NATO in a Changing World

Abstract

This paper addresses the evolving purpose of NATO in the post-Cold War World. This Western defensive alliance has faced strong pressure to change and embrace an array of new tasks to justify its continued existence. This famously led it to engage in a protracted ‘out of area’ campaign in Afghanistan. Russia’s invasion of Crimea in early 2014 and the ongoing civil war in Eastern Ukraine enabled NATO to re-focus its attention on combatting its original enemy in the East. In the modern-day East-West rivalry cyberspace has become an increasingly strategic military domain. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative techniques, this chapter seeks to demonstrate how NATO has influenced the conceptualisation of cyber-attacks. The paper is structured as follows. Section 16.1 provides an overview of NATO’s structure and evolution over time. Section 16.2 draws on existing scholarship to analyse how shifting role conceptions have shaped this military organisations’ ability to adapt to new challenges. Section 16.3 illustrates how cyber threats have been conceptualised in NATO doctrine and strategic communication. Section 16.4 analyses the findings of the content analysis, showing that NATO’s organisational culture(s) have played a key role in shaping the Alliance’s framing of and response to cyber threats. Finally, an outline of the theoretical and policy implications of the study is made. Broader insights are also given as to how international security organisations adapt to technological, geostrategic, and societal changes.