive violation of international law
has not only triggered strong calls for an enhanced military
presence at NATO´s Eastern flank; it has also illustrated that
NATO´s original purpose of securing the European security
architecture through collective defence is far from anachro-
nistic.
Second, besides showing the topicality of traditional
security threats, Russian actions in Eastern Ukraine reflect a
new, hybrid form of warfare that goes beyond NATO´s tra-
ditional military doctrine. Such “hybrid warfare” in Eastern
Ukraine is characterized by systematic destabilization efforts
that include ambiguous attacks fought by proxy, economic
pressure and threats regarding ener-
gy supply as well as cyber attacks
and an extensive disinformation
campaign. While the concept of non
-linear warfare is usually applied to
non-state actors such as terrorist
groups, the Russian strategy of
“distraction, deception and destabi-
lisation” (GenSec Rasmussen, June
2014) has shown that it can be used by states as well. Partic-
ularly the absence of a clearly defined status (peace, intra-
state - or interstate war) and an ambiguous opponent makes
a coherent political and military response a challenging task.
Finally, part of Russia’s hybrid strategy was an exten-
sive media campaign. The Russian narrative that has been
spread by every trick in the book was built on allegations of
fascist Ukrainian troops, the Ukrainian government´s lack of
legitimacy, and the praise of the determination of the Rus-
sian speaking population in Crimea to protect itself. This
media component, embracing both traditional and social
By Anne Roth
R ussia´s illegal annexation of Crimea and its
covert intervention in Eastern Ukraine
have evoked memories – and rhetorical
reflexes – of the Cold War era. While the severe crisis in
Ukraine continues to keep Europe in suspense, it has al-
ready been recognized as a turning point in NATO´s post-
Cold War history. Having revealed weaknesses of the Alli-
ance, it should not only be regarded as a challenge but also
as an opportunity for NATO to undertake necessary re-
forms.
In this sense, Russia´s actions have displayed features
that point to NATO´s future, rather than to its past. Many
commentators have given the Alliance poor marks for its
crisis management in Ukraine. In the
light of recent experiences, which
lessons might be derived from them
for NATO´s future? The way in
which the crisis in Ukraine has un-
folded - or rather Russia´s strategy
of exacerbating it- came as a surprise
to NATO and its member states. All
the more, it is necessary to distil
those aspects that help to explain why the crisis promises
to be a challenge to NATO that will carry after-effects,
regardless of its outcome.
Three characteristics of the current crisis stand out:
First, and most fundamentally, Russia revived some
of the classic concerns of European security by illegally
annexing Crimea and violating Ukraine´s territorial integ-
rity. After the Russian government had denied any inter-
vention in the beginning, it later justified its actions refer-
ring to its obligation to protect Crimea´s Russian-speaking
population. Of course, this argumentation has evoked fears
NATO´sFutureCrisisManagement:
LessonsLearnedFromTheUkrainianCrisis
NATO—Russia relations (Source NATO)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 37
media, has been called the “core of post-industrial war-
fare” (Bachmann/ Gunneriossen 2014, “Hybrid Wars”). In any
case, the interplay between covert military operations and a
sophisticated disinformation campaign threatens to undermine
NATO´s credibility if the Alliance does not proactively offer
an effective counter-narrative. Given that Russia has the ad-
vantage of being a single and highly centralized actor while
member states´ positions on an appropriate strategy vis- à-vis
Russia traditionally diverge, the difficulty to formulate a
coherent narrative supported by all should not be underes-
timated.
NATO should draw short-term and long-term les-
sons from this:
In a short-term perspective, NATO must convincingly
reinforce the security guarantee for those member states locat-
ed at its Eastern frontier. The “Readiness Action Plan” (RAP)
agreed upon by the member states at the Wales Summit is the
right approach in this regard; it is designed to “provide a coher-
ent and comprehensive package of necessary measures to re-
spond to the changes in the security environment on NATO´s
border” (Wales Summit Declaration). This is a credible com-
mitment to Article 5, NATO’s core business. The Alliance’s
credibility being at stake in this matter, it will be one of the
most important tasks of NATO’s new Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg to ensure the necessary resources for swift imple-
mentation of the RAP. Furthermore, beyond its own territory,
NATO should offer vulnerable states in Eastern Europe sup-
port for internal stabilization and to strengthen and reform
their security sector. Drawing a clear line around NATO terri-
tory could, on the one hand, be understood by Russia as a sig-
nal of neglect towards countries such as Moldova or Georgia.
