Reforming and Enhancing Partnerships to Strengthen NATO’s Strategic Posture

This article contends that NATO’s current partnership policies, procedures, and mechanisms inadequately address the Alliance’s evolving mission. The world’s heightened state of competition should prompt NATO to reevaluate partner engagement to fulfill its strategic goals more effectively. Alongside a critical examination of NATO’s cooperative security policy evolution, this article identifies six major challenges and proposes three bold yet actionable solutions. Enriched by interviews and the author’s experience in the field of partnerships, this article also outlines ways NATO can reform existing partnership tools.