The destabilization of NATO’s neighbourhood since 2011, both in the North Africa and Middle East and in the post-Soviet space, has fuelled a re ection about the nexus between Allies’ security and the stability of their neighbours. At the same time, the boundaries between internal and external security have become more blurred, with the wave of terrorist attacks in European cities linked in various ways to the rise of Islamic State after the collapse of statehood in Syria and Iraq. Such a change in the international security environment has posed the question of what a military alliance such as NATO could do to contribute to project stability beyond its borders. For NATO, stability is a less familiar concept than security, its roots and implications for policy more difficult to grasp. The current Strategic Concept, adopted in 2010, had already broadened the portfolio of security challenges to be dealt by NATO well beyond armed attacks falling under Article 5 commitment: instability close to Alliance’s perimeter, cyber security, terrorism, energy security, received signi cant attention by that document. While there are no common definitions of stability, neither in the academic nor in the policy literature, the recent debate seems to turn away from a focus on promoting democracy or respect of human rights, which dominated in the past decades. Stability is rather discussed as pragmatic and minimalist concept based on security (meant as limited societal and political violence), resilience of social and political institutions which ensure a certain degree of governance, and a level of economic and social development needed to stabilize a speci c country. This way to frame the concept of stability does match a political milieu, in Europe and North America, less keen than in the 1990s and 2000s to undertake ambitious and transformative military intervention in crisis areas, especially after the costly interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. A reflction on how a more limited, realistic and nuanced approach to stability is the subject of this publication.

Projecting stability in an unstable world

Sonia Lucarelli;Francesco N. Moro
2017

Abstract

The destabilization of NATO’s neighbourhood since 2011, both in the North Africa and Middle East and in the post-Soviet space, has fuelled a re ection about the nexus between Allies’ security and the stability of their neighbours. At the same time, the boundaries between internal and external security have become more blurred, with the wave of terrorist attacks in European cities linked in various ways to the rise of Islamic State after the collapse of statehood in Syria and Iraq. Such a change in the international security environment has posed the question of what a military alliance such as NATO could do to contribute to project stability beyond its borders. For NATO, stability is a less familiar concept than security, its roots and implications for policy more difficult to grasp. The current Strategic Concept, adopted in 2010, had already broadened the portfolio of security challenges to be dealt by NATO well beyond armed attacks falling under Article 5 commitment: instability close to Alliance’s perimeter, cyber security, terrorism, energy security, received signi cant attention by that document. While there are no common definitions of stability, neither in the academic nor in the policy literature, the recent debate seems to turn away from a focus on promoting democracy or respect of human rights, which dominated in the past decades. Stability is rather discussed as pragmatic and minimalist concept based on security (meant as limited societal and political violence), resilience of social and political institutions which ensure a certain degree of governance, and a level of economic and social development needed to stabilize a speci c country. This way to frame the concept of stability does match a political milieu, in Europe and North America, less keen than in the 1990s and 2000s to undertake ambitious and transformative military intervention in crisis areas, especially after the costly interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. A reflction on how a more limited, realistic and nuanced approach to stability is the subject of this publication.
2017
66
978-92-845-0210-3
Sonia, Lucarelli; Alessandro, Marrone; Moro, Francesco N.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/619177
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