NATO is committed to integrating Women, Peace, and Security
(WPS) across all its tasks in the 2022 Strategic Concept and the
revised NATO Policy on WPS endorsed by Heads of State at the
2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. The NATO Strategic
Concept referenced the Women, Peace and Security (WPS)
agenda for the first time in 2022. This was a significant move
since it elevated a gender perspective from the margins to a more
central position in the Alliance’s agenda. The revised NATO
Policy on WPS endorsed by Heads of State in 2024 reinforces
this. The endorsement reflects the reality that the WPS agenda,
and a gender perspective, is all the more relevant as the Alliance
returns to a primary focus on deterrence and defense following
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.1
Russia
is indeed waging a deeply gendered war in terms of the use of
conflict-related sexual violence, but also in its broader attack on
NATO values, including gender equality, through the promotion
of “traditional” family values.
This Policy Brief looks ahead to consider the question of what
NATO’s commitment to WPS, as outlined in the Strategic
Concept and the revised NATO WPS Policy, would look like if
it were realized in practice, specifically through the NATO WPS
Action Plan due for renewal in 2025. To do so, it engages with
how WPS and a gender perspective have been institutionalized
in NATO, noting that advances in this agenda have often not
taken the “usual” or proscribed route within the Alliance.
It is, therefore, an area ripe for innovation in terms of its
implementation. The WPS agenda is now in a strong position
at NATO with buy-in from its Member States.2
The next step
is realizing the strategic vision for WPS’ implementation
set out in the revised NATO WPS Policy (2024) through the
development of the NATO Action Plan on WPS due in 2025.
Such an approach would drive the Alliance’s long-term WPS
priorities into the future and ensure WPS’ institutionalization
at all levels, political and, especially, military. It must rely on
gender-responsive leadership to strengthen existing gender
expertise across the Alliance and ensure accountability.
Realizing Women, Peace, and Security as
an Asset for Operational Effectiveness
The WPS agenda emerged from UN Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 1325, adopted in 2000, and the nine follow-up
resolutions. It recognizes women’s agency and calls for women’s
participation in peace and security while acknowledging the
gendered impact of conflict, which often disproportionately
impacts women. These two aspects of the WPS agenda are
mutually reinforcing.3
The realization of UNSCR 1325 relied on
insiders and outsiders to the Security Council, including civil
society, which remain crucial knowledge brokers of WPS.4
NATO’s initial formal policy engagement with WPS in 2007
did not come with civil society involvement; rather, it built on a
concern related to the status of women in NATO forces on the
one hand and operational requirements vis-à-vis Afghanistan,
specifically counterinsurgency, on the other. This has set NATO
apart from the UN Security Council and other national and
regional level engagements with WPS that have been premised
on civil society consultation. It also demonstrates the nexus between WPS and a gender perspective in NATO’s approach.5
However, since 2014 the Alliance has consulted civil society
formally on its WPS policy, the first time it has done so on any
policy area.6
The Civil Society Advisory Panel (CSAP) on WPS
provides an important pool of expertise for NATO to draw on in
strengthening its approach to WPS.7
NATO’s engagement also did not come out of the blue. It
mapped onto decades of organizing within the Alliance to
strengthen the status of women in the armed forces of the
Alliance, including through the then Committee on Women in
NATO Forces (CWINF), which first met in 1961. It was through
CWINF that senior military women organized meetings in the
1960s on issues concerning the recruitment and retention of
women in the armed forces and successfully advocated for the
committee’s formal recognition in 1976. From 2002, CWINF led
on NATO’s WPS work, introducing the topic within the Alliance
and including the monitoring of the agenda’s implementation
among Allies. In 2009, CWINF became the NATO Committee
on Gender Perspectives (NCGP), recognizing its expanded
remit to monitor and support NATO’s implementation of WPS
by promoting the integration of a gender perspective into the
design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies,
programs, and military operations.
NATO’s engagement with WPS has relied upon decades of
military women’s advocacy within NATO and now benefits from
broader institutional buy-in, including from men. However, the
agenda has always gained traction when it has been perceived as
providing “added value” for the Alliance, including improving
operational effectiveness. For example, the Alliance would not
have engaged formally with the agenda when it did without its
involvement in Afghanistan through the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) from 2001-2014.8
Afghanistan saw
a “new” way of fighting with counterinsurgency operations
(COIN), given the reality that at the operational and tactical
levels there was a need to incorporate a gender perspective, as
the central focus of the campaign was the Afghan population.
This led to the deployment of Female Engagement Teams and
Cultural Support Teams, which instrumentalized gender as
a “new strategic asset,” demonstrating that the U.S. (and, by
extension, NATO) was “no longer fighting its battles with
outmoded methods.”9
In NATO’s current operations in Iraq,
Kosovo, and the Baltics, the military continues to have a key
role in implementing WPS, with states such as Canada driven
to lead on the agenda through Canada’s commitment to its own
Feminist Foreign Policy and because of the perceived added
value it provides to supporting operational effectiveness.10 This
is not to say there are no significant challenges to living up to
WPS in practice. For example, Canada was recently criticized for
not apologizing to an employee who had been sexually assaulted
by a NATO soldier while deployed as part of NATO’s Enhanced
Forward Presence in Latvia.11
WPS has also been seen as valuable to NATO in building
partnerships. A key example is NATO’s partnership with Sweden
before its bid for NATO membership. Sweden’s involvement
in ISAF helped shape NATO’s early views on WPS and gender
perspectives as operational assets.12 Despite Sweden’s nonalignment stance at the time, it deepened its partnership with
NATO through WPS, notably supporting gender integration in
Afghanistan and providing diplomatic backing for NATO’s WPS
efforts, such as at the 2012 Chicago Summit.13
However, Sweden’s case also reveals WPS’ vulnerability
within NATO. While WPS was central to the NATO-Sweden
partnership, any mention of it was omitted when Sweden began
formal NATO membership talks. This suggests that Sweden’s
Feminist Foreign Policy—an approach it pioneered and which
became a core aspect of its international stance, conflicted with
its NATO aspirations.14
Beyond Sweden, NATO partnerships have played an integral
role in the Alliance’s understanding of WPS, with initial NATO
WPS policies adopted jointly by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council (EAPC).15 The agenda has thus provided “added value”
for NATO by providing a “safe” non-contentious issue and
diplomatic tool for NATO to build relationships with partners
whose interests might usually differ. For example, Austria proved
critical in supporting NATO’s adoption of a policy on WPS in

