Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert
Symposium Summer 2020
Author(s): Tim Sweijs, Frans Osinga, Samuel Zilincik, Martijn Vorm, Ivor Wiltenburg and
Bianca Torossian
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (2020)
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HCSS Security
The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept:
Key Insights from the Global Expert
Symposium Summer 2020
Symposium Chairs: Tim Sweijs & Frans Osinga
Symposium Rapporteurs: Samuel Zilincik, Martijn Vorm, Ivor Wiltenburg
Symposium Producer: Bianca Torossian
Disclaimer: This report does not reflect the opinions of NATO, HQ SACT or any of its
affiliates nor is the content necessarily endorsed by senior leadership or the chain of
command.
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 1
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
Introduction
The story of NATO has been one of great success. The Alliance has prevailed against
adversaries as distinct in character as they were dangerous in capabilities. NATO first
prevailed against the Soviet Union, and, following the latter’s collapse, it confronted a
range of threats posed by state and non-state actors. Time and time again, the Alliance
met the challenges it encountered.
But past may not be prologue. The military advantage NATO enjoyed in the period
immediately following the Cold War is under pressure due to sustained military
investment and prolonged technological advancement by near-peer competitors. Great
power armed conflict remains a real possibility, with China and Russia actively
recalibrating more offensive military postures. Already, allies and partners are subject
to persistent attacks across physical and non-physical domains under traditional
thresholds of war. Internationalized intrastate conflicts close to the Alliance borders
not only come with enormous humanitarian costs but also harness considerable
spillover risk to Allied territories.
Against this backdrop, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) is
developing the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept (NWCC) to create a vision for
Alliance Warfare Development up to 2040 to allow the Alliance to protect NATO’s core
security interests in the future.
On June 30th 2020, The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) and the Netherlands
Defense Academy (NLDA), in close collaboration with HQ SACT, hosted a symposium
with world-leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to debate, critique, and
refine the propositions presented by HQ SACT in an unclassified read-ahead paper. To
inform the experts’ discussion, the paper outlined some of the elements and ideas that
are being considered in the context of drafting the NWCC.1
This symposium report offers a consolidated overview of the rich discussions during
this seminar. It is divided into three sections:
• The first section presents visions on the future character of war and warfare as
considered in the context of NWCC as well as those discussed by the panelists.
• The second section describes the warfare development efforts envisaged in the
NWCC along with the commentaries offered by the symposium’s participants.
• The third and final section identifies three main takeaways and answers the "so
what?" question.
1
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper for the Global Expert Symposium on NATO’s Warfighting Capstone
Concept: Building the Alliance’s Decisive Advantage. Click to view the Read-ahead Paper and the Full
Symposium Program.
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
The Future Character of War and Warfare
Amorphous images of future war
The NWCC argues that “the Alliance cannot succeed in tomorrow’s fight with
yesterday’s approach”.2 Tomorrow’s conflicts will be characterized by the widening of
the battlespace, the fusion of physical and non-physical dimensions, and the rise of
borderless warfare. They will include a plethora of actors acting through and across
multiple domains. “Competitors will seek to build advantage using diverse, non-kinetic
and kinetic means, across operational domains and civil society” and competition “will
be persistent and increasingly non-linear.” Adversaries will target the Alliance’s armed
forces and exploit vulnerabilities associated with “open societies”.
Tomorrow’s conflict will be characterized by the widening of the
battlespace, the fusion of dimensions and the rise of borderless warfare.
This is “likely to occur against the backdrop of other security challenges – climate
change, pandemics, mass migration – that will place an increasing strain on the Military
Instrument of Power (MIoP).”3 Participants observed that future wars will feature
blended forms of interstate, intrastate, and non-state conflict in which kinetic and non-
kinetic means will be deployed, in direct confrontations as well as in wars by proxy.
Though anticipation of the character of future wars and warfare is fraught with
difficulties, some future conflicts are more likely than others, whereas other conflicts
will be more consequential. It was argued that wars in the Middle East may be more
likely, wars in Asia may be more impactful, while wars in Europe are comparatively less
likely.
2
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 2.
3
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 2-3.
