NATO’S RESPONSE TO COVID-19

 NATO’S RESPONSE TO COVID-19:
LESSONS FOR RESILIENCE AND READINESS
GIOVANNA DE MAIO
OCTOBER 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time in its history NATO had to face an attack
against each of its member states at once. Given the backdrop of political tensions within the alliance
in the past few years, there were not many reasons to be optimistic about NATO’s response, especially
at a moment when trans-Atlantic allies were failing to coordinate on travel restrictions and competing
over supplies of medical equipment. In spite of this, NATO was able to leverage its experience in crisis
management and disaster relief to provide two kinds of responses.
First, NATO focused on ensuring the continuity of its operations while protecting its personnel, to
prevent the health crisis from impacting readiness. Most NATO missions were preserved, but some
encountered temporary suspensions. Military drillings were redesigned, including the U.S.-led NATO
exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20, to prevent further spread of the virus through movement of ground
troops. In addition, NATO’s public diplomacy branch multiplied efforts to counter disinformation from
China and Russia.
Second, amidst a low point for international cooperation, NATO set up a COVID-19 Task Force aimed at
coordinating the delivery of medical aid across and beyond the territory of the alliance. Such actions,
although performed through the means of NATO member states and relatively limited in scope, were
an important testimony of the reactive capability of the alliance and of solidarity between member
states. Yet, it is reasonable to imagine that more could have been done if the organization did not
have to overcome political tensions across the Atlantic, and member states had cooperated from the
beginning under the leadership of NATO’s strongest member.
From this experience NATO could draw important lessons, from improving resilience to external threats
to investing in readiness for catastrophic scenarios like a global pandemic. The fact that COVID-19 will
continue disrupting the global economy and supply chains will have a negative impact on countries’
defense spending and defense industries. However, given the resilience the alliance has shown so
far, COVID-19 will not be the determining factor for the future of NATO. Instead, the chances for NATO
to operate efficiently vis-à-vis growing global challenges will ultimately depend on a relaunch of trans-
Atlantic relations.
2
INTRODUCTION
COVID-19 took the world by surprise: for the
first time in living memory, the entire globe was
under attack. Although the pandemic was quickly
understood to be a global challenge, international
cooperation was initially put under severe stress,
with uncoordinated travel bans, competition over
acquisition of medical equipment, and authoritarian
powers trying to take advantage of the crisis to
push forward their geopolitical agendas. The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was also
impacted by COVID-19: exercises and operations
were scaled down and some countries repatriated
their militaries to redeploy them at home.1
There were initially few reasons to be optimistic
about either the role of the political-military
alliance in supporting the fight against COVID-19
or the future of the organization. Less than a
year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron
had referred to NATO as “brain-dead,” lamenting
the lack of shared strategy between its members
vis-à-vis the most pressing challenges facing the
alliance.2 Furthermore, for the past four years,
U.S. President Donald J. Trump has consistently
undermined the importance of NATO, treating
security as transactional and casting doubts on
U.S. commitment to the Article 5 mutual defense
clause at the heart of the North Atlantic Treaty.3
Despite this backdrop and amidst negative
propaganda from China and Russia, NATO
established a dedicated COVID-19 Task Force.
Leveraging its experience in crisis management
and disaster relief along with its massive logistical
apparatus, the alliance was able to offer a decisive
response through transporting medical aid and
equipment across the globe, fighting against
disinformation, and ultimately preventing the public
health crisis from leading to a traditional security
crisis.
The goal of this essay is to provide a critical
assessment of NATO’s preparedness and response
to COVID-19. By exploring the mechanisms in
place, the support offered, and the measures
taken by NATO to avert a security crisis, it provides
reflections on how lessons learned from this
pandemic could help to manage and prevent similar
future crises. In conclusion, this report argues that
the alliance has proved capable of overcoming
political tensions and has given an important sign
of resilience and solidarity at a crucial moment for
its member states. However, more could have been
done with better preparedness in managing health
risks and most importantly with better political
coordination between member states. Despite the
disruptive effect COVID-19 had on global economy
and international relations, the virus’s impact on
the future of the alliance will be marginal. NATO’s
survival and success in responding to global
challenges will ultimately be contingent on a
relaunch of trans-Atlantic relations.
