June 15, 2016
The upcoming 2016 NATO Summit, which will take place in Warsaw, Poland, on July 8-9, 2016, will be a crucial milestone for the alliance. NATO faces a fundamentally changed security environment including a more assertive Russia— which is modernizing its military and increasing defense spending—and turmoil and violence in Iraq and Syria, which borders NATO member, Turkey.
Photo courtesy Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Strengthening and modernizing NATO’s defense and deterrence posture will be the focus of the 2016 Summit, according to a recent NATO statement. At its 2014 Summit in Wales, NATO agreed to a number of short-term measures to bolster the alliance’s conventional deterrent. Dubbed the Readiness Action Plan, these measures sought to expedite the arrival of NATO reinforcements to states under attack from Russia. This policy reproduces, on a smaller scale, the role US troops in Europe during the Cold War. Central and Eastern European states welcomed these pledges at the Wales Summit as a long-overdue adjustment to the alliance’s “strategic reality,” as noted in the 2015 CNS report, Ensuring Deterrence against Russia: The View from NATO States. The upcoming Warsaw Summit will build on the Readiness Action Plan and announce further steps that aim to strengthen the alliance.
The summit will also come with a major focus on cyber-related capabilities. The alliance is expected to declare cyber an operational domain of warfare, reflecting an increased Russian focus on asymmetrical warfare.
CNS experts will be providing commentary, analysis, and resources to news makers and decision makers, prior to and during the 2016 NATO Summit.
CNS Experts
William Potter
CNS Founder & Director
Monterey ⋅ 831.647.3511 ⋅ [email protected]
Miles Pomper
Senior Fellow
Washington DC ⋅ 202.842.3100 x318 ⋅ [email protected]
Nikolai Sokov
Senior Fellow
Monterey, CA ⋅ 831.647.6577 ⋅ [email protected]
Bryan Lee
Director, Eurasia Nonproliferation Program (ENP)
Monterey, CA ⋅ 831.647.3509 ⋅ [email protected]
Jeffrey Lewis
Director, East Asia Nonproliferation Program (EANP)
Monterey, CA ⋅ 831.647.6616 ⋅ [email protected]
Analysis
- Ensuring Deterrence against Russia: The View from NATO States, a report by Miles Pomper with Egle Murauskaite, Nikolai N. Sokov, and Jessica C. Varnum
- US- Russia Relations: Brinkmanship and Hostilities Continue, by Miles Pomper and Gabrielle Tarini in E-International Relations
- “Russian Perspective on Nuclear Disarmament and Post-Nuclear World,” by Nikolai Sokov in Global Nuclear Disarmament: Strategic, Political, and Regional Perspectives edited by Nik Hynek and Michal Smetana.
- Putin’s Doomsday Machine, by Jeffrey Lewis in Foreign Policy
- NATO and the Baltics: Regional Views on Deterrence Needs, a paper published by Miles Pomper by the Danish Institute of International Studies.
- Russian Cruise Missiles and Implications for US/NATO, by Nikolai Sokov on ArmsControlWonk.com.
