STRENGTHENING DETERRENCE AND DEFENCE
Global threats — Fake news, cyber intrusions, Russian aggression, assassination plots and the ongoing struggle with ISIS are just a few of the things that keep NATO’s Dr Jamie Shea awake at night. Christina Mackenzie reveals all
T
he days when NATO’s main threats were tanks, missiles and soldiers are long gone. The Alliance now has to consider many multi-faceted challenges. “Security today is analysing how events affect each other, and NATO is becoming aware that we need a ‘whole of society’ approach,” says Dr Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. He cites the March 2018 chemical attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, south-west
England. “For that event we worked with the police, the military, the economic actors, laboratories, intelligence, diplomats and doctors.” NATO is thus taking an interest in fields that may, at first, seem outside its remit, in order to find solutions for these emerging security challenges. The two newest are what Shea describes as the “weaponisation of everything” and the degree to which new technologies will impact the military tomorrow. “Who’d have thought Facebook, for example, could have a dark side and
NATO’s collaboration with the European Union to challenge piracy on the high seas is a prime example of how the Alliance projects stability (PHOTO: JAKOB ØSTHEIM/NATO)
be used to steer votes and influence political campaigns,” Shea wonders, noting that NATO has understood that “data is now more a more precious commodity than oil and gas”, but is still “developing road rules” to deal with the challenge. He explains that armed forces are increasingly dependent on data communications “so we have to consider the issues of vulnerability and redundancy and the cyber risks to our grids”. The Alliance has thus established 15 partnerships with companies in the private sector, “which is where 95% of cybersecurity firms are found, so they usually have the best solutions”. Energy consumption is another example. “We have to study the issue of the rising demand for electricity, because it’s not only linked to geopolitics, but also our military uses vast amounts of energy.” Among the top three more traditional threats, Russia still ranks highly, but Shea believes this is “easily reversible.” He does not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to engage his country in an armed conflict with the West. More challenging are the failed and failing states in the Middle East and the Sahel region of Africa, a kick-back to the Arab Spring of 2011. Since then more than 400,000 people have died in
NATO SUMMIT 2018 – BRUSSELS
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