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Today’s world is characterised by deep uncertainty. Demographic pressures, climate change, scarcity of food, water and energy, financial turmoil, search for identity, nuclear proliferation, new forms of warfare and the discontents of globalisation pose interrelated and complex challenges for the global community. The local impacts the global and vice-versa. Proliferation of information as well as rapid technological, social and cultural change add to a feeling of uncertainty and vulnerability.  At the same time, they create new opportunities and incentives for cooperation and problem-solving. In general, the strategic environment of today is unprecedented in its complexity and unpredictability.

These developments challenge existing world institutions, such as NATO, the EU and the UN as well as regional institutions, to rethink their role, interaction and capacities – and to prepare for continuous change. The New Horizons project of the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) seeks to stimulate the debate by generating new ideas and thinking about the transatlantic community’s role in a changing global security environment, recognising that NATO is a key component in today’s international security architecture. New Horizons builds on a recently published pamphlet “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.” 

One only has to look at Afghanistan to see that today’s security challenges stretch the transatlantic community’s capabilities and political cohesion. Without substantive change, the Alliance’s credibility as a constructive player in global security is at stake. It also opens new opportunities for a transformed transatlantic security framework. Yet, the current debate often underestimates the strength and (geo-) political clout the transatlantic community, NATO included, continues to harbor – much of it as of yet untapped. Navigating an uncertain future by identifying  the challenges and opportunities the transatlantic community confronts and finding robust and constructive ways to address them is key to the New Horizons project. 

This project aims to generate truly innovative ideas about the New Horizons NATO could reach in the coming decades. HCSS has designed a broadly inclusive interactive on-line consultation with a variety of ‘constituencies’ (communities) from across the world through the use of new groupware technologies. The on-line system guarantees anonymous collaboration of all participants. These discussions will be analysed and summarised in individual strategic assessments (one per community) and subsequently synthesised in a comprehensive report.
 
BACKGROUND

After the end of the Cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall when its primary antagonist disappeared, NATO was confronted with an existential dilemma. What would be its future role and mission in the new global security environment? The Alliance’s focus shifted to conflict prevention and crisis management operations. In 1999 the Alliance’s new strategic concept provided a framework for the military and political-military policies and actions that NATO member states planned to pursue. At the 2002 NATO Prague summit a plan for transforming the Alliance’s organisation and capabilities was launched. A new strategic command – Allied Command Transformation (ACT) – was set up and the development of a quick-response capability, the NATO Response Force initiated. Four years later, at the Riga Summit, a new political-strategic document, the Comprehensive Planning Guidance (CPG), was adopted to address the challenges of the post-9/11 environment. Its was formulated sufficiently broad to leave the debate over NATO’s overarching purpose unresolved. While the CPG turned NATO’s attention to the future, it did little to help the Alliance prepare for the future. Many questions about NATO’s purpose and planning priorities were left unaddressed.
In the meantime the out-of-area mission in Afghanistan, terrorist attacks on European soil and the aftermath of the transatlantic crisis over the Iraq war, have imposed a reality-check on the Alliance. Similarly, while the NATO Response Force (NRF) became operational, there was substantial disagreement when and where it should be deployed at a time when NATO is struggling to meet its commitments in Afghanistan.

These challenges stem from a fundamental problem—an unclear sense of purpose and strategic direction. Should NATO remain a collective defense Alliance or be transformed into a worldwide security provider? What is the place and purpose for US-European security cooperation in confronting 21st century threats? Is the Alliance’s transformation sufficient to meet the 21st century challenges? What is the future for NATO’s partnerships, including with the EU? Can the US and its allies forge a common vision on the use of strategic power outside Europe? How can a bigger NATO be a better NATO?

THE APPROACH


ONLINE BRAINSTORM AND COLLABORATION
HCSS engages different stakeholder communities in innovative ways to generate new ideas and thinking. Thus, New Horizons to include a number of different groups to participate in structured interactive on-line brainstorming and surveys:

• National Civilian Policy Planners
• National Military Policy Planners
  
• NATO
• Think-Tanks and Thought Leaders
• European Union
• International Organisations
• Non-governmental Organizations
• Industry
  
• University Students
  

The on-line brainstorms and surveys will be conducted in a secure web-based environment where ideas about the future of NATO can be generated. The system will set up to ensure anonymity for all participants while maintaining analytic robustness.
The on-line (groupware) session will proceed in two steps: issue identification and solution generation:

ISSUE IDENTIFICATION
•    Identify the main issues participants think are confronting the NATO Alliance, either obstacles or opportunities and discuss them
•    Interactively (re)cluster these issues. The main issues discussed in the 2007 “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World” will be used as the key ‘baskets’ within which these issues will be organized.
•    Vote on those issues (most likely straightforward voting, although MCA (multi-criteria analysis) might also be an option)
•    Possibly have some iterations of this process (allowing for new issues and new votes, as time goes by)

SOLUTION GENERATION
•    Identify possible solutions on the prioritised issues generated in the issue-generation stage
•    Interactively cluster these issues
•    Vote on them
The results of this process will be summarised in a series of Strategic Surveys as well as in an integrated synthesis report.
 

PARTICIPANTS

In September 2007 a group of senior defense experts from Europe and the United States gathered in Berlin a precursor for the project. Although the composition of this “Transatlantic Strategy Group” will be flexible, participants at the Berlin meeting included Julianne Smith (CSIS, Washington DC), Daniel Hamilton (Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC), Rob de Wijk (HCSS, The Hague), Espen Barth Eide (State Secretary of Defense, Norway), Nora Bensahel and James Dobbins (RAND Corporation, Washington DC), Karl Theodor von und zu Guthenberg (MP, German Bundestag), Tomas Valasek (Centre for European Reform, London), Hans Binnendijk (National Defense University, Washington DC), and Volker Perthes (SWP, Berlin). They will play a role throughout the project lifespan.

TRACK 2
Participants from the following stakeholder communities are invited to participate:

• National Civilian Policy Planners
• National Military Policy Planners
  
• NATO
• Think-Tanks and Thought Leaders
• European Union
• International Organisations
• Non-governmental Organizations
• Industry
  
• University Students

Each community will have a separate online forum at which participants will receive a seat in the form of an access-code. In this collaborative environment participants will generate, prioritise and discuss the key issues confronting the NATO Alliance and possible solutions to it in a structured way. Because the collaboration is a group effort the results will reflect the perspectives of that community instead of the individual participants.


TIMELINE

HCSS will start activities mid- 2008 and will wrap up by late March 2009.

Introductory Video