On the other hand, an overhasty enlargement policy would
lead to further escalation in the relationship with Russia. This
means membership should not be on the table for those states
for the time being. “Stability Partnerships” might be a feasible
middle way that could still help to deter further Russian inter-
ventions. A key task for NATO will be to better adapt its mili-
tary doctrine accordingly and to develop mechanisms allowing
for a quick and efficient response to situations such as Russia´s
secret, but effective, annexation of Crimea – but also to ad-
dress all other aspects of Russia’s hybrid strategy.
In the medium to long-term, Russia´s strategy in
Eastern Ukraine points to a fundamental challenge for the
alliance: In order to cope with the non-military aspects of
such hybrid challenges, NATO must broaden its focus. This
requires enhanced cooperation with multilateral partners
such as the EU and OSCE that can provide expertise lying
beyond NATO´s competencies. Furthermore, NATO will
have to formulate a convincing narrative of its goals that
generates public legitimacy beyond immediate crisis situa-
tions. The success of Russia´s disinformation campaign can
partly be explained by NATO´s insufficient access to politi-
cal discourses in Russia and Ukraine. This can only be
changed by putting greater emphasis on regional expertise,
particularly in NATO´s public diplomacy, to allow for not
only a profound monitoring of regional debates but also to
provide NATO with appropriate networks and access points
to make its counter-narrative heard.
Anne Roth studied Political Science and International Re-
lations in Tuebingen, Moscow, Berlin and London, where
she recently graduated from the London School of Econom-
ics and Political Science (LSE). Currently, she is working as
a research assistant at the Center for Transnational Studies,
Foreign and Security Policy at Free University Berlin
(ATASP), while finishing her second Master´s degree at
Free University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin and
Potsdam University. In spring 2015, she will join the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a Carlo Schmid
fellow. Previously, Ms. Roth has gained professional experi-
ence interning in the German Bundestag, the Research Insti-
tute for Eastern Europe at Bremen University, the Peace
Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), and the German Em-
bassy in Moscow.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 38
ment, as it learned its lessons from the ISAF mission in
Afghanistan. This make sense as most current crisis
management operations are located in very fragile set-
tings that can be compared to Afghanistan; examples
being Libya, Mali, Syria and Iraq in the response against
the so called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
If we consider, however, how these missions were con-
ducted, we mostly find NATO acting by flying artillery
and supporting local groups with emergency relief (e.g.
Libya), weapons, or both (e.g. in the fight against ISIL).
This seems not to be the comprehensive approach that
the NMS have committed themselves to in the declara-
tion, but rather a very limited one. This is not a call for
“boots on the ground” in those scenarios, but rather an
observation, which I would link to the preferences held
by NMS. It seems to me that NMS are not willing to
engage more in those scenarios, for reasons like an as-
sessment of appropriates, or a response to public opin-
ion at home. Especially in the context of appropriates
there seems to be a big gap between the understanding
of the often cited “Responsibly to Protect” (R2P) and a
more comprehensive view of a responsibility to re-
build, like practiced in Kosovo. I would however argue
that the scope of the missions is in any case not a result
of missing military capability inherent to the NMS or
NATO itself, which does not allow for any other kind
of involvement. A perfect example would be the
NATO crisis management in Mali, where the approach
headed by France was at least in military terms very
comprehensive and decisive.
