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Introduction

  1. The world is inextricably connected by its oceans and seas, which are essential to ensure global commerce and our way of life. Therefore, maritime security is vital to peace and prosperity. The global security environment is contested and unpredictable, with threats and other challenges emanating from state or non-state actors. Maritime crises and incidents illustrate the importance of the maritime domain to NATO as a transatlantic Alliance. NATO is united and steadfast in its resolve to protect its one billion citizens and therefore must be prepared to “fight tonight” and “fight tomorrow”. Its key purpose and greatest responsibility are to ensure our collective defence against all threats, from all directions.
     
  2. Alliance maritime power in conjunction with effects provided by other domains, ensures freedom of action to deter and defend. It also supports engagement with NATO partners (hereafter referred as partners). Maritime forces, with their characteristics, such as reach, power projection, poise, versatility and readiness, have scalable utility across peacetime, crisis and conflict.
     
  3. The aim of this Strategy, in line with relevant and extant NATO policy, is to demonstrate how Alliance maritime power addresses threats and challenges from all directions, based on NATO’s 360-degree approach, and contributes to the fulfilment of its three core tasks: deterrence and defence; crisis prevention and management; and cooperative security. This Strategy provides an overarching reference for delivering maritime power that contributes to achieving NATO’s objectives both now and into the next decade.

Vision

  1. Credible maritime power is integral to the Alliance’s commitment to ensure our collective defence against all threats, from all directions, across all domains. By increasing maritime readiness, situational awareness, posture and mass, while enhancing existing capabilities with emerging technologies, NATO will have the maritime power required to assure maritime access, uphold freedom of navigation, safeguard vital sea lines of communications, protect critical infrastructure and prevail in conflict.

The strategic environment

  1. The Alliance’s two main threats are Russia and terrorism. The threats we face are global and interconnected. The broader security environment is defined by strategic competition, pervasive instability and recurrent shocks. The Alliance, its populations and its forces are increasingly challenged and threatened by potential adversaries as they compete across multiple domains, both covertly and overtly, to shape the operating environment to their own advantage and to achieve their strategic objectives.
     
  2. Russia is the most significant, direct and long-term threat to Allies’ security. It seeks to fundamentally reconfigure the Euro-Atlantic security architecture, establishing spheres of influence and direct control through coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation, including hybrid actions. Moscow’s military build-up, including in the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Sea regions, and in the High North and the Arctic, along with its military integration with Belarus, challenge our security and interests. Russia is reinforcing its conventional and nuclear capabilities, while carrying out increasingly aggressive destabilizing cyber and hybrid actions against the Alliance and its partners. Its coercive military posture, hostile information operations including through disinformation, rhetoric and proven willingness to use force undermines the rules-based international order. Russia is adapting its strategies while reconstituting and expanding military capabilities.
     
  3. In the maritime domain, Russia retains significant capability and is upgrading its maritime forces and introducing new technologies, including underwater reconnaissance and underwater warfare. Russia is modernizing its nuclear forces and expanding its novel and disruptive dual-capable delivery systems, while employing coercive nuclear signalling. Its capability to disrupt Allied reinforcements, to hinder freedom of navigation and to avoid sanctions (for example by taking advantage of “shadow fleet” vessels), remains a strategic challenge to the Alliance.
     
  4. Terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, is the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of our citizens and to international peace and prosperity. Terrorist organizations seek to attack or inspire attacks against Allies and threaten the security and stability of our populations, forces and territory. They have expanded their networks to include criminal activity, enhanced their capabilities, and invested in new technologies to improve their reach and lethality.
     
  5. The world’s oceans and seas remain an accessible environment for terrorist and transnational criminal activities including piracy, activities against shipping and critical maritime infrastructure, the exploitation and instrumentalization of irregular migration, and the illegal trafficking of humans, weapons and narcotics. Such asymmetric threats potentially undermine the freedom of navigation and use of sea lines of communications.
     
  6. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values. It poses systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. The PRC’s confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security. The PRC is pursuing a military build-up, including rapidly expanding its naval capabilities, increasing its use of dual-use military-scientific vessels and surging its presence in the High North and the Arctic, while remaining opaque about its intentions. As such, it continues to develop global reach with potential implications for Alliance maritime power.
     
  7. The deepening strategic partnership between Russia and PRC and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut and reshape the rules-based international order, are a cause for profound concern. The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine through its so-called “no limits” partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base. This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security. The PRC and Russia’s enhanced defence and military cooperation is manifesting itself across multiple domains and increasing number of combined-joint military activities in and around the Euro-Atlantic area.
     
  8. Authoritarian actors challenge our interests, values and democratic way of life, directly and through proxies. They are investing in sophisticated conventional, nuclear and missile capabilities, with little transparency or regard for international norms and commitments. In particular, Iran’s destabilisation actions, including directly and through proxies, are affecting Euro-Atlantic security.
     
