Category: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

At the meeting, Allied leaders reaffirmed that a robust defence industry is indispensable to keep NATO’s deterrence and defence strong, and to continue to support Ukraine. The Pledge includes long-term actions such as developing national plans to strengthen industrial capacity, accelerating multinational procurement, enhancing the implementation of standards to increase interoperability, removing barriers to trade and investment, and securing critical supply chains.

The Allies also pledged to deliver critical capabilities to Ukraine rapidly, with an initial focus on munitions and air and missile defence systems. 

The new Pledge builds on the Defence Production Action Plan agreed at the Vilnius Summit in July 2023. Since then, Allies have made significant progress in updating national defence strategies, streamlining procurement processes and investing in industrial production. In January, European NATO Allies agreed to jointly buy up to 1,000 Patriot missiles. In the margins of the Summit, the NATO support and procurement agency (NSPA) has placed an order for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles worth $700 million. 

Over the next five years, NATO Allies across Europe and Canada plan to acquire thousands of air defence and artillery systems, 850 modern aircraft, mostly 5th generation F-35s as well as a substantial number of high-end capabilities.

The NATO Integrated Cyber Defence Centre (NICC) will enhance the protection of NATO and Allied networks and the use of cyberspace as an operational domain. The Centre will inform NATO military commanders on possible threats and vulnerabilities in cyberspace, including privately-owned civilian critical infrastructures necessary to support military activities.

The Centre will bring together civilian and military personnel from across the NATO Enterprise, Allied countries and experts from industry. It will leverage advanced technologies to increase our situational awareness in cyberspace and enhance collective resilience and defence.

In line with Allies’ shared values and international obligations, the Centre will promote a norms-based, predictable and secure approach to cyberspace.

The Centre will be based at NATO’s strategic military headquarters at SHAPE in Belgium. Details on the structure and functions of the Centre will be developed in the coming months.

Mr Stoltenberg emphasised that Allies are providing more support to Ukraine, highlighting that he expected Allies to agree a lead role for NATO in coordinating the security assistance and training for Ukraine, and to continue to bring Ukraine even closer to NATO. He also welcomed the participation of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea at the Summit, highlighting that Allies are engaging more and more closely with Indo Pacific partners.
 
The NATO Public Forum is being held over two days on the margins of the NATO Summit in Washington. It is jointly organised by the NATO and the United States Government, in collaboration with the Atlantic Council, Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), GLOBSEC, German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), and the Hudson Institute.

Speaking at the event, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, Irene Fellin, said that “NATO’s commitment to the Women, Peace, and Security agenda is a distinctive feature of our Alliance. Standing up for and advancing the rights and participation of women in defence and security is at the heart of who we are and what we do”. Ms. Fellin called on participants—including ministers and government officials from NATO Allied and partner countries, as well as civil society representatives–to “continue to champion gender equality in every sphere”.  “The road ahead requires unwavering commitment and collective efforts at all levels”, she concluded. 

The reception gathered government officials, political leaders, academics, and civil society representatives. Foreign and defence ministers from Allied nations attended, as well as foreign ministers from NATO partner countries, namely Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Republic of Korea.  

Prior to the reception, an expert-level Women, Peace and Security (WPS) roundtable at the Loy Henderson Auditorium was held, co-hosted by Irene Fellin and US Ambassador-at-Large for the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues Geeta Rao Gupta.

The events provided an opportunity to further advance the WPS agenda context, and spotlight the new NATO policy on WPS, to be endorsed at the Summit. The new policy represents a significant step towards promoting gender equality in line with NATO values and ensures the meaningful participation of women in peace and security efforts.

It builds on one published in 2021 and takes account of recent advances in AI technologies, such as generative AI, and AI-enabled information tools.

The strategy identifies several priorities, including: advancing the implementation of NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use; increasing interoperability between AI systems throughout the Alliance; the combination of AI with other emerging disruptive technologies; and expanding NATO’s AI ecosystem through closer cooperation with Allied industry and academia, NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator DIANA, the NATO Innovation Fund and like-minded partners.

For the first time, the strategy also identifies AI-enabled disinformation, information operations and gender-based violence as issues of concern for the Alliance, our societies and democracies.

Under the new AI strategy, NATO will work to protect against the adversarial use of AI, including through increased strategic foresight and analysis.

The summary of NATO’s Revised AI Strategy as available here.

In a speech at the Mellon Auditorium, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the Secretary General underlined that NATO is “not only the most successful and strongest, but also the longest-lasting Alliance in history”. He acknowledged that NATO’s enduring success has never been a given, but is rather “the result of deliberate choices and difficult decisions” – from NATO’s creation to arms control negotiations, and from NATO’s enlargement at the end of the Cold War to NATO’s support to Ukraine today. 

