tries to develop and reform their professional military education
institutions, while focusing on hybrid warfare crises. Corrup-
tion and poor governance undermines democracy and erodes
the trust of the people. NATO’s Building Integrity focuses on
countering these effects and building resilience. NATO’s De-
fense and Related Security Capacity Building initiative reinforc-
es NATO’s commitment to partners and helps project stability
by providing support to nations requesting assistance, such as
Georgia, Moldova, Jordan, Iraq, and Tunisia.
Although the threat of instability has declined in Central and
Eastern Europe in the 21st century, this threat significantly
increased in the world at large. The attacks on the United States
on 9/11 marked a sober start in a new era for NATO. Recently,
there has been a rise in turmoil and violence in North Afri-
ca and the Middle East that has contributed to the spread of
terrorism and a humanitarian crisis. The EU is a strong partner
with NATO in seeking to foster stability through their eco-
nomic packages, which when coupled with NATO’s focus on
military educational institution building, enhances long-term
stability.
Stage Setting Panel
Key Points:
• Institution Building must occur at the strategic level, as
unconnected tactical solutions only lead to a return to con-
flict. The military needs more coherent political guidance to
shape current and future operations on long term objectives.
Institution building is essential for long-term stability. NATO
is very good at institution building, such as designing national
security strategies, defense strategies, defense ministries, a chief
of defense staff structure, and putting into place a long-term,
self-sustaining training program. NATO can assist in building
the broadest possible coalition, which will lead to more robust,
sustainable solutions.
• The US and NATO rely heavily on our own experience and
country mandates to shape our capacity building and develop-
ment strategies, rather than truly listening to the host nation
needs. Without a culturally nuanced, host nation voice in the
development of self-sustaining solutions, there will be no po-
litical buy-in, and only nominal support from the host nation.
NATO can and should do better at incorporating local history,
politics and culture into political strategies and institutional
development.
• The US and NATO have developed extraordinary abilities to
target terror cells and leaders. However, that has not prevent-
ed the spread of terrorism and violent extremism. The current
threat environment is worse than on 9/11 and that trajectory
will continue. While we have made extraordinary progress in
destroying ISIS over the last four years, there are still thousands
of fighters and eight declared ISIS franchises, and as many
undeclared ones. Terrorism is proliferating and spawning new
groups, largely through online recruitment where personal
interaction is not required. Terrorist planning is no longer large
scale and centrally planned, but holds to the mantra of “stay
where you are, use what you can, and kill as many as possible.” A
van attack on personnel is just as devastating as an IED, but re-
quires no training, no resources, and no direction. Technology
continues to expand violent extremist capabilities. Preventing
the creation of new terrorists should be a primary focus.
Moderator: Dr. Richard Love, Professor of Peace and Stability,
PKSOI
Panel Members: Mr. James Appathurai, Deputy Assistant
Secretary General, NATO, Political Affairs and Policy; LTG
Michael Nagata, Director, Directorate of Strategic Operational
Planning, National Counter Terrorism Center; DAS Mark E.
Mitchell, Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, SO-
LIC; MG William Hickman, Dept CoS, NATO Strategic Plans
and Policy, NATO SACT
3
• Following the hard lessons learned from Iraq and Afghani-
stan, the Department of Defense (DoD) cannot do stabilization
alone. As such, the U.S. 3Ds of Diplomacy (State Depart-
ment), Development (USAID) and Defense (Department of
Defense) crafted the Stabilization Assistance Review (SAR),
which offered a definition of stabilization that might be useful
to the NATO alliance. The SAR defines roles for stabilization,
with the Department of State as the overall lead, USAID as an
implementing partner and DoD acting in a supporting role.