NATO: GOOD PROPHET, NOT-SO-GOOD
DISCIPLE
In recent years, the debate over how to respond to
natural catastrophes resulting from climate change
has been particularly vibrant, while the scenario of
a global pandemic, with all its spillover effects on
economy and security, has received relatively little
attention. NATO’s 2010 strategic concept was a
somewhat prophetic exception, as it contemplated
“health risks” as a future area of concern for NATO’s
operations:
Key environmental and resource constraints,
including health risks, climate change, water
scarcity and increasing energy needs will further
shape the future security environment in areas
of concern to NATO and have the potential
to significantly affect NATO planning and
operations.4
Despite the warning about such a scenario a
decade ago, the organization did not take sufficient
measures to strengthen its crisis management
apparatus, according to officials and professionals
in international defense. Over the past few years,
the staff of the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response
Coordination Center (EADRCC),5 the alliance’s main
3
mechanism for civil emergency response, along
with the NATO International Staff — which supports
the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the alliance’s top
decision-making body — have been repeatedly cut
as new cyber and geopolitical threats from Russia
and China have become more pressing.6
In addition to it, given the economic advantages
of globalization and delocalization, NATO member
states have underestimated the vulnerability
provoked by the interdependency of supply chains.
For more than a decade, Western dependence
on China has increased7on a number of fronts,
from electronic, manufacturing, and rare earth
elements — essential in the defense sector — to
semiconductors8 and medical material.
When COVID-19 began spreading in Europe in
February 2020, it did not hit all countries at the
same time and with the same intensity, while in the
United States the virus and measures to counter it
became tied up with polarized politics. Thus, NATO
member states did not share the same perception
of the incumbent threat which resulted in a late
realization of the pandemic’s devastating potential.
On March 19, 2020, the very same day that in
Italy, several military convoys were transporting
the caskets of 300 victims of coronavirus out of
the city of Bergamo,9 NATO Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg released the alliance’s annual report.
While the latter typically consists of a standard
review of the activities of NATO and its agencies,
it is surprising that in the forward-looking sections
— “investing in security,” or “modernizing NATO” —
there was no reference to the pandemic, to climate
change, or to strengthening the organization’s
capabilities in disaster relief operations.10
Granted, a military alliance is not necessarily a first
responder to a public health crisis like the coronavirus
pandemic. Yet, COVID-19 had an immediate impact
on the activities and the mission of the alliance
itself. After initial hesitations vis-à-vis putting in
place new arrangements for its personnel,11 and
before any assistance operation could be launched,
NATO’s priority was to ensure that the public health
crisis did not lead to a security crisis.12
RESILIENCE AND DETERRENCE IN THE
COVID ERA
In terms of the operational framework, NATO has
tackled COVID-19 following the protocol defined
for hybrid threats.13 With a strong focus on
preparedness (thanks to analytical work carried
on by Joint Intelligence and Security Division at
NATO Headquarters), the alliance operated in three
main domains to ensure resilience and continuity
in its missions, training and exercises, as well as
deterrence against newer threats to security like
disinformation. Overall, because of the rapidity
of the spread of the virus and the uncertainties
regarding its deadly potential — according to a recent
NATO report14 — military activities including training
and exercises were reduced by 33%, with 80% less
personnel involved.
Missions. NATO missions adjusted to COVID-19
fairly smoothly for the most part. NATO’s enhanced
Forward Presence in the Baltic states was not
reduced in scale. In fact, it was particularly helpful
in delivering medical aid and transporting patients.