If we look at the case of Libya we find that mili-
tary action by the NMS also met its goal in stopping the
By Paul Schaudt
T he decisions to enable NATO to better
deal with its core tasks of collective
defense, crisis management, and coop-
erative security in the future made at the NATO Sum-
mit in Wales, are in further need for discussion. In
view of the current events in Ukraine, North Africa
and the Middle East, the military capability of NATO
seems not to be the problem that renders the Alliance
incapable of dealing with those issues effectively. In
fact there seems to be opposing assessments of the
above-mentioned challenges resulting in diverging
political willingness amongst the member states in
how to deal with them. Therefore, the agreement to
reach comparable defense spending efforts of 2% of
the GDP throughout the Alliance in order to stabilize
the capabilities of NATO in times of austerity seems
to be less important. I would argue that the pressing
question in times of austerity is rather how much
NATO Member States (NMS) are willing to engage
comprehensively in crisis management scenarios and
that finding a common ground for these issues is pre-
ceding discussions on enhancing NATO’s military
effectiveness. I will highlight this point in the context
of some of NATO’s past and present crisis manage-
ment missions and put them in context to the Wales
Declaration. All statements in the Wales Declaration
regarding NATO’s crisis management point at a deep-
er cooperation and a need for higher military effec-
tiveness to meet future crises (e.g. point 5, 71, 102 &
103). The sole exception is point 99 of the Wales
Declaration which states that NATO will continue to
follow a comprehensive approach in its crisis manage-
NATOOnItsWayToBecomingTooBigToSucceed
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 39
mass killing of civilians by Gadhafi’s military, which is in
accordance with the goals of NATO. Nevertheless, this
mission has not left behind a territory that satisfies NMS
security concerns toward transnational terrorism. Libya
resembles a failed state that most NMS define as a perfect
ground for terrorist groups. The case highlights very well
that NMS where relatively quick to find effective military
measurement to achieve their primary goals yet the com-
plementary economic and diplomatic tools to stabilize the
situation after their involvement have been predominant-
ly missing. NATO’s military effectiveness seems not to be
of much concern for NMS to meet their actual goals in
crisis management.
In sum, I think budgetary concerns regarding
NATO’s capability have had prevalence at the Wales
Summit and I believe that a clear consensus between
NMS regarding their international involvement has to be
reached first. NMS need to evaluate how specifically they
want to react in scenarios of crisis management and how
much they want to invest in order to satisfy their security
goals. My conclusion is therefore that NMS need to find a
common ground on how NATO’s crisis management
shall look in the future, especially after military opera-
tions, and then develop the appropriate tools for burden
sharing and increased effectiveness in accordance. If they
decide that they will increasingly depend on economic
and diplomatic tools, then more effective mechanisms
have to be developed and deployed in these areas. Should
they decide that its military operations will be limited to
airstrikes then it makes sense to further increase the tech-
nological fungibility between allied forces in this field.
Yet ready reaction forces on the ground make no sense if
NMS do not want to deploy ground troops. So every dol-
lar in that field will be wasted, no matter how efficiently
spent. Finally the future of NATO like that of any inter-
national institution needs to be planned, while taking into
account what its members are willing to do with it, and
not what they might wish to with it.
Paul Schaudt obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Politi-
cal Science and Economics in 2012. During his Bache-
lor studies, he worked as a conflict observer at the Hei-
delberg Institute for International Conflict Research.
He also served as board member of the Forum for in-
ternational Security Heidelberg until 2013. Since the
fall of 2012, he is pursuing an M.A. in Political Science
and Economics at the University of Heidelberg. In
2013 he was an exchange student at the San Diego
State University in California. Currently Paul is work-
ing on his thesis on the conflict escalation capability of
foreign aid. The thesis also captures his primary fields
of interest, evolving around security studies, develop-
ment studies, foreign aid, conflict studies, and interna-
tional political economy.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 40
about the future of EU military engagement and
NATO’s role in it. Agreements between the two or-
ganizations have always pointed to the understanding
that there should not be a duplication of any kind, be it
organizational or in command structures.
However, this was exactly the core of the debate as
observers felt that the EU was copying and expanding
structures that NATO had built over centuries. In the
eyes of many experts the EU still had to learn and
search for its own role instead of attempting to engage
in a competition with NATO.
