NATO as a Military OECD

Abstract While increased strategic competition poses a challenge to the global governance agenda writ large, the concomitant increased demand for security is in principle a boon to international security governance’s prime exemplar, NATO . Adding insights from international policy diffusion to the agenda of strategic competition, this article proposes that NATO supports the alliance’s primary, external function of deterrence and defense by providing strategic epistemic capital to its members through meditative and inquisitive forms of governance. These ensure that member nations keep abreast of the evolving best practice of defense and military affairs, and underpin overall convergence of defense policies and military practices, from consensus-based strategic wayfinding to tactical interoperability on the battlefield. Crucially, the alliance is also a brokerage of strategic sensemaking. Seeing NATO through the prism of an international organization like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development thus deepens our understanding of how the alliance functions as well as of its resilience.