What Nato for What Threats? Warsaw and beyond

The relatively rapid transformation of the security environment in the past 15 years has seen NATO involved in what has become the keyword to effectiveness: adaptability. Throughout time this has taken different forms, but three have been its main avenues: a redefinition of the concept of security, the development of core tasks that have been added to collective defence (crisis management operations and cooperative security) and the Alliance’s enlargement. All three venues have contributed to make NATO more apt to the changed security scenario, but each of them needs to be constantly assessed for its contribution to NATO’s effectiveness as a security Alliance and integrated with a reflection on dynamics internal to the Alliance itself. The spirit of the fourth Academic Conference organised in Bertinoro on 4-6 October 2015, was to contribute to the reflection on NATO’s adaptability with respect to security challenges (with a special attention to hybrid threats), its internal cohesion, its readiness, and cooperative security in particular with regards to partnerships.