Numerous agreements between the two organi-
zations cemented the awkward couple situation of both
organizations. However, the recent Ukraine crisis has
brought NATO to the forefront again, as the major
security provider of Europe and North-America. The
EU seemed to follow suit and imposed economic sanc-
tions albeit on a small scale avoiding major trade or
economic wars with the Russian Federation. NATO on
the other hand has conducted a series of joint military
trainings and has scheduled operations to reassure its
allies in Eastern Europe. It seems that although the two
organizations are interested in the same fields of securi-
ty and defence, the EU has stirred away from the mili-
tary part of operations and left the field to NATO. At
Wales this distinction became once more very clear as
the final declaration of the summit rarely mentions the
EU, and – where it does – mostly in a context of part-
nering with other international institutions. Additional-
ly, the cooperation and expansion of European defence
capabilities is mentioned as one key area. However,
this has been a goal for years and is only coming about
in a much slower pace than anticipated. The Ukraine
By Daniel Schnok
T he immediate impact of the Wales
Summit can be felt already as leading
figures in European politics pledge their
continued allegiance and support to the Alliance and
its core functions. The Wales Summit declaration
sums up the new spirit of necessity that is felt in Euro-
pean capitals when it comes to such protracted topics
such as security and defence. Yes, suddenly NATO
seems very necessary, after it was heavily criticized
for its out of area operations mainly in Libya and Af-
ghanistan. It seems that the Alliance is returning to its
core mission and with it to the ideals and values that
come with it – the defence of Western democracy
and its ideals in an insecure world.
However, NATO is not the only international
organization that concentrates on peace, security and
defence. Increasingly, the EU has stepped up a serious
effort to gain expertise, influence and resources relat-
ed to security and defence measures and boasts
around 5 active military missions around the world,
most of them located in Africa. In advance, the EU
has established and staffed some new agencies and
centres that influence European perspectives on secu-
rity as well as the defence industry. In theory, the EU
and NATO are natural partners, with a partially over-
lapping membership and shared values. Some have
also suggested that both organizations could learn
from each other. The EU could get military expertise
while NATO could gain civilian insight especially into
state-building and related measures in which the EU
has a significant advantage of staff and professional
expertise. Before Wales there was a significant debate
NATOAfterWales:WhereIsTheEU?
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 41
crisis has changed in many ways the picture that NATO
developed over a decade of war in Afghanistan. A turna-
round has appeared to be probable from the era of out-of-
area operation towards a more confrontational East-West
divide that foreshadows the possibility of conventional
wars in Europe. However, there is more to the picture
than is usually admitted as the fighting in Ukraine is until
today mostly conducted by armed rebel-groups and spe-
cialized forces that are a rather new phenomenon but not
an unfamiliar threat to NATO, drawing lessons from its
engagement in Afghanistan.
All these developments point to a sustained and pivot-
al change in the way Europeans view their security and
how they engage with conventional and non-conventional
threats. NATO and the EU have responded very differ-
ently to these developments, owed to their organizational
set up, their internal sense of mission and of course the
states that are represented in their decision making bod-
ies. However, the awkward cooperation between NATO
and EU has to be reformed and thought over again, de-
spite political impasse, and despite both organizations not
having shown a big interest in sustained cooperation up to
this point. A real strategic partnership between the EU
and NATO after Wales could bring substantial synergy
effects and could complement the strategic and civilian
instruments that would be at the disposal of both the EU
and NATO. The Wales Summit has pointed to interesting
and strategically important changes as well as a solid re-
commitment to European defence and security, but the
other big player in European security has been side-lined
although it possesses important and decisive resources
that could be beneficial. Consequently, the Wales Sum-
mit has produced important decisions and identified key
areas in which NATO has to engage, but to only cooper-
ate in armaments issues, and to write a report about
NATO-EU relations is simply not enough. A substantiat-
ed effort has to be made to end a prolonged phase of
competition between the organizations or the awkward
couple relation will prevail.