Japan, set geopolitically apart from NATO but increasingly
important for a potential pivot to the Indo-Pacific, initially built
its partnership with NATO on WPS, providing a Voluntary
National Contribution to NATO HQ to support NATO’s WPS
work in 2015 for two years.
Another area in which WPS has run counter to “business
as usual” at NATO, though again has added value, is with
respect to the role of civil society and promoting the Alliance’s
image in global politics. At a national level, and indeed at the
European Union level, civil society as knowledge brokers of
WPS have been heavily involved in developing WPS policies.
As a defense Alliance, such policy consultation requires a level
of transparency and openness that NATO did not engage in, in any policy area.16 Likewise, many civil society advocates of
WPS with roots in pacifism remained skeptical of NATO’s
engagement with WPS; consequently, there was no civil society
lobbying for NATO to engage with WPS at the time. Therefore,
NATO remained one of the exceptions among actors—states
and international organizations, implementing WPS only in
2014 and establishing a mechanism for formally consulting civil
society in the WPS policy-making process for the first time.
This has not been without challenges, but it represented a
significant commitment to open NATO’s WPS work to outside
scrutiny and a recognition that such consultation can strengthen
NATO’s policy.17
Institutional Drivers and Leadership on
WPS at NATO
On the political side, the creation of the Secretary General’s
Special Representative (SGSR) on the WPS position in 2012
has provided important impetus for NATO’s WPS work and has
been recognized by the UN as an example of best practices given
the high-level reporting of the role.18 Yet, the establishment of
the position was far from a done deal prior to the 2012 Chicago
Summit, and it took some NATO officials by surprise.19 Norway
offered to fill in the role from 2012-2014. At this time, institutional
challenges remained to fulfilling the SGSR’s mandate, including
the position within the NATO structure and rank. This was a
topic for discussion from 2014 to 2017, with the Netherlands
putting forward and sponsoring an ambassador for the position.
The high-level SGSR has successfully raised awareness of NATO’s
WPS work externally and taken the lead on WPS development
internally.20
The SGSR is now recruited via the regular NATO recruitment
process, which has meant bringing the funding for it “in-house”
from the civil budget. As part of the Office of the Secretary
General, this reflects progress on the WPS agenda at NATO.
The open competition also brings the process in line with the
recruitment for Assistant Secretary General positions, even if
certain Allies still dominate particular portfolios here, bringing
into question how “open” such competition is.21 In practice, most
Allies with a WPS National Action Plan have seen the benefit of
promoting the agenda as a foreign policy tool to support their
wider influence, including at NATO, so it remains a politically
lucrative position for Allies to secure.22
The SGSR on WPS remains the main point of accountability for
implementing WPS at NATO, as outlined in the current Action
Plan. However, the WPS agenda also spans across the areas of
responsibility of several Assistant Secretary Generals (ASGs),
from Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber to Defence Policy and
Planning and Operations and Public Diplomacy. Various WPSrelated initiatives have emerged from these ASGs, most recently,
a Public Diplomacy campaign to counter gender disinformation
on social media.23 That withstanding, to fully achieve the genderresponsive leadership committed to in NATO’s WPS Policy, and
to prevent the agenda from being siloed on the political side
or solely managed by the SGSR and their office, there is a need
for each ASG to have specific actions in the upcoming Action
Plan. In this way, each ASG will share accountability for the
implementation of the WPS agenda, even if the SGSR remains
the driver and a crucial guide for coherent WPS implementation
at NATO.
On the military side, the NATO Committee on Gender
Perspectives (NCGP) serves as a prime example of the critical
role institutional drivers play in successfully implementing the
WPS agenda within NATO. As an advisory body to the Military
Committee (MC), the NCGP has been at the forefront of
institutionalizing gender perspectives and operationalizing the
NATO WPS policies.24
It began back in the 1960s, exploring every avenue through
which women could make the fullest possible contribution to
NATO by serving in their national armed forces. Its efforts led to
the establishment of the International Military Staff (IMS) Office
of the Gender Advisor (GENAD) in 1998. Its role has expanded
in recent years and now also supports the implementation of
WPS and the integration of a gender perspective within the
IMS, marking a significant milestone in institutionalizing
gender perspectives.25 Since 2005, it has actively championed
the creation of a Military Committee policy document on
gender perspectives within NATO, a long-fought goal that was
realized in the adoption of the NATO WPS policy last year. This
achievement underscores decades of persistent advocacy to fully
integrate a gender perspective into NATO’s activities, missions,
and operations.
However, for the military, there are additional practical challenges
in implementing WPS and incorporating a gender perspective,
with the primary issue being inadequate resourcing. Gender
Advisors (GENADs) positioned throughout NATO, including
within the International Military Staff and Strategic Commands, are understaffed and, therefore, unable to fully meet the political
ambitions of the WPS agenda.
Putting WPS Into Practice Through the
Revised NATO Action Plan
WPS remained on the margins of NATO’s core business,
although, as demonstrated here, it has provided significant value
to the Alliance in several areas. Its elevation to a deliverable
of the Strategic Concept and the revised NATO WPS Policy
providing a strategic vision to the agenda indicates a novel phase
in NATO’s engagement and an attempt to make WPS part of the
Alliance’s core business.
The Strategic Concept states that NATO “will promote good
governance and integrate climate change, human security, and
the Women, Peace, and Security agenda across all our tasks. We
will continue to advance gender equality as a reflection of our
values.”26 While the inclusion of WPS is significant though not
guaranteed, how it has been framed in the Strategic Concept
affects how WPS will be understood within NATO moving
forward. So far, the implementation of the WPS agenda and a
gender perspective have added value to NATO, particularly by
improving operational effectiveness and supporting women in
NATO forces.27 As the Secretary General has stated, integrating a
gender perspective is “not only the right thing to do but the smart
thing to do.”28 The absence of WPS in the Strategic Concept’s
sections on Deterrence and Defence, as well as Crisis Prevention
and Management, is significant since the document guides the
entire Alliance. The updated NATO WPS Policy addresses this
gap by aligning it with NATO’s core tasks and the four pillars
of the WPS agenda. However, the Strategic Concept missed the
opportunity to include this directly, meaning those not fully
convinced of WPS’s importance would need to consult the WPS
Policy separately to understand its relevance.
Crucially, the NATO Policy on WPS introduces the concept
of gender-responsive leadership “to ensure NATO leaders
strengthen their gender expertise, work towards gender equality
and are accountable for the implementation of the WPS
Agenda.”29 Such an approach will be key to realizing an effective
WPS agenda at NATO and should be integrated into the Action
Plan. It should start from the top down, with the Secretary
General mainstreaming WPS into public-facing remarks as a
matter of course, not as an exception. In addition, and as outlined
earlier, clear lines of reporting on WPS should be identified for
all the Assistant Secretary Generals’ portfolios. This will help
address the weaknesses in WPS in the Strategic Concept and
draw attention to the importance of NATO’s revised WPS Policy,
which is by far the most comprehensive policy to date and sets an
ambitious agenda for the Alliance.
At present, there is value in ensuring the integration of a gender
perspective is reflective of NATO’s WPS priorities and moving
beyond the institutional siloing of this topic to ensure the whole
of NATO is committed to its implementation across political
and military structures. Establishing the SGSR WPS position
has been fundamental to moving this agenda forward, as well as
approving the latest NATO WPS Policy, which has provided an
overarching strategic vision. But now it needs to be translated
into practice via the Action Plan, and a crucial part of this will be
the actions of NATO leadership across the political and military
structures.
To summarize, advancements in the integration of a gender
perspective in NATO are tempered by remaining challenges. The
inclusion of WPS in the Strategic Concept is highly significant.
However, while it is referenced in relation to all of NATO’s tasks,
it is specifically mentioned only in the context of Cooperative
Security, with no direct mention in the sections of the other
core tasks (on Deterrence and Defence or Crisis Prevention and
Management). This deficiency should be addressed. Secondly,
as the revised NATO Policy on WPS (2024) draws attention to,
translating the policy commitment of WPS into practice must
emphasize WPS’ added value to NATO, including promoting
gender-responsive leadership by establishing clear accountability
for the Assistant Secretary Generals and their portfolios in
mainstreaming WPS across all NATO activities. Finally, it is
essential to draw on the expertise of the Civil Society Advisory
Panel (CSAP) on WPS and the NATO Committee on Gender
Perspectives (NCGP).
Futureproofing WPS at NATO
As NATO’s engagement with WPS to date has demonstrated, this
is a policy area ripe for innovation that adds considerable value
to the Alliance at all levels. The next step in supporting NATO’s
WPS commitments is to translate Strategic Concept statements
and NATO WPS policy commitments into practice through the
development of an effective WPS Action Plan. In this regard, four steps would contribute towards NATO’s
efforts to put WPS into practice in developing the new NATO
WPS Action Plan, which would center on the added value of
WPS for the Alliance.

The Secretary General and NATO’s senior leadership should
integrate WPS into their public-facing remarks as a matter of
routine, given the demonstrated applicability of the agenda to
all of NATO’s tasks.

Align efforts with the strategic vision that prioritizes
gender-responsive leadership and ensures accountability in
implementing WPS across NATO’s political and military
structures.

NATO’s political and military structures should better leverage
the expertise of the NATO Civil Society Advisory Panel on
WPS and NCGP, respectively, using it as a resource to support
gender-responsive leadership in their work.

Ensure that policy commitments are translated into concrete
actions by providing the NATO Military Authorities with
adequate resources—especially in terms of human resources
and dedicated gender structures—to implement these
initiatives effectively.

On July 10, 2024, Women In International Security (WIIS) and Our Secure Future (OSF), co-hosted a private breakfast event discussing the Women, Peace and Security agenda in today’s security framework.

The event, titled “Beyond Representation: Women’s Leadership,” examined women’s role in an evolving security environment. The rules-based international order has been challenged by conflicts around the world, threatening civilian populations and amplifying global insecurity. The event discussion highlighted the importance of women’s leadership in NATO and discussed government representatives’ outstanding contributions to Women, Peace and Security (WPS) initiatives.

The WPS framework promotes two significant advancements: the advancement of women in defense strategy and the inclusion of a gender perspective in security plans and measures. By creating more opportunities for women to take on leadership roles within defense, these changes ensure that diverse voices and experiences shape strategic decisions. Additionally, incorporating a gender perspective into security strategies allows for a more comprehensive understanding of how security issues uniquely impact different genders, leading to more effective and equitable solutions.

The event’s discussion featured the following distinguished speaker lineup followed by a broader conversation with the participants:

Assistant Secretary Jessica Lewis, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Ambassador Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, U.S. Department of State
Irene Fellin, NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security

Opening remarks by Ariela Blatter, WIIS President and CEO, set the stage for the conversation, emphasizing NATO’s 75th anniversary and the need to promote gender equality and diverse perspectives in security strategies. Further, WIIS’ research and the 1325 Scorecard gender assessment tool have led to measurable and actionable steps in NATO’s WPS agenda.

OSF Vice President Sahana Dharmapuri also highlighted OSF’s efforts to incorporate WPS into all policymaking, including working to mainstream gender perspectives into security policy. Through its gender policy research and trainings, as well as establishing the first bipartisan U.S. WPS Congressional Caucus, OSF continues to support the advancement of the WPS agenda.

