On the main contents of NATO’s 2030 Strategic Concept

 From 28 to 30 June 2022, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit took place in Madrid, Spain amidst the context of Europe being deeply immersed in the world-shaking Russia-Ukraine conflict. The main focus of the summit was to assess NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept and approve a new Strategic Concept with a vision to 2030.

Strategic context

Since the last NATO’s Strategic Concept was approved at the 2010 Lisbon summit in Portugal, the international and Euro-Atlantic security architectures have changed dramatically. First of all, mention should be made of the global war on terrorism in Afghanistan, the political upheavals in the North Africa – Middle East called “the Arab Spring”, the Libya – Syria conflict involving NATO’s intervention, the China – United States trade war, the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In terms of organisation, in the past 10 years, NATO has admitted 2 new members, namely Montenegro and North Macedonia. In recent years, NATO has faced internal contradictions and disagreements, notably the request of the US under Donald Trump’s presidency pushing the bloc’s members to raise their military spending to a minimum of 2% of their GDP; Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 missile system and its ambition to become a leading country in the Middle East; the efforts of Germany and France to reduce their dependence on the US in terms of security matters and the creation of an “European Army”. In that context, French President Emmanuel Macron had to comment on NATO’s “brain death”.

Additionally, Russia’s renaissance after 20 years under V. Putin presidency has also posed a challenge to NATO. On 12 December 2021, Moscow officially submitted to NATO the NATO-Russia Draft Security Treaty. From Moscow’s perspective, after the Cold War, NATO did not have any legal and political basis to expand eastwards, which completely went against its 1989 commitment not to expand NATO after the Soviet Union accepted the fall of Berlin Wall and the German reunification. President Putin claimed that Russia has a legitimate right to raise questions such as: Against whom NATO expanded? What happened to Western commitments that NATO would not expand after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Are those commitments still valid? Therefore, Moscow suggested in the NATO-Russia Draft Security Treaty that NATO not admit former Soviet Union members, especially Ukraine. On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, which was strongly condemned by NATO. In response to this, NATO believed that Russia has violated international law, disrupted world peace and drastically changed European security environment. NATO member states have imposed an unprecedented package of sanctions on Russia, forcing it to stop its military operation, yet the conflict in Ukraine is still ongoing. Currently, NATO is supplying a large quantity of “heavy” weapons to Ukraine to counter Russian attacks, which can lead to the risk of pushing NATO-Russia relations to the brink of war.

In the Asia – Pacific, NATO is also pursuing a strategic plan to build an “Asian NATO” to contain China’s growing influence, similar to how it prevents Russia’s influence.  The structure of “Asian NATO” is being shaped from the Tripartite Security Treaty between the US, the UK, and Australia (AUKUS) signed in September 2021 with an aim to strengthen foreign, security and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, thus addressing challenges of the 21^st century. Recognising the anti-China orientation of AUKUS, the representative of the Chinese Embassy in the US called on this alliance’s parties to abandon the Cold war mentality.

Strategic direction

In order to adapt to the new political and security environment, the 2030 NATO Strategic Concept identifies three basic operational deployment directions as follows. First, NATO has to strengthen and maintain its military strength by increasing investments in force modernisation on the basis of modern technology. At the same time, identifying security as the foundation for the prosperity of member states. Second, NATO will strengthen its political unity under the motto of “all for one and one for all” on the basis of using political, military, economic and diplomatic tools. Third, NATO will adopt a global approach. Accordingly, since the 2000s, NATO has advocated the globalisation of its functions in order to exert its influence beyond its scope of responsibility in Europe regarding the international terrorist threat. At present, this policy primarily stems from the need to deal with the growing influence on a global scale of China and Russia. Therefore, the defence of political values and institutions until 2030 requires even closer links with allies outside Europe, namely Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan in different fields, especially: aeronautics-space, cyberspace, emerging technologies and arms control. This well explains the presence of the Heads of these four countries in the recent NATO summit.

Regarding the identification of combat adversaries, the new Strategic Concept identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to this organisation. After the Cold War, although it advocated establishing relations with Russia based on dialogue and cooperation in areas of mutual interest and benefits, NATO always regarded itself as “the winner” and Russia as “the loser” in the Cold War. Therefore, it rejected Russia’s legitimate demand for security guarantees, not only making the two sides unable to find a common voice but also worsening their relations. On the basis of identifying the objects of the Concept, NATO has set a goal that by 2030, it would create an overwhelming power compared to Russia by taking various measures to strengthen its conventional forces and nuclear forces. At the same time, building its quick-reaction forces as well as coordinating military, political and economic efforts with partner countries and non-member countries of the bloc. According to this, NATO will boost its response force from 40,000 to 300,000 troops while member states have to increase their defence spending to a minimum of 2% of their GDP. The US alone will deploy its forces in Spain, Poland, Romania, the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Baltic countries along with reinforcing existing military bases in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Greece, and Bulgaria. In Poland, the US will establish a new military base, deploy 20,000 troops and transfer a large number of weapons to Warsaw. Consequently, the number of permanent US troops stationed in Europe will increase from 60,000 before the break-out Russia-Ukraine conflict to roughly 100,000 in the near future. However, to avoid potential risks, the new Concept states that it must both contain Russia and be willing to continue dialogues in the framework of the Russia-NATO Council to exchange viewpoints on different issues, especially the conflict in Ukraine, thus reducing the risk of a crisis that could lead to conflicts, and even major wars in Europe.

The new NATO’s Strategic Concept identifies China, for the first time in history, as a systematic threat not only to NATO but also to the world. In particular, Beijing’s scope of influence and actions have posed challenges to Western democracies. According to NATO, China is increasing its presence in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Arctic, developing ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, aircraft carriers, and nuclear-powered attack submarines that are capable of roaming across all the oceans. At the same time, China is implementing a series of strategic projects such as: “One Belt, One Road”, “Polar Silk Road”, and “Digital Silk Road” in order to realise the ambition of becoming the world leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence by 2030 and the world’s biggest technological power by 2049. However, China remains both a leading competitor and a major trading partner of NATO member states, which forces NATO to adopt a dual strategy in its relations with China. Accordingly, each NATO member has to deal with the global challenge posed by Beijing while interacting with China.

Regarding NATO’s “open door” policy, the 2030 Strategic Concept sets the goal of admitting new members. At the summit, NATO officially approved membership for Sweden and Finland and agreed to continue to strengthen its partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia. In the short term, NATO continues to supply weapons and equipment to Ukraine to win on the battlefield in the conflict with Russia. The underlying reason why the US and European countries have not hastily admitted Ukraine into NATO is the fear that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine can turn into a Russian-NATO war if it is not well controlled. Ukrainian President V. Zelensky said that if NATO really wants to admit his country to the bloc, it must solve the problem immediately because the Kyiv government is ready to join NATO and they need each other. Additionally, he also assumed that NATO will be even stronger with the participation of Ukraine. However, Ukraine has not received a straight answer from the US on whether it can join NATO or not. In a related move, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged that Ukraine has to meet several requirements in order to join NATO such as: conducting rule of law reform, modernising national defence and economic growth, which is necessary to comply with NATO standards.

To conclude, it can be seen from the contents of NATO 2030 Strategic Concept that the strategic competition of this bloc with Russia and China will increase. This raises concerns for the international community about the risk of a new Cold War and the possible outbreak of wars and conflicts in military hot spots in the world.