Dr Lily Hamourtziadou
NATO updates
On May 16, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with Lithuanian PM Ingrida Šimonytė at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, to discuss work to further strengthen deterrence and defence, and to support Ukraine. Stoltenberg commended Lithuania’s commitment to Allied security. Lithuania hosts a multinational battlegroup, NATO’s Baltic Air Policing Mission, and a Centre of Excellence for Energy Security. Stoltenberg thanked Šimonytė for Lithuania’s support for Ukraine, highlighting that Allied leaders would continue to work together towards securing further long-term support for Ukraine, at the upcoming Washington Summit. Opening the NATO Military Committee session alongside Stoltenberg, Chair of the Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer declared NATO ‘stronger and readier than it has ever been’ (NATO, 2024a). This was followed by the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council in Chiefs of Defence format. The Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Major General Anatoliy Barhylevych, briefed the NATO Chiefs of Defence on the situation on the ground. The Chiefs of Defence reaffirmed their continued support to Ukraine, emphasising the bravery and sacrifice of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
On May 17, speaking at NATO’s 2024 Cyber Defence Pledge Conference in the Hague, NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană stressed that Allies ‘must be big on ambition’ on cyber defence. ‘Our adversaries are increasingly defying international norms and using cyber and hybrid operations against us,’ Geoană said (NATO, 2024b). Geoană emphasised the importance of strengthening civil-military cooperation, including through closer cooperation with the tech industry, welcoming the participation of 18 NATO partner countries in the Cyber Defence Pledge Conference. Following his address, he met with the Dutch Minister of Defence, Kasja Ollongren, and with students from Leiden University, to discuss NATO’s agenda for the Washington Summit.
The conference
The previous week, I had attended the NATO Conference on the Law Applicable to the Use of Biometrics by Armed Forces, at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, in Tallinn, Estonia, where I presented a paper. The conference discussed emerging areas of international law, the benefits of biometric data, such as screening out ‘bad’ actors, adding an extra layer of security, attributing responsibility, and providing support to law-enforcement actors. We talked about moral and legal issues around the sharing of data, the transfer of data, identification, consent, returning foreign terrorist actors, and the 2018 NATO new biometrics policy. Pertinent to the discussion was the question of national laws versus international laws, diverging interpretations and obligations, as well as privacy rights. Particular attention was given to the use of new AI technologies that present us with powerful new capabilities, battlefield evidence and the use of drones. Precision, clarity, biometric identification and authentication and ‘identity dominance’ over the enemy were all ‘key words’, in the context of how to use biometrics to achieve the desired effect, which is the defeat of our enemies. My paper with Dutch academic Welmoet Wels, from the University of Groningen, was on bio/necrometrics and human security: how data from human remains should be used by armed forces to identify and contextualise civilian loss in the 7 categories of human security, in order to assess the impact of war on the unarmed population.
Estonia
EU and NATO member Estonia feels threatened by neighbour Russia, with which it has a 294 km border. This year the country will invest over 3% of its GDP to beef up its defence capabilities. It has also been hosting NATO exercises and training civilians in trench warfare. Armed civilians, part of the ‘Estonian Defence League’ (EDL), have been war-gaming together with professional soldiers; the drill is called ‘Northern Frog’ and takes place around a former Soviet military airfield.
Close to the landing strip, infantry troops from NATO-partner France fortify trenches. In the nearby forest, Baltic volunteers are gathering. They are armed civilians with professional military skills. It’s quite an intriguing setting; Estonian militia forces and professional NATO-troops are mutually testing and upgrading their combat skills for trench warfare (Euronews, 2024).
Around 30,000 people have already signed up with the EDL, learning how to shoot, infantry tactics and close combat. Estonia urges its NATO partners to increase their defence spending, due to the continuing Russian threat.
Estonia, with a minority of around 300,000 ethnic Russians (about a quarter of its population), has for years been exposed to Russian airspace violations, fake-news campaigns and cyber-attacks. Estonians fear they might be next on Putin’s list. The mood in its capital city, Tallinn, is one of fear, but also of defiance. There is also evident grief over the mounting civilian casualties in Ukraine, with tributes paid to victims in the centre of the city.
The Western defence alliance seems to be the best answer to the country’s security concerns.
Nations and identities
The conference participants came from a variety of Western countries: the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Slovenia, the UK and the USA.
The clear threat on everyone’s mind and lips was Russia, but also China and Syria were mentioned. The identification of these threats was in-keeping with everyone’s national identities and alliances. It seemed natural for all of us present to regard those states as past/present/future threats to our security. It too seemed natural to regard those states as ‘rogue’, or ‘bad’, or at the very least dangerous. After all, we academics know that national identity is built through an ‘othering’ process. Nationalism most frequently emerges from conflict/war and fuels or justifies further conflict/war, in a cycle or causal chain. Through war narratives, especially, nations are able to project power at home and abroad, as well as strengthen identity. Past traumas and triumphs serve to legitimise policy and impose a particular understanding of patriotism that helps to interpret the world in terms of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. Events must be interpreted so as to support, legitimise and unify the nation, at any cost. While the survival of a state depends on the maintenance of its sovereignty, the survival of a nation depends on the maintenance of its (good/virtuous/heroic) identity.
Security requirements
While it is tempting -and psychologically safe and comforting- to see ourselves and our nation as the good guys, and certain others and their nation as the bad guys, the truth is that such values are not demarcated by state borders. There are no good guys or bad guys, no heroes or villains, based on national identity. Or even based on states. What determines -for everyone- the threat, is simply, and in a way that is quite value-free, the compatibility or incompatibility of their security requirements. In 1969 Kenneth Boulding wrote of compatible and incompatible security requirements, in relation to how each side defines its security requirements, what it needs to be secure. He wrote of incompatibility, where we have two images of the future in which realisation of one would prevent realisation of the other (Boulding, 1969). Insecurity and conflict between two or more parties arises when interests and security requirements are incompatible; that is, when what each side believes it needs in order to increase its security is not achievable without threatening the security of the other side.
As moral agents, humans and the collectivities in which they belong (national, religious, political) like to think of moral binaries, where they occupy the good or virtuous space, and that others -those outside their collectivities- occupy the bad moral space. Yet in international relations, that space tends to be defined by interests, power and security requirements that, in the end, have little to do with ethics.
References
Boulding, K (1969) ‘National Images and International Systems’, in Rosenau (ed) International Politics and Foreign Policy: A reader in Research Theory. New York: Free Press.
Euronews (2024) ‘Fearing Russian invasion Estonia’s civilians heed their country’s call to arms’ https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/13/fearing-russian-invasion-estonias-civilians-heed-their-countrys-call-to-arms
NATO (2024a) ‘NATO Chiefs of Defence discuss the strengthening of NATO’s defence plans’ https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_225395.htm?
NATO (2024b) ‘NATO Deputy Secretary General: we must be big on cyber defence ambitions’ https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_225497.htm?
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