Publications

The NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) sponsored the “Deterrence and Assurance Within an Alliance Framework” Symposium at King’s College London. It brought together scholars and policy makers from NATO member and partner nations in order to explore deterrence concepts with respect to NATO. STO also aims to set a research agenda to better inform NATO’s strategic and operational planners. Papers with significant potential impact on NATO deterrence planning included those discussing application of operations research in comparing deterrence and malign activities over time, improving societal resilience (both physically and in the cyber/social media area), and ways to enhance NATO’s deterrence posture, both nuclear and conventional. Despite many public assertions that today’s world is more complex and dangerous than ever before, both keynote speakers and many presenters noted that the NATO deterrence problem is not novel, overly complex, or unprecedented when viewed in historical context. Russia is widely recognized as a dangerous adversary that is “playing a weak hand extraordinarily well,” similar to (but diminished from) the role played by the USSR during the Cold War.