Warning that “there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbour; there are no risk-free options in a war,” the Secretary General said that the biggest cost and greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine, as this would embolden President Putin but also other authoritarian leaders in Iran, North Korea, and China. “The time to stand for freedom and democracy is now; the place is Ukraine,” he said. Mr Stoltenberg concluded by saying that the Alliance will continue to face difficult questions in the future, but that “we are stronger and safer together, in NATO.” 

Earlier in the day, the Secretary General met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They discussed the decisions to be taken at the Summit to “strengthen our Alliance for the future”, including on deterrence and defence, support for Ukraine and strengthening NATO’s partnership in the Indo-Pacific. The Secretary General also participated in the first-ever NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum, hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce. He spoke to industry representatives, Allied defence ministers and others about NATO’s new defence industry pledge aimed at building greater transatlantic defence industrial cooperation, and welcomed that “just today, the (NATO procurement agency) NSPA signed a new multinational contract for Stinger missiles worth almost 700 million dollars.”

At the end of the event, President Biden presented Mr Stoltenberg with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honour, in recognition of his decade of service at the helm of the Alliance.

The Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) programme marks the largest multinational investment in space-based capabilities in NATO’s history. APSS is set to boost the Alliance’s ability to monitor activities on the ground and at sea with unprecedented accuracy and timeliness. With the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, APSS has now transitioned into the implementation phase in which over the next five years, 17 Allies are contributing the equivalent of more than 1 billion USD to leverage commercial and national space assets, and to expand advanced exploitation capacities. 

With the signing of the Letter of Intent for the Allied software for Cloud and Edge (ACE) services by 22 Allies, a new multinational acquisition activity will revolutionize Allied operations by providing key building blocks of the Alliance-wide Digital Backbone. By integrating allied software solutions with cutting-edge cloud and edge computing technologies, ACE will improve operational efficiency by ensuring unified communications and enabling seamless sharing of data across land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains of operation.

Meanwhile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden signed a Declaration of Cooperation on Cross-Border Airspace. This Declaration will ensure that Allied civil and military authorities are able to establish and use more airspace from the five participating countries for NATO training and exercises, and other air activities within the Nordic region.  NATO’s ability to train at scale in the air domain represents a critical element of the Alliance collective deterrence and defence posture.  The use of larger volumes of national airspace by NATO requires close coordination and cooperation between civil and military authorities to deliver airspace solutions in a safe and flexible manner.

* Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, United Kingdom, United States

This assessment is part of an ambitious Action Plan on Climate Change and Security that NATO Leaders adopted at the Brussels Summit in 2021.

Building on previous editions, it examines the impact of climate change on each of NATO’s operating domains – sea, land, air, space and cyber – as well as on NATO’s missions and operations, and resilience and civil preparedness.

The Climate Change and Security Impact Assessment presents case studies in three geographical areas: NATO’s presence in Kosovo; the Rovajärvi shooting and training area in Finland; and the joint Canadian and US early-warning radar system for North American ​air defence (NORAD). It also evaluates the performance of submarines, naval helicopters, and military transport planes in a changing climate.

For the first time, the assessment includes an analysis of climate change impacts on NATO’s potential adversaries and strategic competitors, and addresses the climate impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The report responds to NATO’s commitment to raise Allied awareness and understanding of the impact of climate change on our security. It will help inform NATO adaptation to this altered strategic and operational environment.

Mr. Stoltenberg thanked Secretary Austin for his commitment to NATO and his strong personal leadership on Ukraine, stating that “it really made a difference and enabled us all to provide unprecedented support to Ukraine”. On Ukraine, he condemned today’s “horrendous missile attacks against Ukrainian cities, killing innocent civilians including children”. The Secretary General indicated that, at the Summit, Allies will make decisions to further strengthen NATO’s support to Ukraine.

They will also address deterrence and defence, and show that NATO has “the forces, the readiness and the capabilities we need to continue to deter any aggressor.” “Allies continue to carry their fair share of the burden,” he added.

Secretary Austin presented Mr Stoltenberg with the US Department of Defense’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest award that the department can give to a foreign national.

Prior to his meeting with Secretary Austin, Mr Stoltenberg participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. “Thousands of American soldiers who lost their lives on European soil in two world wars rest here,” said the Secretary General. “Tens of thousands more rest in cemeteries on the other side of the Atlantic. We honour their service and sacrifice.”

On Monday afternoon, Mr. Stoltenberg attended NATO Day at Washington Nationals Stadium, Nationals Park, where he threw the first pitch at a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Saint Louis Cardinals. Later on Monday, he will take part in a NATO Parliamentary Assembly reception, hosted by Mike Johnson, Speaker of the US House of Representatives.