Establishing collective counter-terrorism defense: NATO’s scope and challenges

It has been 20 years since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first, and so far only, time. While this collective self-defense reaction represented a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, fighting in a war on terror is not something the Alliance was built to do from the outset. Coinciding with Secretary General Stoltenberg’s presentation of the NATO 2030 initiative this year, this article explores how NATO has adapted to the reality of sustained engagement in counter-terrorism operations, a task that in many countries falls within the remit of law enforcement or intelligence agencies, rather than within the military domain.