Germany, Croatia, and the Netherlands sent
medical personnel in for additional support to the
mission in Lithuania.15 In Kosovo, NATO personnel
provided assistance to the local population and
authorities,16 and the KFOR (Kosovo Force) mission
did not pause. However, some issues arose with the
alliance’s overseas missions and along its southern
flank. In Afghanistan, the NATO-led Resolute Support
Mission, aimed at training and supporting the
Afghan security forces and institutions, transitioned
to online training17 and NATO personnel set up two
field hospitals at Bagram and Kandahar airfields.18
NATO’s training and capacity building mission in
Iraq (NMI)19 was the most impacted by COVID-19.
Having already been suspended due to a worsening
security situation on the ground following the
assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the suspension
was extended in light of COVID-19, with the United
Kingdom repatriating some of its military from
Iraq20 and NATO personnel being temporarily moved
to Kuwait. NATO’s support to the global coalition
against the self-proclaimed Islamic States and
4
Tailored Assurance Measures for Turkey were also
temporarily suspended, along with the alliance’s
assistance to the African Union, where Joint Force
Command Naples personnel was withdrawn from.21
Training and Exercises. To prevent further spread
of COVID-19, some training and exercises activities
had to go through limitations and redesigning. For
example, BALTOPS, a Baltic Sea military exercise
conducted annually since 1972, was this year
strictly restricted to air and maritime assets from 19
countries.22
However, the most significant adjustments consisted
in the reduction and alteration in the scope of the
longtime planned U.S.-led NATO exercise, DEFENDER-
Europe 20. This military drill would have constituted
the largest deployment of U.S.-based forces (20,000
soldiers) to Europe since the end of the Cold War
23 and was designed to test the strategic readiness
of the alliance in moving tens of thousands of
troops across the continent, mostly by land, in the
event of a Russian aggression in the Baltic states
and Eastern Europe. DEFENDER-Europe 20 aimed
to assess the coordination capacity of both NATO
and the European Union in removing any legal and
infrastructure barriers to military mobility,24 which
include border checks on military goods, differences
in European and Baltic rail gauges requiring a switch
in trains, or challenges in the ability of Eastern
Europe roads to support U.S. M1 Abrams tanks.25
After starting as scheduled in early February
2020, by mid-March26 DEFENDER-Europe 20 saw
a significant reduction in size and scope,27due to
health risks connected to the large-scale movements
on the ground. Given the substantial changes in the
nature of the exercise, it is possible to argue that the
alliance failed to fulfill its original purpose of testing
the paramount logistics in military mobility, and in
particular, the ability of U.S. troops to quickly reach
the Baltic states in case of attack. Nonetheless, the
fact that NATO proved capable of redesigning and
holding DEFENDER-Europe 20 and adjusted to the
circumstances sent an important message in favor
of the deterrence credibility of the alliance in Eastern
Europe.
Disinformation. Taking advantage of people’s
appetite for information given the overall uncertainty
surrounding the coronavirus, powers like China and
Russia seized the opportunity to discredit NATO
member states’ management of the pandemic28
and even accuse the alliance itself of spreading the
virus.29
China’s “mask diplomacy”30 mostly sought to
rehabilitate its image and shirk responsibility for
its early lack of transparency on the threats posed
by the virus (including blaming U.S. troops visiting
Wuhan for the Military World Games for infecting
the local population).31 Russian disinformation on
the other hand has directly targeted NATO with
false claims. Some of these include allegations
that secret U.S. or NATO laboratories in Ukraine,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Moldova manufactured
the coronavirus to be used as a biological weapon,
or that NATO would withdraw its battlegroup in
Lithuania for safety reasons.32
To counter disinformation and its disruptive
impact during such tense moments, NATO’s Public
Diplomacy Division (PDD) has been extensively
monitoring and reporting these false claims with
fact checking in cooperation with the EU.33 In
response to Russian actions in particular, the PDD
has set up a webpage, “NATO-Russia: setting the
records straight,” to tackle leitmotifs in Russian
disinformation campaigns around NATO, including
a section dedicated to debunking the “Top Five
Myths.”34
Through these efforts, the alliance overall has
succeeded in ensuring continuity of its operations
and pushing back against malign actors. While
these actions were mostly focused on defense
and operability — in line with the organization’s
traditional mission — NATO also took a proactive role
in providing assistance to members and partners
through a dedicated COVID-19 Task Force.
