NATO’s Little Noticed but Important New Aggressive Stance on Cyber Weapons

Not many people noticed it, but last month, NATO made a dramatic change in its cyber policy announced by the NATO Secretary General that arguably was the alliance’s biggest overall policy shift in decades. Having led the policy discussions in several NATO committees for the past four years on the use of cyber capabilities and cyber weapons, I can tell you this was the most hotly debated and contentious decision during my tenure at NATO.

In short, NATO embraced the use of cyber weaponry in NATO operations. This is a marked departure from NATO’s historical stance of using cyber only defensively, mainly to ward off incursions against its own networks. The more aggressive approach was intended as a strong message, primarily to Russia, that NATO intends to use the cyber capabilities of its members to deter attacks in the same way it uses land, sea, and air weaponry.