Daniel Schnok is a 24 year old Master of Public Poli-
cy student currently living in Berlin. He studies at the
Hertie School of Governance and enjoys the broad of-
fer of security policy relevant conferences, seminars
and roundtable discussions the capital has to offer. He
wrote his Bachelor thesis about EU-NATO coopera-
tion, which he analysed from a perspective of game
theory and in which he sought to prove that under spe-
cific conditions NATO-EU cooperation might be im-
possible to achieve. His research interests include col-
lective security, security structure of East Asia and the
economics of security.
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 42
linear forms of aggression can include mass disinfor-
mation campaigns, cyberattacks, the use of Special
Forces often disguised as local partisans, local proxies,
intimidation, and economic pressure. Examples of
asymmetrical warfare practiced by Russia include Esto-
nia in 2007, Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014.
In Ukraine, insignia-less soldiers seized political
and communication buildings and declared independ-
ence from the Ukrainian state. Despite wearing Russian
military kit and driving vehicles with official license
plates, it was unclear whether they were local activists,
mercenaries, or soldiers acting without orders. The
problem posed to NATO is that such activities often
fall below NATO’s response threshold. According to
Article V, "Parties agreed that an armed attack against
one or more of them in Europe or North America shall
be considered an attack against them all." In light of
ambiguous warfare, NATO must consider what consti-
tutes an Article V attack and whether the adjective
“armed” should be removed from the Washington
Treaty, given the fading importance of kinetic tools
such as tanks, ships, and planes. In the event of an am-
biguous attack, it is imperative that NATO is able to
act swiftly, decisively, and in lockstep.
Countering hybrid threats is about improving
initial understanding and using existing capabilities in
an innovative way to face a threat, rather than about
new equipment or weapons systems. In the recent
Wales Summit Declaration, the threat of hybrid war-
fare was duly addressed, acknowledging the importance
of NATO being able to effectively deter and respond to
By Jenny Yang
A ccording to former Russian General
Valery Gerasimov, military action in
the twenty-first century could begin
with groups of troops operating in 'peacetime' with no
official declaration of war. The effectiveness of non-
military means in achieving strategic goals has sur-
passed that of weapons or conventional warfare. In
this new strain of nonlinear warfare, precedence is
given to psychological operations, information war-
fare, and decentralized civil-military combat units
with the objective of lessening reliance on conven-
tional military force. Russian forces could then be
deployed under the guise of domestic militants. In
light of Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine, NATO is
understandably wary of this new ‘Putin Doctrine’,
which casts Russia as the defender of the rights of
Russian speakers. In reference to Russia’s relationship
with Ukraine and Belarus, Putin has asserted that:
“Essentially, we have a common church, a common
spiritual source, and a common destiny.”
The current threat, described as ‘hybrid’, can
vary from the usage of secret services, diplomacy, the
media, proxies as well as provocation. The term hy-
brid warfare was first used after the 2006 Lebanese
war, referring to a form of warfare that blends sub-
version and low-level political violence, usually falling
below the threshold of conventional war. According
to the NATO capstone concept, "Hybrid threats are
those posed by adversaries, with the ability to simulta-
neously employ conventional and non-conventional
means adaptively in pursuit of their objectives." Non-
NextGenerationWarfare:NATOAndTheChallengesOfCounteringHybridThreats
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 43
hybrid warfare risks. Measures proposed by NATO fol-
lowing the Wales Summit include: enhancing strategic
communications, incorporating hybrid threats into exer-
cise scenarios, strengthening cooperation between NATO
and other organizations in the form of information shar-
ing, political consultations, and staff-to-staff coordina-
tion. Moreover, the NATO Strategic Communications
Centre of Excellence was opened this January in Latvia.
In addition, situational awareness must be created by
presenting a credible picture of the opponent and his or
her long-term objectives. The public must be given a
clear and unambiguous understanding of the threat as well
as the time scale of any comprehensive campaign. NATO
needs to strengthen command and control, guarantee
resilience and interoperability of cyber-systems, engage in
counter-propaganda and define the role of special forces.
