How NATO Is Transforming In The Face of a Possible Great War

During decades of peace, NATO's military bloc was about politics, rather than war. Russia's senseless and bloody aggression has shattered this reality. The largest armed conflict in 78 years is taking place near NATO's borders on the European continent. Russia, the country with the second largest nuclear capability in the world, is openly threatening NATO member states with nuclear escalation, demanding concessions and compromises. Geopolitical centers of influence are polarizing. The most authoritative analytical institutions in the world are issuing reports one after another analyzing the potential confrontation between NATO and China.

The world is preparing for major wars. And even such titans as the North Atlantic Alliance have to dust off the once flexible and energetic system and force themselves to respond to challenges that cannot be ignored. How is the Alliance preparing for the threat of a great war?

NATO's new defense strategy: "no step back"

At the historic NATO Summit in Madrid in June 2022, NATO member states adopted a new Strategic Concept. This time, the guiding document, which is updated every 10 years, included the most radical innovations for the Alliance in a generation.

After thirty years of declared partnership, Russia was called the "most significant and direct threat" to Alliance security. For the first time, the issue of the People's Republic of China was raised and the Alliance's response to other threats, from cyber, hybrid and other innovative technologies, was defined.

It became clear that NATO was waking up from a long "peaceful sleep" and remembering its purpose - to protect the security of its member states.

In order to "leave no doubt" that "NATO will defend every inch of the Alliance's territory," the summit announced the update of defense plans; more units were brought to higher alert, and contingents were designated to defend specific Allies. They also announced the deployment of additional forces and the organization of "storage of equipment, weapons and ammunition" on the eastern borders of the Alliance. Furthermore, in order to "back up political decisions with adequate resources," NATO leaders decided to significantly increase the Alliance's joint funding.

A new phase of enlargement: rapid accession of Allies

Reflecting the new security reality and realizing the need to expand the coalition, the Alliance welcomed two new members. The decision of Finland and Sweden to abandon their traditional neutral status was a sensation.

Russia, which had justified its invasion of Ukraine by the potential for NATO to move closer to Russian territory, now had more than 1,000 kilometers of common border with a neighbor that joined the Alliance under a lightning fast procedure. Finland became the 31st member of NATO. Following negotiations with Turkey, Sweden is expected to become the 32nd member of the bloc. 

A test of readiness 

The great secret of a powerful Alliance is that in peacetime NATO's activities are virtually invisible.

Theoretically, the total number of NATO troops reaches an impressive 3 million. In reality, we are talking about a modest 10,000 officials and the same number of officers on duty to conduct surveillance and monitoring.

Although in his speech to the Secretary General's Annual Report for 2022, Jens Stoltenberg assured that NATO has been strengthening its collective defense since 2014, when Russia attacked the territory of the Ukraine's East and the Crimean peninsula. And in 2022, according to the Secretary General, the Alliance "responded swiftly" to the full-scale invasion, when "within hours, defense plans came into effect: doubling the number of NATO's multinational battlegroups from four to eight, and increasing the Alliance's military presence from the Baltic to the Black Sea, on land, at sea and in the air," a test of combat readiness that revealed a number of problems in practice.

NATO's structure provides for command centers to guide the national armed forces of member states. And, as it turned out, after the Russian war began, it was not so easy to move from managing standby forces of several tens of thousands to coordinated interaction with an army of at least several hundred thousand troops.

Over the past year, while Ukraine has been holding back a furious Russian monster with nuclear weapons in its paws, NATO has been developing and verifying procedures that would allow for broad mobilization, if necessary, to quickly bring hundreds of thousands of national troops under the unified control of member states, as well as to freely move foreign armies across the territories of different countries.

Thousands of secret plans to be approved in Vilnius

At the July Summit in Vilnius, NATO political leaders will be asked to approve thousands of pages of secret military plans detailing the algorithm of actions in the event of a Russian attack.

At a press conference after the CHODs meeting, the Chair of NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer (Royal Netherlands Navy), called these documents "historic" because of the "unprecedented integration of NATO and national military planning." Bauer also added that NATO "...for the first time since the end of the Cold War" will have "objective, threat-based goals and means that the Alliance can offer to countries." And this will allow the bloc to "do exactly what the NATO flag symbolizes: we will all follow the same compass".

Most of these plans have been developed behind closed doors by permanent military representatives at NATO headquarters in Brussels, other NATO officials and national defense ministries, and have not been made available to parliaments or independent experts. However, the main directions are known:

• The Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) Concept defines how NATO acts in peacetime, crisis and war, fulfilling its collective defense commitments; what is needed to deter and defend against two threats: Russia and terrorist groups, as identified in the Strategic Concept 2022. The Strategic and Regional Plans that flow from the DDA outline NATO's posture, operations, and future investments, including in equipment, command and control structures, infrastructure, and logistics.
• Regional plans describe NATO's actions to defend a specific geographic region (against Russia and terrorist groups). They combine the national defense plans of frontline member states with NATO's collective plans and thus attempt to optimize NATO's ability to move forces to the right place at the right time.
• Functional Plans or Strategic Subordinate Plans (SSPs) define in detail the process of managing "theater-wide" assets. For example, the “SSP for enablement” covering transportation equipment, etc., is currently being revised to reflect new regional programs.
• Force Structure Requirements. The number, types of equipment and organizations NATO requires to implement the DDA and regional plans in all regions and domains: air, land, sea, space and cyberspace.

The NATO Secretary General has also already called on political leaders to increase the Alliance's military spending to finance and implement these plans. In Vilnius, NATO member states are expected to "...agree on a new commitment to defense investment, with two percent not being a limit we want to reach, but a minimum we should invest in our defense," Jens Stoltenberg said.

Also high on the agenda is a new NATO Defense Production Action Plan, which aims to establish key principles for increasing military equipment production and building up production capacity.

NATO's militarization seems to be gaining unprecedented momentum. And while most of the nuances of this process seem to be technical and boring details, it is the documents and strategies currently being developed that will determine how the Alliance will cope with its job of protecting the citizens of NATO member states from a major war, the chances of which are becoming ever more real.