Teija Tiilikainen
Director
The European Centre of
Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats
Helsinki, Finland
Ever since its establishment, NATO has demonstrated a strong ability to adapt to the changing security environment. In the aftermath of the Cold War, its strategic concept was amended to include elements of cooperative security as well as a capacity to engage in out-of-area operations. Both developments decisively changed the Alliance’s strategic approach.
The current growing confrontation between Russia and the West has redirected NATO’s focus towards concrete tasks of territorial defence and deterrence. In parallel with this shift, NATO has undergone multiple rounds of enlargement, which have changed its geopolitical form. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO means that an overwhelming majority of EU members, 23 out of 27, are now also members of NATO.
As the geopolitical confrontation deepens, the conflict between Western democracies and their challengers is taking on more comprehensive forms. The traditional tools of power projection against the West are increasingly being supplemented with unconventional instruments. The notion of hybrid threats has consequently become part of the security strategies and policies of both the EU and NATO and their members.
In this context of an ever-deepening conflict, NATO has also had to define its own role and responsibility in protecting its Allies. It has also had to ensure that its own collective defence system cannot be paralysed by the use of broader threat instruments. Using hybrid threat instruments against NATO could mean, for instance, attacking or disrupting its key military infrastructure. It could also involve attempts to hamper NATO’s consensus-based decision-making by systematically undermining the commitment to or trust in NATO’s collective defence among one or more Allies. NATO’s efficiency could also be weakened by the deliberate conduct of operations which, for political or legislative reasons, make it difficult or even impossible to use NATO’s common tools.
For the past ten years, NATO has increasingly addressed hybrid threats by developing its policies and preparedness. NATO’s tools in countering hybrid threats can be divided into those aimed at enhancing resilience and those seeking to deter hostile action. NATO’s resilience to hybrid threats has been strengthened by enhancing its intelligence capabilities and restructuring them to meet the needs of the new threat environment. The Alliance has also set baseline resilience requirements for its Allies in strategic sectors, which serve as yardsticks for national self-assessment. These requirements cover the continuity of government and governmental services, communications and transport systems, as well as the resilience of critical commodities such as energy, food and clean water. More recently, NATO’s resilience work has been further strengthened, both through some institutional reforms and through more specific objectives set in 2023 for collective and national resilience work. Strengthened cooperation with the EU in countering hybrid threats is another policy tool in enhancing resilience against such threats. Cooperation and joint exercises conducted at many levels will facilitate the preparedness of both organisations to deal with the new threat environment. NATO can also deploy counter-hybrid support teams to support an Ally in enhancing its resilience.
Apart from resilience, NATO has also created a set of deterrence tools to counter hybrid threats. The most powerful of these has been the interpretation and communication since 2016 regarding NATO’s readiness to invoke collective defence in response to a hybrid threat operation. This policy is in line with NATO’s earlier decision to make cyber defence a recognized part of its collective defence. To ensure the credibility of its deterrence, NATO has not specified the character or scale of a hybrid threat operation that would be serious enough to warrant invoking Article 5. Its deterrence has been supported by the active inclusion of hybrid threat-related scenarios in NATO exercises and other measures to enhance preparedness. Strengthened cooperation with NATO’s partner countries in Europe as well as in the Indo-Pacific region can also be seen as serving NATO’s deterrent function. The greater the support NATO receives from partners and like-minded countries for its policies and instruments in countering hybrid threats, the more perpetrators of hostile activities will need to factor in serious countermeasures.
Ever since its establishment, NATO has proved to be a highly versatile tool for addressing the security needs of its Allies. The current security environment is once again testing the consensus among Allies regarding the extent to which the collective defence obligation can be broadened without compromising its credibility.