Future Security and Defence Council Summary

The purpose of the GLOBSEC Future Security & Defence Council (FSDC) was to support NATO’s ongoing defence innovation work by portraying vital elements of a future NATO Defence Innovation Ecosystem. It was designed to connect a diverse set of public and private stakeholders and act as a centre for idea generation and a platform to exchange views and strategic outlooks. The Council’s main aims were to:

• provide incentives for conceptual, organizational, and technological change, which are mutually reinforcing build bridges across traditional defence industrial players and new non-defence companies
   
• join forces with the defence innovation activities of the European Union
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• stimulate thinking on new ways to combine best the defence industrial capacities of the larger and smaller NATO member states

The Council’s Advisory Committee was composed of renowned defence experts, national and private sector leaders and champions of international diplomacy, who consulted on the topic and peer-reviewed the outputs of the writing team. Together with the Council, the writing team started working on this project in October 2021 and conducted interviews with Council members and international experts in the fourth quarter of 2021. Their work was complemented by supporting papers and opinion pieces dedicated to various topics concerning NATO’s innovation.

The report provides clear guidance on defence investments and preparing NATO for geoeconomic competition and how innovation can be achieved by building structures between national governments, NATO, the EU, and the private sector. The importance of a resilient NATO innovation ecosystem is underscored through a call for NATO’s own defence industrial policy, which aims to provide clear guidelines and goalposts for the variety of increased alternative partners in the private sector, each bringing their paradigm to the table.

An essential factor for these efforts may be the NATO Centres for Excellence and the member states’ experimental units to foster funding for innovation through NATO and the EU and put innovation on the frontline. NATO innovation should be driven towards making NATO more daring, enabling it to take more risks and operate in an environment where it has turned into a more reactive force.

• NATO and Countering Disinformation: The Need for a More Proactive Approach from the Member States (Amb. Tomasz Chłoń)
   
• Moving Towards Coherence: NATO Policy on Artificial Intelligence and Innovation (Edward Hunter Christie)
   
• Reinvigorating NATO’s Edge: Military Innovation and the Strategic Concept (Tim Sweijs)

The purpose of these promotional events was to introduce and explain the proposals and findings of the Adaptive Portfolio. The main vessel of this was constructive discussion in which experts from the state and public sector were engaged, as well as members of the media and military. Overall, we welcomed representatives of NATO, the EU, governments, parliaments, ministries, foreign representations, think tanks and media. Together they discussed the cornerstones of the Adaptive portfolio and came up with observations and suggestions, which were then shared with the public via GLOBSEC social media, where they reached thousands of followers.

Learn more in the PDF below.