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 3
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
Guiding principles instead of capstone concept
Beyond these broad generalizations, however, it was also agreed that little can be
asserted with any degree of certainty. In preparing for an unknown future it is therefore
necessary to choose our words carefully and deploy the right analytical and strategic
concepts. Participants called into question the appropriateness of the notion of a
capstone concept because it seeks to impose a logical and hierarchical order on the
inherently amorphous and non-linear phenomenon of war. It was suggested that it is
better to speak of a set of guiding principles which can be flexibly applied to deal with
specific challenges.
Future war is plural, but not all future war is equal
In a similar vein, concerns were expressed about our very human tendency to focus on
one particular future when, in fact, there are many futures, formed and shaped by the
decisions and the actions we take today. Future wars will include societal warfare
(focused on disrupting and coercing societies) and cognitive warfare (focused on
creating civilian disorder), alongside high-end conventional wars and wars fought by
proxy. These wars differ not only in the
“There are many futures, likelihood of their occurrence but also in
their impact; the combination of the two
formed and shaped by needs to inform prioritization and
the decisions and the preparation. Conventional wars may be
less probable than cognitive warfare but
actions we take today” they tend to have more severe
consequences.
The continuing relevance of geography
Geography matters and the Alliance will inevitably pay more attention to the wars in
Europe’s proximity than to those taking place further away. In addition to deterring
Russia, a particular concern in the short term are threats associated with surrogate
warfare on the Alliance’s immediate periphery and innovative network-centric tactics
deployed by compound actors. In the longer term, this euro-centric bias may be
dangerous because wars in other regions, especially in Asia, could gravely affect the
security of individual member states. Participants pointed out that many questions
remain about the effects of rivalry and conflict in the Asian theatre on the Alliance,
including the role of European Allies in potential Asian wars and what the subsequent
shift in US priority will mean for the regional balance of power in the European theatre.
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
Beyond the Manichean
Participants suggested that traditional Manichean and dichotomous understandings of
the world, which are encouraged by the use of terms such as war, battle, victory, and
adversary, are not well suited to future contexts in which competitors may be both
adversaries in one arena but partners in another. Instead of binary frameworks,
panelists proposed to approach future conflict using more holistic prisms. At the same
time, participants stressed the importance of clarity when it concerns identifying
political objectives and formulating specific theories of victory in accordance with these
objectives.
As opposed to binary (war/peace, ally/enemy) frameworks, the Alliance
needs to approach future conflict using more holistic prisms.
Creativity, diversity and tenacity
Participants suggested that the Alliance needs to nurture a culture of intellectual
creativity and diversity. It needs to actively promote exceptional individuals in
recognition of the role of ingenuity and tenacity in driving innovation. These two
elements are mutually reinforcing: it is within an intellectually creative and diverse
culture that exceptional individuals are likely to emerge and these people will then
subsequently further propagate an environment conducive to exceptionalism. That is
the greatest advantage the Alliance can have over its adversaries because it will foster
ideas that allow the Alliance to develop the right capabilities to succeed in future war
and achieve cognitive superiority vis-à-vis its adversaries.
Carl von Clausewitz sitting on a tripod stool playing with Lego
To deal with uncertainty, the Alliance needs to be agile. This agility requirement is
captured by the powerful metaphor, suggested by one of the participants, of Carl von
Clausewitz sitting on a tripod stool while playing with Lego. Here, Clausewitz
represents the idiom of understanding the character of future war; the tripod stool
refers to the balance among the ends, ways, and means; and Lego stands for the available
resources that need to be treated in agile ways to achieve particular political objectives.
The ends and means of particular wars will always depend on the types of challenges;
on political dynamics within the Alliance; and on available resources. Accordingly, in
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 5
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
preparing for future warfighting, the Alliance will need to pay extra attention to the
ways so that it can achieve the politically dictated ends with the allocated means which
will vary from one context to another.
The Alliance needs to pay extra attention to the ways of achieving
politically dictated ends with the allocated means.
Warfare Development Imperatives
To ensure a broad portfolio of means and to broaden the spectrum of potential ways,
the NWCC identifies five Warfare Development Imperatives (WDI): cognitive
superiority, cross domain command, influence and power projection, integrated multi-
domain defense, and layered resilience. To achieve these imperatives, the NWCC
recommends the development of key enablers, such as “the right people with the right
skills...” as well as “those technologies that can have a game-changing impact and
master big data and advanced analytics”.4
Cognitive superiority
First and foremost, the NWCC advocates the pursuit of cognitive superiority. This
imperative stands for “ability to shape, contest or fight” by “expanding knowledge and
understanding of competitors’ actions, as well as its own goals and options to achieve
them”.5 It is the combination of human intellect and technology that breeds cognitive
superiority. The concept itself emphasizes the technological opportunities that should
be harnessed to achieve the imperative of cognitive superiority.
