Abstract
In June 2015 NATO defence ministers affirmed the Alliance's ability to provide a “360-degree approach” to deter threats and defend allies, a concept confirmed at the 2016 Warsaw summit as the Alliance faced both a resurgence of Russian assertiveness on its eastern border and terrorism to its south. The resulting disputes over adaptation are often read as signs of growing, irreconcilable dissension between allies, or even as predicting NATO's obsolescence. Drawing on a sociological analysis of NATO's internal dynamics — five months of participant observation within the Alliance, around a hundred interviews with civilian and military officials, an ethnographic notebook and archival work analysed through process-tracing — this paper argues that consensus among almost thirty allies can nonetheless produce positive outcomes that realistically rebalance the Alliance's posture. It first sets out the diverging threat perceptions within the Alliance and the bridging attempt in the Warsaw Communiqué, then examines the implementation of the “360-degree” concept through the adaptation of the command structure and the refocusing of NATO military activities, and finally offers an initial assessment of changes that orient the Alliance in an unbalanced, though realistic, direction.
Panel: Session I
Joint Policy Workshop 2019 programme
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-JPW2019-nato-s-360o-approach-reflective-of-internal-division,
author = {Christelle Calmels},
title = {NATO's 360o approach reflective of internal division},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2019},
year = {2019},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/JPW2019-nato-s-360o-approach-reflective-of-internal-division.html}
}