One year after Warsaw: The growing need for a NATO cyber command

Abstract

With cyber on NATO's agenda since 2002 and cyberspace declared a domain of operations for the Alliance at its 2016 Summit, one can ask a straightforward question — how will the Alliance make this declaration work? Starting from defining cyber operations to establishing procedures and delivering practical capability, much needs to be discussed amongst the NATO nations. In a predictable security environment and following all the conventional capacity building steps each of these issues could take years to deliberate. In cyber, however, there is less predictability every moment. One of the ideas that have been proposed as a quick remedy for NATO to deliver on the Warsaw declaration, is the setup of a NATO Cyber Command. One year after Warsaw NATO has yet to take a decision that would establish a NATO-owned cyber-command. Although thus somewhat speculative, the article analyses how and where in the current NCS (NATO Command Structure) a cyber-command can be set up and what should be the key considerations — the ends, ways and means — for NATO in agreeing to its tasks.