4
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 5.
5
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 4.
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 6
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
In general, the symposium’s participants recognized the importance of cognitive
superiority in war and acknowledged that the Alliance was well-positioned to achieve
cognitive superiority over potential adversaries. In addition to exploiting technological
assets, the participants stressed that this advantage accrues from the fact that our
societies advocate education, critical thinking and the free flow of ideas, rather than
from solely technological assets. The Alliance should recognize this, nurture the human
factor, and refrain from overemphasizing technology at the expense of people.
The Alliance has an advantage over adversaries thanks to the fact that our
societies advocate education, critical thinking and the free flow of ideas.
To this end, participants advocated a dual-track approach which values intellectual
excellence, diversity, and inclusion, alongside equal recognition of the opportunities
offered by new technologies to achieve cognitive superiority. New technologies can be
used to collect and process ever-increasing amounts of data, which can then be
contextualized and analyzed by cross-disciplinary teams of well-informed and highly
educated human operators. Cognitive superiority hinges on the ability to learn not only
from our own mistakes but also from the mistakes of others. While our adversaries
might emulate or develop our technological means, replicating the intellectual freedom
and diversity that the Alliance enjoys will be a tall order for them. That is a strength
that NATO needs to leverage.
Cross-domain command
Second, the NWCC stresses that commanders should be able to “operate in a complex
battlespace simultaneously across physical and non-physical domains.” In line with the
Clausewitzian notion of military genius, the concept advocates “the development of
cross-domain insight ‘coup-d’oeil’” that is “to be nurtured through doctrine, training,
education and leadership development.” Cross-domain command should be enabled by
the ‘science of control’, that revolves around speed, continuity and dispersion.6
6
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 4.
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 7
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
Participants observed that cross domain command will be made both more difficult and
easier in the future. First and foremost, it is more difficult because of the constant
overflow of information. The massive and pervasive information environment may
fundamentally change the way cognitive effects are pursued. Ultimately, it is an
environment in which different actors operate, not a domain where dominance can be
achieved. Furthermore, there are gradually evolving ethical and legal restraints on what
is allowed on the battlefield, which is closely monitored because of the ubiquitous
presence of (social) media.
Commanders should be able to operate in a complex battlespace
simultaneously across physical and non-physical domains.
This is exacerbated by the fact that the command space has greatly expanded to include
many non-military tasks and coordination with non-military organizations. At the
same time, it was suggested that some aspects render the exercise of command across
domains easier. For one, because of greatly improved reconnaissance capabilities,
commanders will possess far superior situational awareness about factors such as the
topography of the battlefield or the positions of the adversary. Participants also
suggested that strategic compression and cross domain integration require a greater
emphasis on networked units which operate differently from twentieth-century top-
down hierarchical structures, as well as greater investment in stealth technologies, to
strengthen the ability to operate in dispersed formations and escape enemy fire. Finally,
despite all the promises of new C4SIR (Command, Control, Communications,
Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) technologies and cross
domain concepts, it was pointed out that future war will continue to feature friction
and uncertainty which requires flexibility and adaptivity.
Influence and power projection
Third, the NWCC calls for the development of power projection capabilities.
Accordingly, the concept states that “The Alliance MIoP will need to possess a spectrum
of non-lethal, non-kinetic to lethal kinetic all-domain options to shape the battlespace
to NATO’s strengths7.” It goes on to stress the importance of long-range strike
capabilities that can create deterrent and containing effects in the minds of potential
adversaries.
7
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 4.
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
The participants’ discussion yielded insights into how the Alliance may project both
military and non-military power. If one thing is clear, it is that influence and power
projection in the future security environment require much more than engaging in
multinational exercises and moving military
“The Alliance MIoP formations to global hotspots. The application
of power and the exercise of influence by
will need to possess a NATO and its member states to achieve
spectrum of non- political ends will continue to be based in hard
power capabilities projection, but needs to be
lethal, non-kinetic to complemented with a much more finely
lethal kinetic all- grained understanding of how tools of
influence can be wielded, including in the
domain options” information domain.
