Reinforcing deterrence: assessing NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept

Abstract

At the June 29, 2022, NATO summit in Madrid the heads of state and government adopted a new strategic concept for the alliance. The eighth strategic concept is the official long-term vision of NATO, at the same time it is the second most important document after the North Atlantic Treaty. This document describes the security environment the alliance faces, reaffirms the purpose and principles of the organisation, as well as its core defence tasks for the coming decade. As a crucial NATO document, it has an impact on the security and defence policy of the alliance and its member states, and sooner or later its ideas, principles, and requirements described in the concept will be materialised in the form of different policies, priorities, and tasks. The article examines comprehensively NATO's 2022 Strategic Concept, compares it with the 2010 Strategic Concept and the NATO 2030 Report. Given that the new Concept was adopted in the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the study primarily deals with the Alliance's new perception of deterrence and defence and its planned measures. The analysis concludes that the Strategic Concept represents a significant shift away from the previous one, although it is an evolutionary document, and it has brought NATO into a new era of great power competition.