Presented by MAJ Mikkel Storm Jensen

"Over the last decade, more than half of NATO’s members have publically declared their intent to develop and deploy offensive cyber capabilities. From a strategic perspective this is somewhat of a conundrum: Firstly, at the operational level there are several technical and tactical characteristics  that makes sophisticated offensive cyber capabilities difficult to coordinate in military alliances (as they require extraordinary high levels of mutual confidence compared to conventional means to deploy operationally in a coalition setting). This raises the question of how small NATO members will use these weapons strategically if they are problematic to coordinate operationally within the alliance. Secondly, at the strategic level the difficulties limit the new capabilities ability to, in Snyder’s terms, lower the minor allies risk of abandonment (that is, endear them to the US) but do create new venues for entrapment in the great power competition even below the threshold of armed conflict. Thirdly, Snyder convincingly explains why NATO’s senior partner, the US, has historically been concerned about minor NATO-members’ acquisition of capabilities that challenges the US hegemonic status in the alliance due to the risk of entrapment and loss of escalation control. Lacking formal US statements, this raises the question of how the US regards its minor NATO partners’ attempts to acquire offensive cyber capabilities and whether these merely represent an entanglement nuisance or an entrapment risk."

________________________________________________________________________________

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join on your computer or mobile app

Click here to join the meeting

Learn More | Meeting options | Legal

________________________________________________________________________________