This is the second piece on International Conference titled “NATO Strategic Concept: Response to Our Concerns?” organized by Prague Security Studies Institute.

Symbol of NATO, Brussels; Photo by NATO

The North Atlantic area has been recently occupied by the discussions on the new strategic concept. The third major doctrinal document after the end of the Cold War could easily become both, a relevant strategic document setting reasonable framework for NATO’s future functioning or an irrelevant quasi-strategic exercise resulting from the political and diplomatic compromises based on general acceptance of idea that almost whatever phenomena should be responded by the mightiest world security (defense?) organization. The process based on national group of experts defining national priorities could be considered as fairly democratic, however strongly implies a danger of resulting in the latter possibility.

Following a formerly theoretical and conceptual debate the word “securitization” has become commonly used in the policy and political circles. Even more than that, it has become terribly proliferated and over-used. Today, almost every aspect of the social environment has a security dimension and every phenomenon might have security implications (are not, after all, animal laws connected with the food security…?). As an inevitable result the word has become to a large extent analytically empty. It is, however, even more important for our discussion that it has produced a large spectrum of topics burdening a debate on a reasonable strategic framework for NATO.

The so called new threats (energy security, cyber security, migration, climate security,…) emanating from the reasoning mentioned above have been currently considered as relevant topics for the new NATO strategic conception. There is no doubt these phenomena create security concerns and should be also addressed accordingly. The key question, however, is by whom or better through what institutional frameworks.

In fact, these decisions have already been done, although the political representations have not appeared to reflect upon it. The problems of migration, climate security, food security, etc. are dealt with in various more or less focused international organizations often starting with the EU and UN agencies. These bodies are generally intermittently successful; however they have a much better prospect to be more efficient than NATO. The reasons could be summarized as follows:

1. The impacts of the financial crisis will perhaps be greater than the politicians openly admit. This will create new tensions in already tensed defence budgets. New institutional capabilities (not to mention any other capabilities) are highly unrealistic within the NATO framework. The challenge for NATO will be to sustain current level of expeditionary missions;
2. The experience from Afghanistan might influence a future shape of NATO; without necessarily speculating how, we can presume that highly probably negatively;
3. The current international environment has provided a challenge in terms of achieving legitimacy for various actions. This pressure certainly influences also domestic political environment. For both reasons the functional expansion of NATO seems to be unrealistic.

Since the purpose of this comment is not only to offer a critique of political and strategic surrealism, I would suggest following three areas as substantial for the future NATO’s strategic framework.

1. Retention and sustainability of the nuclear deterrence capabilities with all implications related to the article five.
2. Evolution of functioning missile defence systems that, among other things, fit to NATO’s traditional hard security identity, second, provide protection against relevant threats, last but not least provide essential condition for future expeditionary mission when eliminating regional deterrence potentials.
3. Create a more effective framework for special and rapid reaction forces, which provide a realistic tool of the future NATO’s actions.

Although I am not entirely optimistic, I still believe the new NATO strategic framework will become more than a list of member states’ security concerns. It is apparently easier to survive a few uncertain critical years with a clear and realistic strategic vision.