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Both the EU and NATO are exploring policies in managing modern challenges. Among most vital and new are the climate mitigation efforts and digital transition. In the EU these items have been already developing for some years, in NATO they are generally started two-three years ago. Somehow, there are certain similarities in approaches and decision-making.
Climate change and security
At the 2021 Summit in Brussels, NATO Heads of State and Government endorsed a Climate Change and Security Action Plan; they agreed that NATO should aim to become the leading organisation dealing with the climate change as a vital modern challenge, adapting to the impacts to climate change and member states’ security.
Thus, the recent third edition of NATO’s Climate Change and Security Impact Assessment, CCSIA not only responds to the demand for increased member states’ awareness of the impact of climate change on security; it is expanding on the key findings of the previous, 2023 edition. The CCSIA outlines the impact of various climate-related risks on NATO’s strategic environment, military assets and installations, missions and operations, as well as on NATO’s resilience and civil preparedness.
It also includes three geographic case studies, examining the impact of climate change on
NATO presence in Kosovo, the Rovajärvi shooting and training area in Finland, and the North Warning System, which is a joint Canadian and the US early-warning radar system for North American defence. Additionally, the report evaluates the performance of submarines, naval helicopters, and military transport planes in a changing climate.
The third edition of NATO’s CCSIA was presented at the recent NATO-75 summit to reveal new approaches to effects of climate change for block’s security: i.e. the effects are complex, non-linear and co-evolving as they touch upon peoples’ lives, recovery and resilience (both the block’s members and outside), as well as posing direct and indirect challenges to the defence of the Euro-Atlantic area.
The new “impact assessment” also shows an escalating effects of climate change on the resilience’s commitments and the EU-wide and global security.
Reference to the NATO Secretary General’s Report (2024): https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/7/pdf/240709-Climate-Security-Impact.pdf
Revised Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy
The capabilities of AI technologies have continued to evolve at an ever more rapid pace. In particular, there has been unprecedented development and widespread availability of powerful emerging AI technologies, such as generative AI. These technologies can generate complex text, computer code, and realistic images and audio, at near-limitless volume, that are increasingly indistinguishable from human-produced content. It is vital for NATO to use these technologies, where applicable, as soon as possible.
The availability and management of AI-ready, quality data is a prerequisite for the development and use of secure, reliable and responsible AI systems. Quality data is foundational to the development of effective AI-enabled systems since all analytic and AI capabilities require trusted, quality data, which does not include unintended bias, to support the development of such systems.
Previous NATO’s 2021 AI Strategy set out a strategic vision, with four aims and six outcomes; the new AI strategy endorsed six “principles of responsible use’, PRUs for AI in the member states’ defence, i.e. lawfulness, responsibility and accountability, “explainability” and traceability, as well as reliability, governability and bias mitigation.
AI is becoming a general-purpose technology, with different risks, actors and levels of complexity between so-called “narrow AIs”, designed to perform specific tasks, and “emerging AI technologies”, such as frontier or foundation AI models, which are multi-purpose and capable of performing complex tasks.
Additionally, a growing set of related issues attracted the NATO’s summit attention; they include: the potential diminishing global availability of quality public data to train AI models; implications of the demands of compute intensive AI, including on energy consumption, and accountability in human-machine teaming and overcoming technical and governance issues when civilian-market dual-use solutions are applied in military context.
Source: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227237.htm/July 10, 2024
EU’s new guidelines
As the EU’s 27 member states, as well as all EU institutions and agencies, are preparing for a new politico-economic cycle for the next five years (2024-2029), there is a growing sense of understanding that amounting challenges need the EU-wide new insights and additional efforts.
However, regardless of unexpected tasks and problems ahead, these basic challenges should not obstruct the most fundamental aspects in national political-economy’s guidelines, such as climate mitigation, environmental quality and general wellbeing.
A feeling of despair, inertia and inaction at most vital turns of EU’s development shall be excluded from the next Commission’s college: it is the new political leadership’s existential imperative to do what is in its power to keep in decision-making the interests of present and future generations.
It is not a new idea; but it will require a higher level of unity and cohesion (versus growing socio-economic and political differentiation). The perspectives shall be led by those EU member states which aspire to move forward ambitiously, most possible outside the EU treaties. While respecting and promoting the EU’s supranational nature, resolving above mentioned challenges (and avoiding risks), the prospect of avoiding legal “straitjacket” can be achieved beyond narrow legal confines of the current EU treaties, as was already done in the case of the European Stability Mechanism, ESM and/or the Fiscal Compact.
Global instability, fragmentation and polarization, with the growing sense of nationalism and radicalization, it all requires similar world-wide measures in tackling challenges and threats.
The EU has acquired already a global role model in dealing with numerous challenges, in advancing recovery and resilience; now it shall visualize more active efforts in adapting to new geo-political and -economic realities. Actually, it is the main challenge for both “blocks”, i.e. the European Union and NATO.
Reference to: https://www.epc.eu/content/Permacrisis_DP_v3.pdf