According to Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House,
“having situational awareness, intelligence, being able to
share it quickly is incredibly important.” With accurate
intelligence and a strong command and control, a country
is able to respond quickly to an ambiguous threat. Com-
batting non-linear threats also requires non-linear
measures such as pressuring western governments to en-
act stronger money laundering laws to root out corrupt
funds from Russia.
In what appears as a uniquely twenty-first century
strategy, Russia has proven itself adept at manipulating
information to suit its strategic interests. However, Rus-
sian information warfare is nothing new. Russian infor-
mation warfare theory is based on ‘spetspropaganda’,
which was first taught as a separate subject in 1942 at the
Military Institute of Foreign Languages, being removed
from the curriculum in 1990s only to be reintroduced in
2000. Russian politicians and journalists have often ar-
gued that information warfare is necessary for the so-
called “Russian/Eurasian civilization” to counteract infor-
mational aggression from “the Atlantic civilization led
by the USA.” However, according to professor Mark
Galeotti, this is not a new Cold War with its steadfast
ideological rivalry, but closer to the nineteenth-
century Great Game of imperial rivalry in Central
Asia: "Like the Great Game, the struggles will be
fought using deniable covert actions political misdirec-
tion, economic leverage, propaganda, espionage hack-
ers, mercenary agents, and useful dupes." In today’s
uncertain security environment, it is more important
than ever that NATO remain swift, adaptable, and in-
novative.
Jenny Yang graduated from Queen's University, with
a BAH in Political Studies. She currently works at In-
terpol's headquarters in Lyon, France in the Strategic
Planning Directorate. She was invited by the Atlantic
Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina to attend the 2014
NATO Summer School in the Balkans and has also
studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon on
the Ontario Rhone-Alpes Scholarship. Jenny has previ-
ously worked as an advisor at an internship for the Em-
bassy of Canada to the Netherlands, in which she pro-
vided support to the Canadian Permanent Representa-
tion for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemi-
cal Weapons (OPCW).
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 44
dialogue and two-way street education. What does collec-
tive defense really mean and what can be done to establish a
mutual understanding in transnational and cross-
generational terms? If our generation’s reality includes lan-
guage courses in Egypt and China, intern-
ships in South Africa and Russia, and jobs
in Japan or Mexico, is Euro-Atlantic and
territorial security really enough? And if
not, implying a greater commitment to
international crisis management and con-
flict resolution, are we willing to invest
political, military, and financial resources
in what seems to be at a first glance the
security of others? The Atlantic Treaty
Association foresaw this issue in the early
90’s and as a response, founded its youth
division, the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association or YATA in
its respective 36 national associations. Since 1996, YATA
has served as a leading international platform for young pro-
fessionals in security and defense,
working alongside our ATA seniors
and fellow youth organizations to en-
sure that young professionals have a
voice in the policy-making world and
direct access to national and interna-
tional officials.
NATO’s Wales Summit was dominat-
ed by the crisis in Ukraine, the subse-
quent collapse of the alliance’s part-
nership with Russia, and a situation
where closing a key chapter of crisis management
(Afghanistan) was nearly overshadowed by a massive securi-
ty and humanitarian crisis on NATO’s Southeastern flanks,
in Syria and Iraq. And yet, other tasks are looming large –
such as providing energy security, adjusting to security (and
By Magdalena Kirchner
W hen NATO’s international and na-
tional leaders talk about the future of
the alliance, they mostly refer to
uncertainties, processes, whose
outcomes are unforeseeable yet, and
to emerging challenges demanding
political and military adjustments.