  9. The maritime domain encompasses sea areas with differing climate and oceanographic conditions. Increasing temperatures, thawing permafrost, loss of sea ice and glaciers, sea level rise and the opening up of shipping lanes, have far-reaching implications for the maritime domain and the military forces operating within it. These changes are also a threat multiplier that adversely affects NATO security, operations and missions in the Euro-Atlantic area and in particular the High North and the Arctic, which already represents a uniquely challenging operational environment.
     
  10. Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and quantum technologies are changing the maritime security environment and the way actors operate. Hypersonic missiles and uncrewed systems are already augmenting current capabilities and challenging operating processes. These and other EDTs are game changers and present both risks and opportunities for the Alliance. Effective employment of EDTs may offer more resilient, cost-efficient, and sustainable capabilities, while raising ethical and legal, interoperability, and doctrinal issues.

The contribution of maritime power to alliance security

Deterrence and Defence

  1. NATO is committed to defend every inch of Allied territory and is addressing its main threats through the Concept for Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area, which is operationalized by a family of executable defence plans. NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, is based on an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional, and missile defence capabilities, complemented by space and cyber capabilities. This is underpinned by multi- domain operations. As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear Alliance.
     
  2. Maritime power contributes to effective deterrence and defence by providing:
    1. Credible nuclear deterrence from the sea.
    2. Sea control, power projection and sea denial.
    3. Assured maritime access, freedom of navigation, manoeuvre and action in the maritime domain.
    4. Protected sea lines of communications and maritime critical infrastructure, with a focus on securing undersea infrastructure.
    5. Hard power required to prevail in conflict.
  1. To achieve this, the maritime contribution to Alliance deterrence and defence will:
    1. Contribute to credible nuclear deterrence.
    2. Further develop resilient maritime forces, available at the scale required to decisively defend the territorial integrity of all Allies and prevail against any aggressor.
    3. Employ current maritime forces, and develop and incorporate EDTs to deliver rapid and decisive maritime effects at the scale required.
    4. Counter new challenges with cost-effective and timely capabilities, balancing high- and low-end technology, blending existing and proven maritime power technology with innovative new solutions.
    5. Further develop carrier strike, anti-submarine, naval mine warfare and seaborne autonomous capabilities to support NATO’s ability to deter, defend or decisively strike against an aggressor.
    6. Conduct, coordinate and support joint fires, and further develop such capabilities, including deep precision strike.
    7. Exercise high-end maritime warfare capabilities, enable control of sea lines of communications, secure access and force entry against an adversary employing EDTs, and project striking power from the sea.
    8. Contribute to enhancing Alliance responsiveness in order to counter any aggression by ensuring timely reinforcement across the Atlantic.
    9. Enhance persistent maritime situational awareness especially in the space and cyber domains, to improve real time rapid response, in line with NATO’s Digital Ocean Vision.
    10. Provide a maritime-based contribution to NATO’s multi-domain integrated air and missile defence capability.
    11. Enhance the Alliance’s abilities to deter, detect and respond to threats against critical maritime infrastructure, in close cooperation with commercial stakeholders.
    12. Counter hybrid activities and asymmetric threats in the maritime domain.
    13. Deter and counter threats and challenges posed by terrorist groups within the maritime domain, based on a combination of threat awareness, protection, and denial measures.
    14. Develop flexible, innovative and resilient sustainment solutions, including forward logistics and resupply of battle-decisive munitions at sea.
    15. Improve force generation and warfighting readiness by supporting recruitment and retention by the Allies, optimizing maintenance processes and expanding industrial capacity to generate the mass required to prevail within the maritime domain.
    16. Exploit Alliance operational advantage through agile cross-domain command, empowered leadership, and skilled personnel enabled by NATO’s digital transformation.
    17. Increase resilience within the maritime domain, supported by a strong transatlantic industrial cooperation, with the capacity of producing, at pace, stockpiles of decisive munitions, consumables and spares that adhere to NATO interoperability standards.
    18. Lead and support multi-domain efforts to contest and neutralize any adversary’s Anti Access Area Denial capabilities.