As part of the event, the keynote speakers discussed NATO’s role in advancing a gender lens in global security policy. The role of NATO leaders includes consultations with ministers on a variety of security matters, such as cyber security and arms transfers. Weapon removal and de-mining efforts were also discussed, illustrating how security issues can offer women income opportunities and pathways to help survivors advocate for and shape policies.

It was also noted how important it is to work with NATO allies on issues related to WPS, especially on cybersecurity and emerging threats related to gender-based violence (GBV), and particularly technology-facilitated GBV (TFGBV). Currently, the world is experiencing more conflicts and crises than at any time since World War II, which is putting an adverse strain on international security. Governments must do more internationally, especially when it comes to participating in WPS initiatives. Women’s participation in the security field has plateaued after decades of growth, and partnering with women-led civil society organizations is an effective way to continue to grow women’s participation.

Recognizing the role of the WPS agenda at the NATO Summit, the speakers called for more partnerships between women-led civil society organizations and government officials, asserting that mentorship is crucial to learning and forming better policies. It was noted that gathering women leaders across the security field is a privilege, but it should not have to be. Men policy makers need to care about gendered issues and gender-responsive leadership and women need to ensure leadership is accountable.

As the conversation opened to Q&A, other participants discussed how they became aware of the WPS agenda and the importance of being supported by women and opening doors for others. Participants reflected on the suffering of Ukrainian women during the war, highlighting the importance of qualitative participation of women in security policy. Apart from the number of women who are taking on leadership roles, a qualitative approach is necessary to understand the meaning and outcomes of women’s participation in peace and security decision-making processes.

Participants also stressed that governments should use a gender lens in all policies and programming, as they see how much difference this approach could create. Concrete examples were shared on how women have established peace in their own communities, such as facilitating networks between women’s civil society members in Papua New Guinea to support the country’s peace-building operations.

In addition, other speakers contributing to the discussion spoke about the importance of integrating more examples of WPS successes, enhancing women’s visibility in security, allocating budgets for WPS policy matters, and having stand-alone gender representatives. Participants reflected on their own country’s specific WPS and gender policies, as well as future goals for their WPS initiatives.

As the global landscape evolves, women play an increasingly crucial role in shaping peace and security agendas. Within NATO and beyond, the participants called for revising policies, amplifying women’s voices, and fostering inclusive decision-making processes. With NATO celebrating its 75th anniversary, it is essential to consider these insights and commit to recognizing, valuing, and nurturing women’s contributions to our collective security.

A Book Discussion with Author Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky

By Clodagh Quain and Isabelle Roccia

Fifth-generation telecommunications (5G) technology promises to dramatically increase the interconnectedness and efficiency of commercial and civilian communication infrastructures. 5G will also enable other advances. On the civilian side, it will improve existing applications and give rise to others, from telemedicine to connected cars. It also presents an opportunity to enhance NATO’s capabilities, improving logistics, maintenance, and communications. For instance, 5G will speed communication and improve response time in a theater of operation.

These developments also pose challenges. 5G is part of a complex architecture. To leverage its full benefits, millions of sensors and devices will need to be deployed and connected, from smart home appliances and connected toys to fullscale factories and critical infrastructures. The number of connected devices is projected to total 41.6 billion worldwide by 2025.¹ By 2030, this estimate ratchets up to 125 billion.² Of these, mobile devices will grow from 8.8 billion in 2018 to 13.1 billion devices by 2023 – 1.4 billion of which will be 5G capable.³ Because devices are connected to one another or to a network, security risks will multiply. The Alliance faces an increased challenge in ensuring that NATO Allies’ 5G networks and the critical infrastructures that rely on them

can withstand multiple physical and cybersecurity threats.

NATO’s main concern in this context is the risk associated with foreign ownership or management of critical infrastructure, including by private operators and foreign state actors in supply chains. That such ownership could result in collusion between the supplier and a country’s intelligence or security services is deemed particularly worrisome by many governments, critical infrastructure operators and industry alike.⁴For NATO allies, supply-chain risk management is therefore a critical aspect of the strategic and operational challenges posed by 5G.

At the NATO meeting in London in December 2019, Allies prioritized 5G security as part of its security and resilience agenda. The final declaration stated, “NATO and Allies, within their respective authority, are committed to ensuring the security of our communications, including 5G, recognizing the need to rely on secure and resilient systems.”⁵Including 5G in the London Declaration formalized NATO’s work in this emerging field.

Background

5G technology is transformative on several fronts. It will challenge the design and implementation of existing infrastructure and applications. The velocity and pervasiveness of 5G technology will stimulate development of advanced applications, including smart cities and autonomous vehicles.

A diverse set of suppliers form the 5G ecosystem, which encompasses network infrastructures, spectrum, devices and software. While Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland) and Huawei (China) are the three best-known vendors, they represent only a small number of the stakeholders involved. The telecommunications industry estimates that operators will have

to invest $1.1 trillion by the end of 2025 to build 5G networks.⁶

In 2016, the European Commission developed a 5G Action Plan for Europe to support launching the rollout of commercial 5G services in all EU member states by the end of 2020.⁷ Subsequently, there will be a rapid buildup of infrastructure in urban areas and along major transport routes by 2025.⁸

At the Prague 5G Security Conference in May 2019, 32 EU and NATO members adopted recommendations known as the Prague Proposals.⁹They propose principles that governments should apply to 5G deployment, stipulating that communication networks and services should be “designed with resilience and security in mind. They should be built and maintained using international, open, consensus-based standards and risk-informed cybersecurity best practices.” State representatives also called for the adoption of principles of fairness, transparency, risk-based policy and interoperability.

Relevance for NATO

Since 1949, NATO has centered on safeguarding the security and freedom of its members. Its mandate has evolved in political and geographic terms as the world changed. Today, emerging technology, with its many political, military and commercial implications, is driving NATO’s need to adapt.

Given its broad membership overlap with the European Union, deployment of 5G in Europe will undoubtedly affect the Alliance. The implications for NATO allies are strategic and operational in nature and affect defensive and offensive postures. At a minimum, dependence on 5G exposes critical infrastructure to more vulnerabilities, including software vulnerabilities, which NATO allies must address.¹⁰ That said, 5G can also improve capabilities such as communication security.¹¹

At the multilateral level, NATO, like the European Union, seeks to balance collective and national interests. At the Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg referred to guidelines and basic requirements that both organizations had developed for infrastructure investment—notably in telecommunications and 5G.¹²

On January 29, 2020, the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Cooperation Group published an EU toolbox, with measures to mitigate risks identified in the EU coordinated risk assessment report of October 9, 2019:

strategic measures on regulatory powers for incident reporting, security measures, threats and assets;
initiatives to promote a diverse supply and value chain;
technical measures to strengthen the security of networks and equipment; and
risk mitigation plans.¹³

NATO’s leadership also seeks to develop a minimum set of common practices for resilient telecommunications while avoiding encroachment on individual state approaches. At the October 2019 NATO Defense Ministerial meeting, for example, representatives agreed to update the baseline requirements for civilian telecommunications, including 5G.¹⁴ This update covered foreign ownership, foreign control and direct investment. While civilian infrastructure remains a “national responsibility,” Article 3 of NATO’s founding treaty states that resilience, intended to prevent the failure of critical infrastructure or hybrid attacks, is part of states’ commitments to the Alliance and to one another. The Secretary General reiterated NATO’s approach the following month at the NATO Industry Forum in Washington, DC, where he linked resilience of supply chains and that of nations and the Alliance.¹⁵

NATO members maintain the right to decide national policies for regulating critical infrastructure and 5G vendors. For example, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab addressed the House of Commons on January 28, 2020, outlining the government’s review of national telecommunications and its position on “high risk vendors.” The United Kingdom approved the use of equipment acquired from “high risk vendors” while restricting those vendors’ access to “safety critical networks.”¹⁶ The foreign secretary stressed that the review would not hamper his government’s ability to share sensitive data with its partners over highly secure networks. In May 2020, the UK Government decided to review the impact of the decision on national networks with the assistance of the National Cyber Security Centre.

What Is at Stake?

Foreign ownership or management of critical infrastructure is a significant risk for NATO allies. Consequently, more governments may look to adopt procurement rules that limit sourcing to trusted vendors.

Such a position creates another risk, however. Indeed, the operators of critical infrastructure may have only limited capacity to detect, prevent and recover from the cybersecurity risks they face if they cannot choose the technologies and processes they need to match security requirements stemming from their size, complexity and risk profile. These operators must remain in control of how they improve their overall security posture if they are to meet the security and resilience objectives set nationally or at NATO. Innovation with state-of-the-art technology is critical in the interconnected environment in which Allies find themselves, through cross-border infrastructure (for energy supply, for instance) or shared functions (such as airspace control). NATO’s value-added in this context is to facilitate the development and sharing of baseline requirements for supply-chain risk management among Allies. It can also be to share best practices and information on risks and threats. This coordination would ensure that all individual state efforts contribute to more secure, resilient critical infrastructures.