Much too little, they emphasize the
role of those, who will determine,
how and to what extent NATO can
respond to those challenges and
who really constitute the future of
the alliance. Twenty-five years after
the Berlin Wall fell, nearly a third of
those one billion people, whose
security is an essential priority for NATO, have little or no
actual memory of the Cold War or political repression in
Europe. Growing up in times of peace or distant wars,
NATO’s youth weren’t
familiar with vocabulary
such as deterrence or col-
lective defense until very
recently, and only from
history and political science
classes. Moreover, eco-
nomic uncertainties and
high rates of youth unem-
ployment limit popular
support for increased de-
fense spending and costly military missions especially
among those, whose security might be at stake if the alli-
ance fails to deliver on its promise to protect and defend its
member states. What could be described as a generation
gap within NATO, can only be overcome by increasing
NATO’sfuturetodayarethose
whoshapeittomorrow
Participants of the `Nato‘s Future Seminar‘ (Source German Atlantic Association)
Areva Paronjana and Brigadier Meyer zum Felde
(Source: German Atlantic Association)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 45
political) challenges of the digital era, and integrating NATO’s
crisis management instruments into broader and comprehen-
sive frameworks of conflict solution and post-conflict manage-
ment. In the seminar, we therefore particularly turned to these
questions, as they share one essential feature – the necessity of
NATO to broaden its scope and understanding of which threats
demand our closest attention and how security can be attained
in an era of such uncertainty.
In order to strengthen the transnational as well as the
cross-generational debate on current security issues, the Ger-
man chapter of the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association (YATA)
organized an international seminar on 04 November 2014 as a
side-event of the conference “NATO after the Wales Summit”,
which took place the following day. Bringing together 41
young professionals, scholars, senior experts, and NATO, as
well as government officials, from 16 member and partner
states, the seminar served as a platform for fruitful and enrich-
ing debates during the day. Ever since, it became a forum for
an exchange of ideas and mutual understanding between for-
mer participants.
During the preparation of the sem-
inar, individual members of YATA Ger-
many had been invited in an open call
for panels to suggest three specific de-
bates that should be held during the
seminar. Those who had been selected
took positions as chairs or discussants
on their panels and played an important
role in the selection of speakers and
conceptualization of the discussion.
Thirteen international and thirteen Ger-
man participants were selected in a competitive application
procedure and immediately started to interact with each other
via social media platforms, selected readings, and essays. The
latter, focusing both on the key topics of the seminar (energy
security, cyber security, and crisis management) and the out-
come of the Wales summit, turned out extremely well-written
and were distributed also among the 450 participants of the
main conference the next day. With this special issue, we aim
at taking these important insights to a wider audience and mak-
ing them heard as what they are – genuinely Atlantic Voices.
In his famous Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that “one
swallow does not make a summer”. In the same way, hold-
ing one seminar that allows young citizens of NATO mem-
bers and partner countries to debate their own ideas with
senior experts on an eye to eye level, will not suddenly
overcome the generational gap within the alliance. Especial-
ly in times like these, we have to invest in those that will
shape and secure the implementation of its missions, on the
one hand, and take their arguments and considerations seri-
ously, on the other. The most important task, however, is
to maintain a substantial commitment to youth empower-
ment and to assist young voices in becoming an audible and
visible part of NATO’s future.
Dr. Magdalena Kirchner serves as spokeswoman of
YATA Germany and associated board member of the Ger-
man Atlantic Association (GAA) since May 2014. Besides
YATA, she also coordinates the GAA’s transatlantic projects
and the event series “NATO Talk around the Brandenburger
Tor.” In addition, Magdalena works as an editorial journalist
for the Security Policy Reader, jointly published by the Fed-
eral Ministry of Defense and the German Armed Forces as
well as associate fellow of the Transatlantic
Relations Program of the German Council of
Foreign Relations (DGAP), where she works
on Security Politics in the Middle East and U.S.
policy in the region. Magdalena obtains an
M.A. and a PhD in International Relations from
the University of Heidelberg. Until 2013, she
served inter alia as a lecturer at the Institute for
Political Science at the University of Heidel-
berg and as head of the Working Group
"Conflicts in the Middle East and Maghreb" of
the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research.
In 2010 and 2012, she spent several months as a Visiting
Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies in Tel Aviv, the International Strategic Re-
search Organisation (USAK), as well as the Center for Mid-
dle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), both based in Anka-
ra. She is a member of the extended board of Women in
International Security Germany.