Crisis Prevention and Management

  1. Alliance maritime power plays an essential role in offering flexible response options and versatility in crisis prevention and management. To achieve this, Alliance maritime power will:
    1. Leverage the inherent agility of its maritime forces to conduct flexible and scalable maritime security operations that prevent or respond to emerging crisis situations and ensure freedom of navigation at sea. These operations can include maritime presence, demonstrations of force, maritime interdiction operations, no-fly zone enforcement, initial entry operations, counter-terrorism, counter-piracy, non- combatant evacuation, and North Atlantic Council approved support to operations of other international organizations.
    2. Prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including the ability to locate, identify and secure illicit Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear materials transiting at sea.
    3. Maintain rapid response maritime forces able to operate in littoral environments. The maritime component must be capable of local sea control and denial, delivering interoperable maritime and amphibious strike, providing a base of operations at sea, and exercising coherent Alliance command and control while also operating along with non-NATO navies and organizations in order to deliver effects from the sea, in accordance with NATO procedures.
    4. Contribute to urgent humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in accordance with the political framework of NATO’s participation in humanitarian operations.
    5. Provide essential logistical and medical support as well as command and control to crisis-response operations from afloat.
    6. Maintain preparedness and crisis response capabilities through regular exercises and activities in order to ensure NATO’s ability to coordinate, sustain and support multinational crisis response operations, also reflecting NATO’s Human Security Agenda, often in cooperation with partners.

Cooperative Security

  1. Partnerships offer valuable opportunities to develop regional security, contribute to strategic stability and uphold the rules based international order. Alliance maritime power plays an important role in NATO’s policy of outreach through partnerships, dialogue, and cooperation, such as with maritime industry and the international shipping community through the NATO Shipping Centre. Overall, this approach contributes to the common goals of preventing conflict, building interoperable partner capacity, ensuring the freedom of the seas, upholding international law and promoting Alliance values.
     
  2. The Alliance maritime power will contribute to cooperative security by fostering enduring relationships with partners and other relevant actors, in line with the Comprehensive Approach for which the Alliance has developed the Comprehensive Approach Action Plan and with relevant decisions, including those taken at the Lisbon, Wales, Warsaw, Brussels, Madrid, Vilnius and Washington Summits.
     
  3. Therefore, the Alliance maritime power will:
    1. Improve situational awareness and enhance mutual understanding.
    2. Foster cooperation at sea.
    3. Engage in naval diplomatic activities, including through NATO and Non-NATO port visits as well as interactions at sea.
    4. Support partners in NAC approved maritime capacity building.
    5. Reinforce dialogue and engagement with relevant national and international actors, such as the European Union and the United Nations, to tackle cross-regional challenges and shared security interests, and to counter hybrid actions.
    6. Conduct combined education, training and exercises, including exchanging lessons identified and best practice.

Implementing the Alliance Maritime Strategy

  1. Allies, through the commitment to NATO defence plans, will take timely actions to maximize the warfighting readiness and effectiveness of current maritime forces while planning for the introduction of future capabilities.
     
  2. Fully resourced, agile and flexible Standing Naval Forces (SNF) and NATO operations, missions and activities are key to the delivery of maritime security in support of NATO`s three core tasks. The SNF are a visible instrument of NATO`s will to rapidly deter and defend across all domains.
     
  3. Alliance maritime forces will deter, detect and counter threats to maritime security, including maritime critical infrastructure. Allies will improve information exchange, tracking, assessing and attributing incidents, deploying innovative solutions and developing new technologies for surveillance and tracking. These efforts will be enhanced by increased synchronization and cooperation with non-military actors.
     
  4. Leverage strengthened cross-domain command and control, enabled by EDTs and digital transformation, to deliver improved decision-making superiority.
     
  5. A revitalized approach to training and exercises, focused on the “fight tonight” and the “fight tomorrow”, will see NATO further ready its maritime forces and sharpen its warfighting edge. As a platform for experimentation, SNF will continue to set the benchmark for Alliance maritime innovation and force development.
     
  6. The NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) is the key mechanism, also complemented, where eligible, by common funded capability delivery, to facilitate the identification, development and delivery of Alliance’s present and future maritime forces and capabilities to meet the challenges outlined in this Strategy. This will be enabled by Allies’ commitments to increase defence investment as well as a strengthened defence industry across Europe and North America. We will work to eliminate defence trade barriers among Allies and will leverage our partnerships to promote defence industrial cooperation. As a result, NATO will have a maritime force blending and balancing the best of today’s proven capabilities with tomorrow’s technologies.
     
  7. Coherent Alliance strategic communication is essential in explaining NATO’s efforts in the maritime domain. Credible maritime forces, regularly exercising and demonstrating their capabilities, send a strong deterrence message to those who seek to undermine the security and the cohesion of the Alliance.

Conclusion

  1. NATO is the strongest, most enduring and successful Alliance in history because it has been able to adapt and transform. As part of a multi-domain enabled Alliance, NATO’s maritime power will contribute to the Alliance’s three core tasks, in an interconnected and contested future operating environment.
     
  2. This Strategy will help steer the transformation efforts of the Alliance with a renewed emphasis on collective defence. Defending NATO populations, forces and territory requires a rapid qualitative and quantitative adaptation of Allies’ maritime capabilities to ensure that current forces are prepared to fight into the next decade.
     
  3. In this new era of collective defence, as always, NATO’s maritime forces will remain on watch, ready to fight.

 

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