Recommendations

As NATO allies move forward, they should focus on four main issues: leveraging NATO and EU membership, assessing supply-chain management issues, adopting a principled approach and building international consensus.

Leveraging Membership: 5G affects strategic, political, industrial and commercial elements on both sides of the Atlantic. The integrated economies of the European Union and the United States share a common value system, with policies that traditionally align with NATO’s, despite conflicting messages from the current US administration regarding its commitment to the Alliance. Despite the inherent cross-border, integrated nature of critical infrastructure in Europe, EU member states approach supply-chain evaluation differently. As the European Union seeks a coordinated, harmonized process for 5G supply-chain assessment, it is important that NATO and the EU align their policies in this regard. The lack of such alignment might create challenges for NATO, such as overdependence on one supplier.

Supply-Chain Risk Management: NATO allies must consider the global, interconnected nature of supply chains and the threats they face as they weigh effective approaches to 5G supply-chain risk management. Their approaches should ultimately strengthen NATO’s strategic mission, inform procurement guidelines and harmonize risk-management baselines across Allies. Such risk management entails identifying likely threats, vulnerabilities and potential consequences, tailoring mitigation strategies to risks and prioritizing actions based on an assessment of the most relevant, potentially impactful risks.¹⁷

A Principled Approach: A similar or harmonized set of principles should underpin effective supply-chain risk management.These principles should do the following:

encourage interoperability of systems and the use of stateof-the-art technologies;
develop a more secure global cybersecurity ecosystem that recognizes norms for responsible behavior and prioritizes collective defense against malicious threats;
collaborate with key nongovernmental stakeholders, including industry, to adapt to an ever-changing environment of new technologies and new threats;
invest in research and development of new technological approaches to fostering supply-chain integrity; and
avoid prohibiting the acquisition or integration of some technologies simply because they were developed abroad.

Building International Consensus: Several international organizations and groups have begun to assess the 5G environment and its related security risks. The Prague 5G Repository produced a library of tools, frameworks and legislative measures to assist NATO member states. Multilateral organizations, such as the EU, and states have come to similar conclusions. They too underline major risks that have national security implications. Integrity, confidentiality and availability of networks and communications are also key to their security.

Conclusion

5G innovation is not just a technological choice but a strategic one. Even in a collective defense system such as NATO, states remain sovereign, making decisions based on their assessment of the geopolitical environment. A state approach driven primarily by economic opportunity may undermine collective defense and security.

To both build and manage 5G capabilities, NATO’s allies will need to leverage EU and NATO membership; balance national and collective methods for supply-chain risk management; apply a principled approach to supply-chain integrity; and coordinate at the state and international levels.

• ensure, where possible, transparency of supply-chain risk management policies and their implementation, in part to facilitate best practices;

Former director of Carnegie Europe Tomáš Valášek referred to critical civilian networks as “the path of least resistance” for adversaries in the digital age to divide NATO from within.¹⁸To protect this critical infrastructure, he argues, both the public and private sectors will need to invest in IT expertise. This shared challenge presents an opportunity for NATO and other multilateral organizations to fill gaps for their member states and to adapt to emerging technology beyond their traditional role. It is a novel test for NATO: to broker strategic geopolitical rivalries and national security concerns over critical infrastructure while developing its own modern capabilities and addressing the multiple fractures in global and allied security today.

References

International Data Corporation (IDC), The Growth in Connected IoT Devices Is Expected to Generate 79.4ZB of Data in 2025, press release (Framingham, MA: IDC, June 18, 2019).
IHS Markit, The Internet of Things: A Movement, Not a Market, presentation (London: IHS Markit, 2017), p. 2.
Cisco, Annual Internet Report (2018–2023), white paper(San Jose: Cisco, 2020), p. 2.
Kadri Kaska, Henrik Beckvard, and Tomáš Minárik, Huawei, 5G, and China as a Security Threat (Tallinn: NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, 2019).
NATO, London Declaration: Issued by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in London 3-4 December 2019, press release (Brussels: NATO, December 4, 2019).
GSMA Intelligence, The Mobile Economy 2020 (London: GSM Association, 2020), p. 5.
European Commission, 5G for Europe: An Action Plan, COM(2016) 588 final (Brussels: European Commission, 2016), p. 4.
European Commission, Future Connectivity Systems, 5G for Europe Action Plan (Brussels: European Commission, December 19, 2019).
Flexera, Vulnerability Review 2018: Global Trends (Itasca, IL: Flexara Software LLC, 2018).
Karl Norrman, Prajwol Kumar Nakarmi, and Eva Fogelström, 5G Security—Enabling a Trustworthy 5G System, Ericsson White Paper (Stockholm: Ericsson, January 8, 2020).
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Transcript of Opening Re-marks, Munich Security Conference, Brussels, February 15, 2020.
European Commission, Cybersecurity of 5G Networks: EU Toolbox of Risk Mitigating Measures (Brussels:European Commission, January 29, 2020).
NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg, Press Conference Follow-ing the Meeting of NATO Defense Ministers, Brussels, October 25, 2019.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Keynote Address at the NATO Industry Forum, Washington DC, November 14, 2019.
United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary’s Statement on Telecommunica-tions, London, UK Foreign Secretary Office, January 28, 2020.
BSA | The Software Alliance (BSA), BSA Principles for Good Governance: Supply Chain Risk Management (Washington, DC: BSA, 2019).
Tomáš Valášek et al., “NATO at 70: What Next?” Politico (April 3, 2019).

9. Government of the Czech Republic, Prague 5G Security Conference Announced Series of Recommendations: The Prague Proposals,press release, May 3, 2019.

Authors

Clodagh Quain is Policy Analyst at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), Dublin, Ireland. The views expressed here are those of the author and not of the IIEA.

Isabelle Roccia is Senior Manager, Policy – EMEA at BSA | The Software Alliance in Brussels, Belgium.

This publication is the result of a joint WIIS DC, WIIS Brussels, WIIS France, and WIIS UK project focused on new challenges for the NATO alliance and showcasing the expertise of the Next Generation women defense experts. Through a competitive selection process six Next Generation experts were invited to participate in programs on the sidelines of the 2019 December NATO Leaders meeting. We would like to thank our six experts for their thoughtful contributions to this initiative, WIIS Global for publishing their research and the US Mission to NATO for providing the generous grant without which this project would not have been possible. With this support, we were able to turn an idea to promote greater cooperation among our affiliates and cities into a reality. We hope this project encourages more collaboration across borders and helps bolster the overall WIIS mission of supporting women in the international security field.

The NATO Consortium Team: Michelle Shevin-Coetzee, WIIS-DC; Armida van Rij, WIIS

UK; Florence Fernando and Pauline Massart, WIIS Brussels; Ottavia Ampuero and Jessica
Pennetier, WIIS France

By Kulani Abendroth-Dias and Carolin Kiefer

If World War III will be over in seconds, as one side takes control of the other’s systems, we’d better have

Data, the food of all algorithms, lie at the core of cohesive EU and NATO AI strategies. Such strategies must encompass the regulation of data in high- and low-risk technologies with

and Romania have tested and often deployed AI and ML facial recognition tools, many of which were developed in the United States and China, for predictive policing and border control.3 AI and ML systems aid in contact tracing and knowledge sharing to contain the COVID-19 virus.4 However, the civilian and military strategies that drive use of AI and ML for the collection and use of data diverge across the member states of the European Union and the North a greater understanding of how data feed AI and ML technologies and systems, the results they produce become skewed. For example, a facial analysis and recognition system insufficiently trained to analyze and recognize women or people of color will often misidentify people in these populations, which could lead to inaccurate criminal profiling and arrests.7 Machines don’t make errors, but humans do. Policymakers need to rapidly identify parameters and systems of governance for these technologies that

maximize their efficiency while protecting civilian rights.

