Sven CLEMENT (Luxembourg)
20 November 2022
Since the inception of the Alliance, the ability to innovate has been key to NATO’s deterrence and defence. Now more than ever, maintaining its technological edge and upholding a competitive pace in Research and Development (R&D) will be instrumental for NATO to dominate future warfighting domains.
NATO’s technological edge is challenged on several fronts. Its innovation pipeline needs to adapt to a rapidly changing security environment. Competitors invest considerable resources of their own and use illicit means to challenge the innovation achieved by NATO and like-minded countries. At the same time the leverage of governments to advance technological progress has decreased as today’s innovation ecosystem is driven by commercial companies.
This report identifies challenges to NATO’s innovation pipeline. In addition to limited Science and Technology (S&T) investment and educational systems that do not necessarily promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), these challenges include threats by potential adversaries, particularly the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia. These competitors resort to economic and scientific espionage to leverage Western technological advances to their benefit. Another challenge is that they contest internationally agreed (technical and technological) norms and standards. NATO’s innovation pipeline is also challenged by the need to secure critical resources for the development of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs).
The report provides a short overview of efforts designed to strengthen S&T Resilience in the Alliance. Several concrete examples of how to improve NATO’s innovation pipeline and render it more resilient are listed in the conclusion. These include, among others: maintaining NATO’s technological edge by increasing investment and cooperation around critical technologies; enhancing and deepening NATO’s digitisation processes; strengthening common understanding of ethical standards for these technologies; and encouraging Partner nations to cooperate with NATO more actively.