The projection of soft power relies on carefully calibrated targeting, leveraging domain-
and audience-specific instruments. A better understanding of human psychology, it
was suggested, will enable NATO to reach those they want to influence, with
participants conjuring the image of a marksman’s rifle rather than a volley-gun. Given
prevailing understandings of war and warfighting capabilities, the strategic utility of
such tools of influence is greatly underappreciated in the Alliance.
The ability to project hard power remains fundamental and needs to be maintained and
modernized. Participants expected nuclear weapons to continue to play a vital role in
deterring armed aggression, even if they will not deter competition for the advantage
which will be inherently cross domain in nature. In this context, participants pointed
to the need to develop potent counter A2AD (Anti-Access and Area Denial) capabilities
in response to adversarial A2AD capabilities to be able to project military power in
contested regions building on cutting edge technological advancements. The Alliance
will need to plug those capability gaps which have been repeatedly pointed out in
priority shortfall lists, amongst which precision engagement capabilities, suppression
of enemy air defenses, electronic warfare, stealth capabilities, strategic transport, and
C4ISR. In contrast to the pre-2014 period, however, when overreliance on US
capabilities was typically perceived as merely a political embarrassment for European
leaders, in the current strategic environment this capability gap erodes the deterrence
credibility of NATO.
Integrated multi-domain defense
Fourth, the NWCC stresses the importance of multi-domain defense. The NWCC
asserts that “the Alliance’s current defensive posture is largely an episodic construct,
which is switched on and -off through a series of political and military decision points,
following pre-existing plans.” The NWCC further points out that this approach does
not suffice in “an era of persistent competition” when “‘Day Zero’ is every day”.8
To prevail in persistent competition, the Alliance needs to be able to respond effectively
and in a timely fashion, according to participants. Prolonged deliberations on the
political level give adversaries the time to generate strategic faits accomplis, with
Russia’s annexation of the Crimea providing a case in point. Therefore, a posture of
8
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 4.
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
constant readiness across all domains is
necessary. Delegation of duty along the chain of “Political leaders fail
command is crucial, which speaks to the to offer adequate
importance of independent judgement at all
levels of war as well as to the existence of political guidance to
mutual trust between operators active at these their armed forces”
different levels.
Threats will not only manifest themselves militarily but also through political,
economic and societal dimensions. As participants pointed out, countering the broad
spectrum of threats requires cohesion. Adversaries will therefore try and target
cohesion to undermine NATO. Relatedly, the co-existence of a military, a political, and
a societal crisis was observed. This three-pronged crisis needs to be addressed because
otherwise it affects the cohesion of the entire Alliance. The first crisis pertains to the
lack of confidence within the military because there is no clear vision of what
constitutes victory in contemporary wars. As a result, armed forces are no longer sure
about the purpose of their actions, which directly takes away from their raison d’etre.
This is directly related to the second political crisis which manifests itself in
governments that draw clear lines between military and civilian spheres, typically
because they lack a proper understanding of the military realm. As a result, political
leaders fail to offer adequate political guidance to their armed forces. The third crisis is
societal: the fact that professional armed forces are responsible for the fighting while
the vast majority of Allied populations possess limited knowledge of and even less
affinity with the conduct of war, drives a wedge between the professional armed forces
and the societies they are tasked to protect. Resolving these crises is necessary to
improve the cohesion of the Alliance.
Layered resilience
Fifth, the NWCC recommends the development of layered resilience. In order to
sustain long and protracted campaigns, which are likely to occur regardless of the
Alliance preferences, the NWCC calls for reconstructing “layered resilience”. Three
mutually reinforcing “layers” of resilience are distinguished in the NWCC: military
resilience, military-civil resilience and civilian resilience. Military resilience conveys
“those ready forces and capabilities and redundancy that the MIoP requires to ensure
its ability to absorb shocks, provide for early resistance and fight through.” Military-
civilian resilience refers to “those plans, processes, and connections that must be in
place to ensure that civilian support and infrastructure, transport and logistic supplies
are a strength rather than vulnerability”. Finally, civilian resilience stands for “the civil
ability to deny competitors the ability to unlock civil vulnerabilities and
distract/overstretch the MIoP, as well as those forces and capabilities that MIoP will be
expected to deploy in support of civilian society in the case of natural or man-made
disasters, as well as to shield the society from malign activities of competitors.”9
9
NATO. 2020. Read-ahead Paper, 4-5.
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
The NWCC calls for layered resilience, consisting of three reinforcing layers
of resilience: military, military-civil and civilian resilience.