Growth in the development of AI-driven technologies has been exponential, but strategies to regulate their implementation have yet to catch up. The European Union and NATO need to develop coordinated, comprehensive, and forward-looking strategies based on data protection protocols to regulate AI use and deployment to counter myriad threats. Such strategies will be critically important if the transatlantic alliance is to adapt a common defense system to evolving threats in the digital age. Beyond Definitions

AI and ML are changing the security landscape-for example, by the deployment of disinformation to undermine political participation or of unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), which may or may not operate as lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). The states that are party to the Group of

Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons

the smarter, faster, more resilient network. dual uses. They should guide policies governing predictive

or delivery within the European Union, Amazon policing, border surveillance, facial analysisand countering disinformation.6 and recognition now sells facial recognition cameras for door

locks, webcams, home security systems, and office To regulate data use effectively, policymakers need to attendance driven by artificial intelligence (AI) better understand the technical, political, economic and

and machine learning (ML)-powerful tools with civilian 2 social risks and biases in data collection methods. Without and military purposes. Germany, France, Spain, Denmark

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).5

(LAWS), which aligns its work with the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), have devoted considerable attention to defining autonomous weapons. Unfortunately, the group has not yet paid enough attention to the data. Prolonged focus on what constitutes LAWS rather than the data that drive them impedes the important investigation of how best to regulate the technologies’ rapid development and use for security and defense. Discussion of the types, limits, and biases of data that drive AI and ML is pertinent throughout the myriad sectors in which they find application.8

Recently, the GGE took steps to move the debate from definitions of autonomous systems to why data matter. In 2020, it decided that the 11 guiding principles that frame the development and use of LAWS needed no further expansion.9 The group agreed to give greater attention to how the principles can be unpacked. It decided to distinguish between high- and low-risk AI technologies and gain a better understanding of dual-use technologies.10 Differentiating between uses for civilian and military operations should focus on how data will be mined and drive algorithms at both levels.11 NATO and the European Union should lead in facilitating these discussions and regulations.

Data Governance

According to the European Commission’s February 2020 white paper on artificial intelligence, “Europe’s current and future sustainable economic growth and societal well-being increasingly draws on value created by data…. AI is one of the most important applications of the data economy.”12 However, the report concludes, for AI to “work for people and be a force for good in society” it must be trustworthy.13 It highlights “trustworthy AI” 27 times in its 26 pages.

Governance of data is key to this trust.14 The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was a step in the right direction, but it needs to be expanded to cover AI and ML data collection and use in national and international security contexts. Close consultation and data coordination between the European Union and NATO is integral in this regard.

An understanding of who drives the development of AIdriven technologies for European security and how they are funded can illuminate the political, technical, and social, and legal bottlenecks confronting EU and NATO data regulation, both in the member states and at a supranational level. While the defense sector has traditionally driven technology innovation, private companies have taken the lead in recent years. 15 According to the OECD, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Intel have spent more than $50 billion a year on digital innovation.16 This sum dwarfs the ‚Ç¨13 billion budgeted by the European Defense Fund (EDF) for 2021-27 – for defense spending in general, not solely for AI-driven technologies.17 NATO and the European Union should pay particular attention to these private-sector actors when developing policies for data protection and strategies to encourage US and European technological innovation. NATO and the European Union should work with the CCW GGE to determine clear operational distinctions between the commercial and military uses of data for AIdriven technologies.18 NATO and the European Union need comprehensive, legally enforceable AI strategies to regulate the use of data and the integrity of information networks to better protect their citizens while keeping the Alliance agile.

The Way Forward

In EU and NATO contexts, the development and implementation of dual-use technologies and cyberprotection policies remain fragmented. This fragmentation could undermine the ability to respond to evolving threats to European security and stability. Examples abound: Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in Britain’s Leave Campaign, radicalization via social media, the politicized use of data via hybrid-use platforms to influence behavior (from political participation to violent action), and targeted cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns in the Visegrad Four and the Baltic states.19 Therefore, coherent EU and NATO AI strategies require the regulation of the data that drive emerging technologies. Regulation to promote network integrity and protect data access must be key tenets of EU and NATO strategies to deploy AI that can react faster and more effectively in the face of new security threats.

AI and ML systems are valuable, as demonstrated by their use in contact tracing and knowledge sharing in the search for a cure during the Covid-19 pandemic.20 For the transatlantic relationship to thrive, NATO and the EU must work together to develop coordinated AI strategies that address appropriate use and misuse of data. As the EU and NATO develop these strategies, they should focus on five activities:

Govern the use of data in dual-use technologies.

While AI strategies may sound exciting and innovative to policymakers and the general public, responsible data use sounds less so. Yet it is essential. EU and NATO strategies need to distinguish between high- and low-risk technologies, dual- and hybrid-use platforms, and the types, limits, and mediums by which data can be collected and anonymized (or at least kept confidential) for civil and military uses. These limits need to be developed and regulated in discussions with civilian and military actors who are mining data across sectors, from the traditional security and military arena to healthcare, logistics, and entertainment companies. Discussions should include how the rights of citizens and those residing in NATO and EU countries-e.g., lawful migrants, asylum seekers, refugees-will be protected.

Acknowledge bias in datasets.

There should be a comprehensive discussion on how bias in datasets influences the training of algorithms, which in turn influences security targets and undermines the integrity of a system. Policymakers, human rights actors, and technology developers should be in the room for this discussion. An awareness of these biases within security forces can help them better evaluate the outcomes the algorithms produce, interpret targets with caution, avoid errors, and generate more effective responses.

Ensure purpose-limited data collection and sharing.

Personal data collected and tracked for specific purposes (e.g., contact tracing during a pandemic) should generally not be shared and used for other purposes. Where an overlap in data collection is deemed necessary for EU-NATO security purposes, tight regulations for civilian protection should spell out where, with whom, and for how long the data can be stored, with strong legal and operational deterrents for backdoor access to data. Private-sector companies should limit how data are used to influence behavior: Should they be used in political campaigns the same way that they are used to nudge consumer behaviors on what to buy? The European Union’s GDPR sets up important rules in this regard. It can be viewed as the cornerstone of an EU-NATO strategy for the development and regulation of AI for security and defense.

Adapt traditional defense and deterrence strategies to the digital age.

The evolving nature of security threats in the digital age calls into question traditional strategies of defense and deterrence. Collaboration between NATO, the European Commission, the European Defence Agency (EDA), the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD) and technology developers should focus on efficiency-trimming current weapons systems and technologies used by the European Union on the battlefield and in the cyber realm while using AI and ML to inform strategy. The weaponized use of social media data must be addressed, not solely via counternarratives but by working in concert with social media companies to develop AI and ML techniques to identify and shut down fake news at the source. The integrity of networks set up by actors outside of NATO member states needs to be raised as a security concern as well, including incentives to drive the local business development of such networks.

Build trust via counter-AI agencies to protect citizen rights and detect AI-driven forgeries.

Agencies that currently promote the responsible use of AI need to work in tandem with NATO and EU agencies to develop comprehensive AI strategies. The strategies should promote digital literacy, advance critical thinking through online modules, and publicize the precautions NATO and the European Union are taking to protect citizen data in order to build public trust. Partnerships between EU, NATO, and such agencies need to go beyond traditional NGO-security agency relationships to integrate AI protection mechanisms into security policy itself. Ideally, these organizations would work with NATO partner countries to better identify targets, weaknesses, and priorities to build resilient intelligence architectures.

Map the development and use of AI-driven technologies across EU and NATO member states.

NATO security operations are in place at member state borders. However, most of the AI technologies being developed, test, or adapted are deployed within France and Germany, key EU member states. AI-driven security threats differ across states, especially disinformation. For example, the content, medium, and speaker of disinformation shared in the Czech Republic may differ considerably from disinformation shared in Germany. Adapting traditional deterrence strategies to the digital age requires an understanding of the contextbased nature of these threats. It is therefore integral to include experts across the EU and NATO member states in the development and implementation of AI strategies. A comprehensive mapping of the security threats faced-and development and use of AI-driven technologies to combat such threats across EU and NATO member states-can help better train personnel and develop more targeted solutions and localized data protection policies.

Conclusion

The digital industry is already transforming the Alliance. NATO is essential to setting up a coordinated structure to develop and regulate AI- and ML-driven technologies for NATO members’ security and defense. While sociopolitical and economic priorities in the development and regulation of AI vary across sectors and countries, awareness of the use and misuse of data in driving AI-and ML-driven technologies is a common thread that binds these debates together. The use of data fed into a system run by AI and ML technology can have vast implications for the nature of future security threats and the development of technologies to combat them. Cohesive EU and NATO strategies for AI will determine how strong and agile the Alliance will become.

References

Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

See Daniel S. Hoadley and Nathan J. Lucas, Artificial Intelligence and National Security (Washington DC.: Congressional Research Service,

2018); Greg Allen and Taniel Chan, Artificial Intelligence and National Security (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2017). Artificial intelligence comprises a vast number of fields, including machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, computer vision, and knowledge representation and reasoning. In this policy brief, the authors largely refer to the use of AI- and ML- driven technologies for EU and NATO security and defense.

Steven Feldstein, The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, September 2019).

The Cybersecurity Strategy of the Visegrad Group Countries Coronavirus, Artificial Intelligence web page (April 12, 2020).

Raluca Csernatoni, An Ambitious Agenda or Big Words? Developing a

European Approach to AI, Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 117 (Brussels: Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, November 2019).

Michael Chui et al., Notes from the AI Frontier: Insights from Hundreds of Use Cases (New York: McKinsey Global Institute, 2018).

Philipp Gr√ºll, “Germany’s Plans for Automatic Facial Recognition Meet Fierce Criticism,” EURACTIV (January 10, 2020).

Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2018).

See the UN’s 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

German Federal Foreign Office, Chair’s Summary: Berlin Forum for Supporting the 2020 Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (Berlin: German Federal Foreign Office, April 2020).

United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, The Human Element in Decisions About the Use of Force (Geneva: UNIDIR, March 2020).

European Commission, On Artificial Intelligence: A European

Approach to Excellence and Trust, white paper, COM (2020) 65 final (Brussels: European Commission, February 19, 2020), p. 1. See also European Commission, A European Strategy for Data, COM (2020) 66 final (Brussels: European Commission, February 19, 2020).

EC, On Artificial Intelligence, p. 25.

Ibid.

Dieter Ernst, Competing in Artificial Intelligence Chips: China’s Challenge amid Technology War, Special Report (Center for International Governance Innovation, March 26, 2020).

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Private Equity Investment in Artificial Intelligence (Paris: OECD, December 2018).

European Commission, European Defence Fund (Brussels: European Commission: March 20, 2019). Arguably, Washington would do well not to view the EDF with suspicion and skepticism but rather as a vehicle to stimulate more transatlantic discussion on “home-grown” innovation and development.

Daniele Amoroso et al., “Autonomy in Weapon Systems: The Mili-tary Application of Artificial Intelligence as a Litmus Test for Germany’s New Foreign and Security Policy,” Democracy Vol. 49 (Heinrich B√∂ll Foundation, 2018).

Marek G√≥rka, “The Cybersecurity Strategy of the Visegrad Group

Countries,” Politics in Central Europe Vol .14, No. 2 (2018), pp. 75-98. See also Alistair Knott, “Uses and Abuses of AI in Election Campaigns,” presentation, N.d.

Council of Europe, AI and Control of Covid-19.

By Naďa Kovalčíková and Gabrielle Tarini

The rise of China poses a strategic challenge for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Alliance needs a comprehensive political, economic, and security strategy to deal with China’s growing

global power. The more assertive a role China plays in world affairs, the more it could undercut NATO’s cohesion and military advantages by translating commercial inroads in Europe into political influence, investing in strategically important sectors, and achieving major breakthroughs in advanced digital technologies.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly emphasized the need for NATO allies to assess and better understand the implications of China’s increased presence and activity in the North Atlantic.¹ At their London meeting in December 2019, NATO leaders noted that “China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an Alliance.”² At the 2020 Munich Security Conference in February 2020, China again featured prominently in the discussions. Plenary sessions and many of the side sessions focused on China, with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Stoltenberg all highlighting the role for transatlantic cooperation in addressing China’s rise.³

This policy brief examines the challenge that China presents for NATO and the importance of a common posture toward China. It also considers China’s perception of NATO as a stumbling block to its global ambitions, and it provides recommendations for how the Alliance should approach China moving forward.

China’s Rise and Its Implications for NATO

China has used its growing economic, political and military capabilities to pursue an increasingly assertive foreign policy, and NATO has rightly begun to assess the implications for the Alliance. As the secretary general remarked in December 2019, “This is not about moving NATO into the South China Sea, but it’s about taking into account that China’s coming closer to us, in the Arctic, in Africa, investing heavily in our infrastructure, in Europe, in cyberspace.”⁴

China’s increased involvement in European allies’ economies poses a challenge to NATO’s political cohesion. China’s annual foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe has grown exponentially since 2008.⁵ Europe is also one of the most important destinations for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global development strategy initiated by China in 2013. Last spring, Italy became the first G7 country to join BRI, while Greece joined China’s “17+1 grouping,” an initiative aimed at enhancing ties between China and Central and Eastern Europe.⁶

Chinese commercial inroads today can lead to wider political influence tomorrow, which well may be China’s objective. An analysis from the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies, for example, contends that China “incentivizes state-led Chinese banks as well as State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to fill financing or investment gaps in EU member states and accession countries in exchange for political support for Chinese positions, such as on territorial claims in the South China Sea or human rights.”⁷ Most recently, during the

COVID-19 pandemic, China has attempted to make political inroads in Europe through “mask diplomacy.”⁸ China is widely publicizing its provision of medical masks and critical health equipment to affected European states and promoted false narratives over Chinese state media Twitter accounts (such as claims that COVID-19 actually began outside of China).⁹ These actions have helped China deflect criticism of its initial response to the virus and elevate its image in Europe as a global humanitarian player.

NATO allies also face pressure to address Chinese companies’ investments in Europe’s strategic sectors such as telecommunications, energy, transportation and ports. Chinese investments in these sectors have direct security implications for the Alliance, as it depends on national critical infrastructure to execute its activities and missions. For example, national telecommunication networks that are hacked or disrupted by foreign governments could threaten NATO networks such as the Federated Mission Network that are critical to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) and allied decisionmaking.¹⁰ 5G equipment made by companies with obscure ownership structures and close ties to the Chinese Communist Party “could use wellconcealed kill switches to cripple Western telecom systems” during conflict, or even during peacetime.¹¹ Moreover, the protection and integrity of digital information is also critical to secure force mobilization and plans for reinforcement. Civilian roads, ports and rails are an integral part of NATO’s plans for military mobilization. Chinese investments in European ports and rail could complicate NATO’s ability to reinforce and resupply Europe in a warfighting scenario. Currently, Chinese SOEs have invested in 12 ports in seven NATO countries that are key for military mobility planning in the east, south and southeast of NATO.¹²

Finally, China’s advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) threaten to undermine NATO’s current military and intelligence advantages. China’s “New Generation AI Development Plan” calls for China to “catch up on AI technology and applications by 2020, achieve major breakthroughs by 2025, and become a global leader in AI by 2030.”¹³ China sees AI as a way to leapfrog—in other words, skip—a generation of military technology.¹⁴

NATO relies on individual members to incorporate AI into their national defense capabilities. However, if all do not master and integrate this technology at the same pace, it may erode decades of work to strengthen interoperability. Moreover, European technologies to run AI operations— including robotics and efficient electronic chips such as

Dutch ASML semiconductors—are in high demand in China. If foreign state-backed companies were to acquire this technology, with its dual commercial and military applications, it would cause serious security concerns for the

Alliance.¹⁵

China’s Perception of NATO

Generally, Beijing views NATO as a stumbling block to its global ambitions. As Adam Liff’s work on China and the U.S. alliance system has shown, Beijing expresses “deepening frustration towards, and even open opposition to” America’s alliances.¹⁶ China has not yet publicly expressed its vision of an alternative international system—and indeed scholars vigorously debate China’s long-term strategic objectives—but it is clear that China believes it can exercise greater influence on the world stage if power is more broadly diffused.¹⁷

China’s efforts to date seem to have focused largely on driving a wedge in U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific, but China would undoubtedly welcome a fractured transatlantic relationship, where US and European threat perceptions and policy priorities increasingly diverge.¹⁸ As a recent analysis of China-Europe relations noted, China wants to “weaken Western unity, both within Europe and across the Atlantic.”¹⁹ Consequently, it prefers to deal with European states individually rather than through the European Union’s collective leadership. Thus President Xi Jinping was likely displeased when French President Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to join his bilateral meeting with China in March 2019.²⁰ China also seeks to fragment EU unity on economic issues and trade, criticizing it for “politicizing” economic and trade issues in its Policy Paper on the European Union.²¹ China knows that NATO has neither robust tools nor a legacy of regulating political economy issues. China’s use of this narrative contributes to internal tension within the Alliance between those who guard against NATO’s involvement in these areas, especially since 21 EU members are also NATO allies.²²

In sum, a united NATO and a cohesive transatlantic relationship thwart China’s desire to increase multipolarity in the international system, while a fractured NATO enables China to play Europe off America and Europe off itself.

Recommendations

Developing a united stance toward China will require NATO to synchronize regional priorities. It will also need to strengthen partnerships with other institutions and countries, given that much of what needs to be done currently falls outside NATO’s core competencies. NATO could strive for greater cohesion toward China in three areas: politics, military and technology.