Getting started for the workshops
(Source YATA)
About the author
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 46
Sandemans New Europe for a “Walk around the
Brandenburger Tor.” Together with tour guide Sam,
the group discovered the political Berlin by foot and
gained fascinating insights on the city that was just
about to celebrate 25 years of the fall of the wall. A
joint lunch at the canteen of the ZDF (Second German
Television) Berlin Studio gave the participants also the
opportunity to take a
glimpse at one of
Germany’s biggest media
outlets, also home of the
famous Mainzelmännchen.
The afternoon session
“NATO and the Challenge
of Cyber Space” was co-
chaired by Dr. Svenja Post
and Alexis Below,
Research Fellows at the
Brandenburg Institute for
Society and Security.
First, Dr. Olaf Theiler,
Head of the Section Future Analysis at the Bundeswehr
Planning Office, stressed the ambivalent nature of the
internet in terms of security. Furthermore, he and his
co-panelist Prof. Dr. Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg,
Chair of Public Law at the European University
Viadrina, agreed that the biggest challenge for NATO
regarding cyber security is the endemic attribution
problem. Liina Areng, Head of International Relations
at the Estonian Information System Authority,
maintained that the capabilities to protect
infrastructure against cyber-attacks is unevenly
distributed among its members. Hence, a
comprehensive approach that also includes NATO-EU
cooperation in the field should be pursued.
The concluding panel “NATO Crisis Management
Revisited?”, chaired by Sebastian Feyock, centered on
the question, which lessons could be drawn from the
ISAF mission in Afghanistan and how they could be
integrated into future planning of such missions. Both
By Magdalena Kirchner
O n the eve of the seminar, an
informal get together in central
Berlin helped the participants to get
to know each other and generate a highly amicable
working atmosphere for the upcoming days.
The first panel “NATO
and the Quest for Energy
Security” started after some
introductory remarks by
Y A T A G e r m a n y ’ s
s p o k e s w o m a n , D r .
Magdalena Kirchner, and a
first round of discussion
among the participants.
The debate was moderated
by YATA members
Alexander Schröder,
German Armed Forces,
and Martin Wölfel, Zeppelin University. First, Dr.
Marco Overhaus, Deputy Head of Research Division
“The Americas” (a.i.) of the German Institute for
International and Security Affairs provided the
participants with key insights on the so called Shale
Revolution in the United States and its economic and
security-related implications. Second, Dr. Julijus
Grubliauskas, Energy Security Advisor at NATO’s
Emerging Security Challenges Division, argued that
energy security might be a national issue at a first
glance but is also on NATO’s agenda given its
importance for the security of its members. Finally,
Sebastian Feyock, Program Officer at the German
Council on Foreign Relations, stressed the
importance of energy diversification as a key factor in
decreasing both vulnerability and independence. After
a lively debate on how the member states could and
should boost coordination and cooperation in the field
of energy security, the participants were invited by
NATO’sFutureSeminar
Panel discussion on NATO and the Challenge of Cyber Space
(Source German Atlantic Association)
Atlantic Voices, Special Issue 47
Dr. Stefan Oswald, head of division Afghanistan/Pakistan
at the Federal Ministry of Cooperation and Development,
and Nicholas Williams, head of the Afghanistan Team at
NATO’s Operations Division, argued that the current
situation in Afghanistan indicates that ISAF has been a
successful mission. The key lesson, however, was that
realistic goals must be set and commitments need to be
sustainable. Tobias Hecht, Senior Project Coordinator at
Transparency International Germany, pointed out that
especially corruption constitutes a major threat to post-
conflict management and hence deserves further attention
also in the planning process. After a full day of
discussions, a conference dinner not only rounded off the
seminar but also constituted a starting point for future
engagements and exchange, both on a personal and
institutional level.
The seminar was co-sponsored by NATO’s Public
Diplomacy Division, the German Atlantic Association,
the Federal Academy for Security Policy, the Press- and
Information Office of the German Federal Government
and Sandemans New Europe Tours.
Maria Mundt Knudsen, Eda Guney, Rowinda Appelman and
Magda Kocianova (Source Rowinda Appekman)
Impressions of the first panel on energy security