Unfortunately, according to participants, all three layers are in a state of disrepair. The
armed forces of individual member states face significant shortages not least in the field
of critical military capabilities, for example, state of the art C4 systems. These deficits
must be addressed to strengthen military resilience. The picture of military-civilian
resilience is equally bleak according to some participants. Much of the civilian
infrastructure that could support military operations was dismantled in the decades
since the Cold War. As a result, military units and equipment can simply not be
transported across Europe in large numbers to strengthen NATO military’s
conventional force posture. Participants also suggested that we need to think more
about the role of our citizens and their potential to contribute to the security of the
Alliance. To foster civilian resilience, NATO must not only build and actively
communicate the Alliance’s narrative but also actively strive towards greater diversity
and inclusion in the ranks of armed forces’ personnel.
Three Main Takeaways
The future of war does not yet exist. It will be created by Allies and adversaries in the
years to come. We do not know the time nor the geographical location of future
conflict. Plenty of uncertainty remains about its most salient characteristics.
Preparation is therefore key both to shape that future environment and to be able to
adaptively meet conflict challenges of tomorrow. Amidst the treasure trove of insights
generated during the symposium, three points related to future preparation stood out:
1) cognitive superiority, 2) full-spectrum engagement, and 3) agile ways of adaptation.
These points need to guide the Alliance’s future capability development so that it can
continue to defend and protect the interests and values of the Members of the Alliance.
First and foremost, cognitive superiority will allow NATO to outcompete opponents in
the conflict environment of 2040. To achieve that, the Alliance needs to harness
intellectual excellence, creativity and diversity, and adapt twentieth-century strategic
concepts to address tomorrow’s strategic challenges. This requires the bundling of hard
cutting edge technology and soft human skills and expertise.
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 11
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The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept: Key Insights from the Global Expert Symposium Summer 2020
Second, the Alliance needs to develop full-
“It is imperative to spectrum engagement capabilities. Since
seamlessly integrate future wars will feature a variety of warfare
modes, it is imperative to seamlessly
military but also non- integrate military but also non-military
military instruments in instruments in the pursuit of influence. Most
competitive efforts are likely to be conducted
the pursuit of influence” through and across multiple domains, both
offensively and defensively. Accordingly, the
development of cross-domain command capabilities is of paramount importance. This
necessitates an appreciation of the interaction between traditional and new military
domains and their close relationship with non-military competition pursued by
diplomatic, information and economic means. It also involves the persistent influence
efforts before actual violent confrontation takes places to constantly shape the
competitive space both by military and civilian elements.
Third, in terms of future preparation, it is important to pay particular attention to the
ways in which future means are deployed to attain objectives. Future wars differ in the
likelihood of their manifestation as well as in their consequences. The Alliance cannot
effectively defend against all possible threats all the time. It therefore needs to
constantly adapt to evolving circumstances and it needs to be agile in the ways it
pursues that adaptation. Only by flexibly adjusting the ways to the particular context at
hand can the Alliance deal with the diverse spectrum of challenges. The successful and
agile execution of suitable ways will ultimately depend on human factors; on the ability
of exceptional individuals to push their visions through, and on the willingness of the
broader society to support these necessary adaptations.
So what? “We should not allow
The ideas proposed by the concept are but a
starting point. The Capstone document
the often attractive but
may be instrumental in providing a necessary ultimately unfeasible
coherent framework explaining why
capabilities are needed and how they will be ideas hijack the Alliance
employed. Real resources need to be to Wonderland”
harnessed to enable the development of
integral capabilities. Although the Alliance needs to move ahead if it is to keep the pace
with the changing character of war and warfare, its actions also need to be grounded in
the realities on the ground. We should not allow the often attractive but ultimately
unfeasible ideas hijack the Alliance to Wonderland. After all, as Clausewitz points out
on the final page of his work, “who sacrifices the possible in search of the impossible is
a fool.”10 If the Alliance hopes for a successful continuation of its own story then it needs
to do much more than putting forward a set of ideas. It needs to implement them in
the real world that is messy and complex, full of chance and friction, competing
political desires at the home front and adversaries trying to frustrate that
implementation. The historical track-record of the Alliance shows that success in this
regard is possible but not guaranteed.
10
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Tenth Printing (US) (Everyman’s
Library by arrangement with Princeton University Press, 1993), 771.
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