Political Recommendations

To date, there is little evidence that NATO allies are coming closer to a solid political consensus on how to address China’s rise.²³ In order to operationalize allies’ views in the London Declaration on the “opportunities and challenges”²⁴ that China’s growing influence presents and limit its ability to undermine transatlantic cohesion or make further political inroads in Europe, NATO should do the following:

Consistently coordinate allied efforts to ensure that Chinese initiatives, such as the BRI or the 17+1 grouping with Central and Eastern European countries, do not allow Beijing to gain political support for Chinese positions, such as on human rights or territorial claims, and drive wedges between allies.
Increase cooperation with the EU on screening and assessing Chinese FDI in allied critical infrastructure and advanced technologies, which rely heavily on sensitive data. NATO should contribute to defining key criteria on FDI in domains with dual civilian-military applications.
Encourage allies to make full use of their existing screening mechanisms for foreign investment and encourage those that do not have one to set it up.²⁵ NATO’s EU allies should also systematically implement the EU’s foreign investment screening mechanism in order to mitigate the risks of foreign investors acquiring control over critical technologies, infrastructure, or sensitive information with potential security implications to all NATO allies. Increased transparency about Chinese FDI in critical infrastructure across NATO would help to mitigate the potential impact on NATO’s overall political cohesion.

engagement and expertise. Such partnerships could inaugurate a new consultative body, which could pave the way for more coordinated planning and intelligence sharing.²⁷

•

NATO should coordinate its efforts with the European Union in this domain, as AI and other advanced technologies are developed primarily in the private sector and can have both civilian and military applications. EU-NATO collaboration may be hampered by the fact

Enhance NATO’s political partnerships with IndoPacific countries, especially with Australia (within the “Enhanced Opportunities Partner” framework²⁶ or other tailored platforms) and Japan to strengthen interregional Military Recommendations

It would be difficult and inadvisable to reposture the Alliance toward a hypothetical contingency with China: NATO members already have varied preferences over which region should receive priority focus and, with the exception of the United States, do not have the expeditionary capabilities to project power into the Indo-Pacific region. Nevertheless, there are four areas where NATO could improve its posture vis-à-vis China:

Increased Chinese naval activity in the Mediterranean Sea, Baltic Sea, and the High North, often in collaboration with Russia, is a direct concern for NATO.²⁸ NATO need not make plans to fight China in the North Atlantic. However, as a noted NATO and maritime affairs expert argues, allies must be prepared to “monitor and interact with another growing naval power operating in waters of key interest to the transatlantic alliance.”²⁹
NATO should step up its existing military partnerships with Indo-Pacific countries, in particular in NATO exercises, the Partnership Interoperability Platform, and other capacity building programs.³⁰
Working with the EU, NATO tabletop exercises should focus on enhancing military mobility in Europe to mitigate against the effects of rising, potentially coercive Chinese investments and to secure a more robust, integrated civilian-military infrastructure.
NATO allies should continuously assess and avoid investment in Chinese military equipment that would plug into NATO’s command and control system.³¹

Technological Recommendations

NATO allies should coordinate efforts to incorporate AI-based military technologies into their national capabilities in order to avoid duplication and economize.
The roadmap on disruptive technologies adopted by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation in 2018 should guide allies toward increased and better tailored investments in military technology powered by AI, biotechnology and cyber and quantum computing. NATO should also continue to adapt its Defense Planning Process to account for rapid, fundamental technological evolution.³²

that not all EU member states or NATO allies have written national AI strategies, and as one analyst notes, “Europe’s political and strategic debate on AI-enabled military technology is underdeveloped.”³³ NATO should encourage all allies to develop their respective AI strategies, while the European Union can guide them by collecting and publishing best practices and encouraging countries to limit potentially burdensome regulations on AI before it is applied. The European Union in collaboration with NATO may also consider establishing an AI Center of Excellence.³⁴

Cybersecurity in 5G networks is another area where

NATO should coordinate its efforts with the European Union. Because this issue concerns mostly civilian networks, NATO does not have robust tools to tackle this problem alone. Thus the European Union and the European Commission in particular should lead in coordinating and implementing action. In its new “toolbox,” rolled out in January 2020, the European Union recommended measures to mitigate the cybersecurity risks of 5G.³⁵ The plan, which could ban suppliers from core parts of telecoms networks if they are identified as “high-risk” vendors, could allow European countries to limit Chinese tech giant Huawei’s role in Europe in the future. NATO allies should not only consider the EU measures when appropriate but also push for more transparency into foreign companies’ ownership structures and state influence. In general, each NATO member should strengthen oversight of telecom network security by creating mechanisms to review contracts between operators and suppliers and conducting national-level audits of the security practices of 5G companies.

In sum, NATO must strive to maintain transatlantic unity in the face of a rapidly evolving technology and global security landscape. As China seeks to divide allied democracies, it is critical for NATO allies, in coordination with the EU and other partners, to address a widening array of emerging economic, political, societal and technological challenges to the Alliance.

Authors

Naďa Kovalčíková is a Program Manager and Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshal Fund of the United States.

Gabrielle Tarini is a Policy Analyst at the non-profit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

References

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, opening remarks at the

Munich Security Conference, February 15, 2020, at the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and Sub-Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE), January 21, 2020, and doorstep statement ahead of the meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Heads of State and/or Government , December 4, 2019.

NATO, London Declaration, Issued by the Heads of State and

Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in London 3-4, December 2019 (Brussels: NATO, December 4, 2019).

Daniel W. Drezner, “What I Learned at the Munich Security Conference,” commentary, Washington Post (February 17, 2020).
NATO, “Questions and Answers by NATO Secretary General

Jens Stoltenberg at the ‘‘NATO Engages: Innovating the Alliance’ Conference,” transcript (London: NATO, December 3, 2019).

Thilo Hanemann, Mikko Huotari and Agatha Kratz, Chinese FDI in Europe: 2018 Trends and Impact of New Screening Policies, MERICS Papers on China (Berlin: Mercator Institute for China Studies, June 3, 2019).
Federiga Bindi, Why Did Italy Embrace the Belt and Road Initiative? commentary (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 19, 2020); Jonathan E. Hillman and Masea McCalpin, Will China’s ‘16+1’ Format Divide Europe? (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 11, 2019).
Thorsten Benner et al., Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe, report (Berlin: Mercator Institute for China Studies, February 2018), p. 106, p. 15.
AFP News, “Mask Diplomacy: China Tries to Rewrite Virus Narrative,” France 24 (March 20, 2020).
Matt Schrader, Analyzing China’s Propaganda Messaging in Europe

(Alliance for Securing Democracy, March 20, 2020). See also Elizabeth Braw, “Beware of Bad Samaritans,” Foreign Policy (March 30, 2020).

Kadri Kaska, Henrik Beckvard and Tomáš Minárik, Huawei, 5G and China as a Security Threat, report (Brussels: NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, 2019).
Lindsay Gorman, “5G Is Where China and the West Finally Diverge,” The Atlantic (January 4, 2020).
Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey. See also Ian Anthony, Jiayi Zhou and Fei Su, EU Security Perspectives in an Era of Connectivity: Implications for Relations with China, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security, No. 2020/3 (Stockholm: SIPRI, February 2020), p.14.
Graham Webster et al., China’s Plan to ‘Lead’ in AI: Purpose,

Prospects, and Problems, blog post (Washington, DC: New America, August 1, 2017); Ryan Hass and Zach Balin, US-China Relations in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, report (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, January 10, 2019).

Gregory Allen, Understanding China’s AI Strategy: Clues to Chinese

Strategic Thinking on Artificial Intelligence and National Security, report (Washington, D.C., The Center for a New American Security,February 6, 2019), p. 8.

Alexandra Alper, Toby Sterling and Stephen Nellis, “Trump Administration Pressed Dutch Hard to Cancel China Chip-Equipment Sale: Sources,” Reuters (January 6, 2020).
Adam Liff, “China and the US Alliance System,” The China Quarterly Vol. 233 (March 2018).
Nadège Rolland, China’s Vision for a New World Order, NBR Special Report No. 83 (Washington, D.C.: The National Bureau of Asian Research, January 2020).
Scott Harold, Chinese Views on European Defense Integration, MERICS China Monitor (Berlin: Mercator Institute for China Studies, December 19, 2018).
Thomas Wright and Thorsten Benner, testimony to U.S. China

Economic and Security Review Commission, hearing on “China’s Relations with U.S. Allies and Partners in Europe and the Asia Pacific,” April 5, 2018.

Keegan Elmer, “France’s Emmanuel Macron Asks Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker to Join Meeting with Xi Jinping in Paris,” South China Morning Post (March 22, 2019).
Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union, China’s Policy Paper on the European Union (Brussels: Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union, December 2018).
Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “China Brought NATO Closer Together,” War On the Rocks (February 5, 2020).
23 Noah Barkin, “The U.S. and Europe Are Speaking a Different Language on China,” Foreign Policy (February 16, 2020).
NATO, “London Declaration, Issued by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in London, 3-4 December 2019” (December 4, 2019).
European Commission, Guidance to the Member States Concerning Foreign Direct Investment (FDI Screening Regulation)” (Brussels: EC, March 25, 2020).
NATO, Partnership Interoperability Initiative (Brussels: NATO, March 24, 2020).
Fabrice Pothier, How Should NATO Respond to China’s Growing Power? analysis (London: IISS, September 12, 2019).
Mercy A. Kuo, “NATO-China Council: Now Is the Time: Insights from Ian Brzezinski,” The Diplomat (October 15, 2019).
Magnus F. Nordenman, “Five Questions NATO Must Answer in the North Atlantic,” Proceedings Vol. 145, no. 3 (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, March 2019).
Ibid.
Turkey, for example, was interested in buying China’s HQ-9 missile systems in 2013 but ultimately abandoned their bid after significant pressure from other NATO allies. See Denise Der, “Why Turkey May Not Buy Chinese Missile Systems After All,” The Diplomat (May 7, 2014).
Nicholas Burns and Douglas Lute, NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, report (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2019).
Ulrike Franke and Paola Sartori, Machine Politics: Europe and the AI Revolution, Policy Brief (Berlin: European Council on Foreign Relations, July 11, 2019).
Wendy R. Anderson and Jim Townsend, “As AI Begins to Reshape

Defense, Here’s How Europe Can Keep Up,” Defense One (May 18, 2018); Institute for Security Studies, The EU, NATO and Artificial Intelligence: New Possibilities for Cooperation? report (Paris: ISS, 2019).

