We’re going to need a bigger NATO — but especially a better NATO

Next year, NATO — the largest, most capable political and military alliance in history — will mark its 75th anniversary. As Russia’s brutal and unlawful invasion of Ukraine demonstrates, the security challenges the Alliance was established to confront remain clear and present.

The war has brought much public attention to the idea of NATO enlargement, including extension of membership to Finland, progress toward Sweden’s inclusion and a timeline for Ukraine to join.

Such additions will make NATO more effective at deterrence and collective defense. But to succeed in these missions amid today’s complex security landscape, larger must be accompanied by better.

To that end, the alliance is installing new regional defense plans to counter current and emerging threats, and to guide the reorganization and modernization of its collective defense system and warfighting capabilities. At the heart of this effort is NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area, known by the acronym DDA. 

The updated military concept advances NATO’s operations from one predominantly focused on crisis management to one structured to meet the full range of potential security contingencies, including the high-intensity warfare taking place in Ukraine today. 

This is the first such overhaul in three decades, driven by the pressing requirement to match modernized NATO strategy with comprehensive planning, unsurpassed operational capability and superb executability — the cornerstones of battlefield effectiveness. The blueprint seeks to calibrate member defense plans and capabilities with allied plans and posture to meet the requirements of collective security.

Implemented fully, the DDA will enable decisive action and the ability to project power with speed and agility — vital to deterring conflict and defending “every inch of alliance territory.” In short, the DDA is NATO’s strategy to win decisively in every contingency.

The difficult and pivotal task ahead is full implementation. That will require a whole-of-alliance commitment and collaboration, including vital public-private sector partnerships. The highest levels of such teamwork will be essential across the board, but especially in meeting six areas necessary to turn NATO’s well-crafted concepts and plans into capabilities.

Execution of these blueprints will require enhanced military mobility. Effective infrastructure underlies virtually every military operation, as the rapid deployment of personnel and equipment depends on sophisticated highway and rail networks, port infrastructure, fuel depots and other transportation systems. Allies should prioritize investments in expanded roads and railways that can handle military-grade payloads in frontline NATO states in Northern and Central Eastern Europe.

Moving heavy armored vehicles essential to land combat, such as tanks and armored personnel carriers, requires Heavy Equipment Transporter Systems that can move across key mobility routes. Additionally, frontline states such as Poland and others along the Black Sea must have robust airfield capacities to defend the alliances’ borders.

NATO states must increase the pre-positioning of essential military resources and equipment in its frontline states. In times of crisis, such pre-positioning makes for a faster and more effective reaction. It also signals to adversaries allied determination to execute and sustain high-intensity combat operations.

Crucially, these measures must be an all-alliance investment. Both the U.S. and its European allies must pre-position assets, including building up permanently stationed combat forces in the frontline allies of Central and Eastern Europe.

Master logistics are necessary to ensure that war materiel is where it needs to be when it needs to be there. Russia’s poor planning, preparedness and capabilities are lessons of how critical logistics are to execution. Logistics planning must be aligned at national and NATO Headquarters with an emphasis on comprehensive coverage in all domains. Planning, cooperation and prioritization — key tenets of the NATO alliance — are paramount.

To achieve higher readiness, logistics and infrastructure must be matched by regular, larger and more intensive collective defense exercises that rehearse the new plans. In recent years, NATO and its member states have executed larger-scale exercises such as Trident Juncture in 2018 and, most recently, Germany’s Air Defender — the latter being the largest air exercise in NATO history. The alliance must build on these exercises, conduct them at scale in areas that are most threatened by Russia and tailor them in scale and scope across the spectrum of competition, crisis and conflict. 

NATO commanders must conduct a broader range of unannounced drills known as “snap exercises” to test and demonstrate readiness. These exercises allow forces to practice operational concepts and can also be an important means of signaling determination and capability in a prospective or unfolding crisis.

Lastly, meeting DDA objectives will require sufficient defense production capacities.

The war in Ukraine has reminded us of the importance of having sufficient stockpiles of weapons and ammunition and the ability to immediately ramp up their production. Such resources can be the deciding factor in high-intensity warfare. NATO must develop a coordinated approach to developing sustained industrial capacity along with surge-production capability that can be called upon in times of conflict. It must also ensure sufficient stockpiling among member states — particularly given the re-emergent reality of high-intensity warfare. 

NATO’s strategic concept, approved last year, reaffirmed three core tasks of the alliance: deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. To accomplish these missions, full DDA implementation and the checklist above must be supported by three complementary initiatives, demanding first-rate teamwork.

First, the allies must collaborate on ensuring the rapid development, procurement, and fielding of advanced defense and homeland security technologies, including protection of critical infrastructure and cyber-systems targeted by adversaries. Two, to foster cohesion and bolster collective defense, the alliance must be strategic and efficient in delegating specialty capabilities, particularly to smaller members, in areas such as communications, logistics, intelligence, de-mining and command and control. Third, NATO members must work diligently to ensure that the allied defense supply chains are built upon trusted and reliably sources. 

Next year’s hallmark summit will be an appropriate time to assess the progress NATO has made in implementing its modernized strategy, organization and military plans. Significant progress in each of the tasks highlighted above will contribute enormously to ensuring the alliance’s ability to deter and defeat aggression and the full range of threats to peace, freedom and democracy, now and for the next 75 years.

General James L. Jones (Ret.), president and chairman of Jones Group International, is a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps (1999-2003), supreme allied commander of NATO (2003-06) and national security advisor to President Obama (2009-10). General Tod D. Wolters (Ret.) served as supreme allied commander of NATO (2019-22) and is a senior advisor at Jones Group International.