NATO’s New Strategic Concept: Non-Traditional Threats and Bridging Military Capability Gaps

Abstract

At the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, NATO leaders adopted a new Strategic Concept (SC) in order to provide the Alliance with strategic guidance over the next decade. The goal of this essay is to identify and examine the gaps between SC statements, goals, and plans and the military capabilities of NATO members concerning today‘s environment of defense budget cutting. In particular, this article will focus on military roles and capabilities for tackling issues such as terrorism, cyber attacks, and energy security, which as non-military threats require a more comprehensive approach. The Strategic Concept is an official and comprehensive policy document that outlines NATO‘s enduring purpose, nature, and the fundamental security tasks of the Alliance. It characterizes the central features of the new security environment, specifies the elements of the Alliance‘s approach to security, and provides guidelines for the further adaptation of its military forces in order to address new challenges. The new SC is concise, concrete, and public, and its broader purpose is to explain the Alliance‘s political objectives and vision for the future decade. NATO‘s Security Concepts are documents intended to give political guidance on NATO‘s role, missions, and objectives. These SCs are accompanied by documents prepared by the Alliance‘s Military Committee (AMC) on the military assets, capabilities, and structures necessary for carrying out the strategic objectives identified by the political authorities of the Alliance, as represented by the North Atlantic Council (NAC). According to the previous two explanations, the ―Strategic Concept‖ can be defined as a ―grand strategy‖ document in terms of political and military guidance for