EU Commission, Cybersecurity of 5G Networks – EU Toolbox of Risk Mitigating Measures (Brussels: EU, January 29, 2020).

We hope this project encourages more collaboration across borders and helps bolster the overall WIIS mission of supporting women in the international security field.

The NATO Consortium Team: Michelle Shevin-Coetzee, WIIS-DC; Armida van Rij, WIIS UK; Florence Fernando and Pauline Massart, WIIS Brussels; Ottavia Ampuero

Written by Roxana Allen

It took thirty years, two generations, fifteen prime ministers, and numerous elections to appoint the first woman Prime Minister in Romania. With the introduction of the Membership Action Plan twenty years ago, NATO requested that Romania implement a 25 percent quota for women in Parliament and public service. Consequently, there are many women in leadership today. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila leads in a world confronted with violent extremism, terrorism, cyber security, and hybrid threats. While strategists have continually resigned NATO to the dustbin of history, with its original rationale of defending Europe from the Soviet Union, NATO’s membership policies have been a symbol of hope but also despair since the 1989 Revolution in Eastern Europe. NATO’s commitment to inclusion launched an enlargement process that empowered women, changed societies, and expanded peace and stability. While the “carrot” of NATO membership spurred liberal reforms, it also produced complacency and a nationalist backlash.

After its 1989 Revolution, Romania found itself without the strong cosmopolitan leadership ready to take power or embrace the West that blessed other Eastern European states—cosmopolitanism meaning those who support civil society, tolerance, human rights, rule of law, and democracy. The Czechs had Václav Havel. The Poles had Adam Michnik. The Hungarians had Miklos Haraszti. The success of these cosmopolitans and their revolutions seemed to prove Francis Fukuyama’s argument that with the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy, civil society, free markets, and the rule of law would eventually prevail in all states. As a consequence of the Stalinist nature of the Ceausescu regime, Romania did not have any outspoken cosmopolitan leadership. The West’s seemingly disorganized engagement, which did not embrace the Romanian intellectuals, allowed for the growth of nationalism in Romania á la Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” In his vision of competing civilizations, “the fundamental source of conflict…in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic…its center-piece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western civilizations and among non-Western civilizations.” This interaction was best demonstrated in Romania in 1991 when coal miners smashed their way into Bucharest, attacking students, intellectuals, and Westerners. Raised in the Stalinism of Ceausescu, then fed by nationalism, the lumpenproletariat continually tried to destroy Western norms.

The cosmopolitans of Bucharest, Cluj, and Timisoara needed help to establish Western norms in all of Romania, as Dr. Adrian Nastase stated: “The Balkans zone needs not only financial support, but also an outspoken desire from the part of the developed states to offer the former room for integration in their community…Establishment of democracy in the former communist countries needs an economic support and a political one as well.” After the creation of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, the Western desire to support democracy and integration was affirmed. Enforcing the Dayton Agreement and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in 1995, NATO became the primary Western means of implementing cosmopolitan intervention. Cosmopolitans, as Mary Kaldor describes in New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, are buttressed by Western armed forces. The perceived NATO commitment to Romania’s and the Balkan’s efforts to establish Western norms led to the election of new democratic leadership under President Emil Constantinescu in 1996.

The successful NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina had emboldened NATO’s leadership to redefine the Alliance’s mission and attempt to provide a “carpet of stability” in Europe through enlargement. This carpet, intended to support those cosmopolitans who led their nations to freedom in 1989 and faced growing domestic intolerance, soon developed holes. Referring to the enlargement of NATO in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, Charles Gati explains that “the post-communist success stories that most people expected to write themselves after 1989 have turned into tales with rather mixed plot lines.” As NATO stumbled, so did the establishment of Western norms in Romania. Constantinescu’s corrupt and divisive government was not that different from the previous one. By 1998, during NATO’s war in Kosovo, Western norms were openly challenged in Romania. Once again, the dangers to democracy began to reveal themselves in Romania.

The introduction of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Washington NATO Summit in 1999 provided guidelines for NATO membership and strengthened Western norms in Romania. NATO membership was the main plank of Adrian Nastase’s election bid in 2000. With the new elections and with MAP as a guide, Prime Minister Nastase instituted the National Action Plan for NATO. Aside from military issues, this plan led to more progress in the reform of laws, regional cooperation, disarmament, protection of the national minorities and human rights, a 25 percent quota of women in Parliament and public service, combating organized crime and international terrorism, and fighting and eradicating corruption. Although NATO and EU memberships were obvious benchmarks for the Action Plan, the real goals were to reinforce Western norms in Romania – in effect, to change Romanian society.

NATO enlargement as a defender of cosmopolitan values became internalized, changing domestic politics. As NATO enlargement became more dynamic, so did the entrenchment of democracy in Romania. As enlargement waned, so did freedom in Romania. NATO became the force maintaining and expanding political stability from the Atlantic to Urals. NATO membership became more than a destination; it was the only tool the leaders could use to instill Western norms in their country. Their real goals, like those of the early Western European cosmopolitan leaders, were to create and reinforce Western norms in Europe, in effect, to make their countries “normal.” Fifteen years ago in 2004, Romania joined NATO after the Prague Summit in November 2002. NATO enlargement converted a totalitarian Romania into a free democracy and made Romania a better place. Better, however, does not mean perfect or even just.

NATO could use lessons learned to expand peace and stability to other regions beyond Europe, though as the example of states that emerged from totalitarianism show—Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Georgia—the process will be painful. Paul Wolfowitz stated, “If you think where Romania started from at the end of the Ceausescu era, it has come a terrifically long way. If you think about some of the problems that remain, then obviously the transition still has some work to do. What I think is impressive is, considering how embedded old totalitarian system was here, Romanians are an inspiring example to people in Iraq and elsewhere in the world in what you can achieve with freedom.” Under continued Western engagement, Iraq and other countries could be like Romania and most of Eastern Europe today, an imperfect but progressing democracy.

In a paradigm shift, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and Deputy Secretary General of NATO Rose Gottemoeller placed women’s empowerment at the center of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda by recognizing the impact conflict has on women and girls: “Empowering women is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do: it makes countries safer and more stable. NATO is determined to make a difference, including through our training and operations – for example, by deploying gender advisers to local communities in Afghanistan. We also aim to raise the profile of women at all levels within the Alliance. We still need to do more, but for NATO, peace and security are not just a man’s world.” In January 2018, to support full and equal participation of women at all levels of conflict prevention to post-war reconstruction, and protection of women and girls from sexual violence in conflict, Mr. Stoltenberg appointed a NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative. Clare Hutchinson is the high-level focal point for the NATO Women, Peace and Security Agenda. As a provider of peace and security assistance and capacity building, NATO is reforming itself into a human-centric organization by empowering women as agents of change, implementing innovative programs in collective defense, crisis management, and security cooperation to contribute to a modern, ready and responsive NATO in a changing world. Gender becomes the driving force and advances NATO’s cooperation with other international organizations such as the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations (UN) and grass-roots civil society. Moreover, the newly created NATO’s Civil Society Advisory Panel provides a safe space for all women to engage with NATO on security cooperation and defense. Addressing women’s empowerment from all dimensions, including equal participation of women at all levels of conflict prevention, post-war reconstruction of governments and implementation of the 25 percent quota of women in Parliament and public service will lead to more changes from the inside. More women in leadership will expand peace and stability beyond Romania and Europe in a rapidly globalized world.

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Roxana Allen is the Deputy Vice President at IIA NOVA, SAIS Johns Hopkins Alumna and a WIIS member. Ms. Allen was a Personal Adviser to the Prime Minister of Romania during Romania’s accession to NATO and the Head of Field Office Trebinje with OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina during NATO’s intervention in Kosovo.

Realizing NATO’s Women, Peace and Security Commitment in Practice | By Katharine A.M. Wright & Diana Morais

Background

Relevance for NATO

Recommendations

Conclusion

References

Authors

China’s Rise and Its Implications for NATO

China’s Perception of NATO

Recommendations

Political Recommendations

Technological Recommendations

Authors

References