5
NATO’S FLEXIBLE RESPONSE: THE
COVID-19 TASK FORCE
When COVID-19 hit Europe, most countries in the
trans-Atlantic space turned inwards, protecting
their own medical resources through bans on the
export of medical equipment35 and uncoordinated
border closures36 or travel restrictions, such as the
one to and from the Schengen area established
by Trump.37 These events contributed to spread
a sense of distrust toward international solidarity
even among NATO member states.
Despite Macron’s diagnosis of NATO as brain-
dead, the alliance was able to resort to the muscle
memory of its military and logistical apparatus and
provide a positive response in a moment of deep
crisis. NATO officials set aside politics to focus
on operations, and drew upon the organization’s
exceptional crisis management capabilities, which
rely on close coordination between civil and military
personnel with both civil and military tools.38
On March 25, Stoltenberg activated the Crisis
Management Mechanism to study the progression
of the pandemic and plan a comprehensive
response ranging from coordination transportation
of medical equipment to dispatching NATO military
doctors to countries in need to assist in the
construction of field hospitals.39 Following these
preliminary efforts, in their first virtual meeting on
April 2, NATO foreign ministers authorized NATO’s
strategic planning military headquarters — Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in
Mons, Belgium — to create a dedicated COVID-19
Task Force, headed by Lieutenant General Olivier
Rittimann,40 to operationalize these plans. .
The alliance had no prior experience with a global
pandemic and had never faced a crisis that hit every
member state with the same threat at the same
time. Yet its crisis management and disaster relief
record — from the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) mission to Afghanistan41 to disaster
relief support to support the United States after
Hurricane Katrina42 to the response to the 2010
tsunami in Indonesia43 — was extremely helpful in
quickly adapting NATO’s logistical apparatus to non-
military purposes. In this regard, the COVID-19 Task
Force heavily relied on the Euro-Atlantic Disaster
Response Coordination Center.44 After seeing
their personnel previously reduced to just three
staff members, the EADRCC was supplemented
by units from across NATO and other international
organizations to reach a staff of 30.45
As of July 2020,46 the EADRCC has functioned as
clearinghouse to coordinate assistance requests
and offers from seven allied and nine partner
nations, as well as from the United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UN OCHA). Examples include Germany sending
ventilators to Spain; Spain sending facemasks
to Iran; the United Kingdom transporting a field
hospital for the World Food Program (WFP) from
Britain to Accra, Ghana; Italy receiving help from
Albania, the United States,47 and Turkey (among
others); and Norway donating a field hospital to
North Macedonia.
Beyond efficiently pairing supply and demand for
medical aid, NATO’s added value in the response to
this crisis also relies on the ability to offer efficient
logistical solutions at a shared transportation
cost. To coordinate logistics, SHAPE relied on
NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA),
which since 1958 has managed procurement for
airfield logistics and transport of weapon systems
and medical services across the world.48 During
the COVID-19 crisis, the NSPA organized rapid
cost-effective deliveries of protective medical
equipment, like in the case of Luxembourg that
received field hospital tents in less than 24 hours,49
through NATO’s airlift capabilities. In this respect
and in connection with NSPA, NATO’s initiatives
such as the Strategic Airlift International Solution
(SALIS) and the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC),
established in 2003 and 2009 respectively,50
have been vital to the prompt delivery of medical
aid, given their roots in a durable and reliable link
between the alliance and the private sector.
6
SALIS consists of a consortium of nine NATO allies
(Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany,
Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia).
It has assured access to up to five special mission-
ready aircrafts from the German company Antonov
Logistics — two of which, the AN-124-100, can carry
up to 120 tons of cargo. Building on experience
with Antonov aircrafts to transport aid to Pakistan
following the 2005 earthquake and in the airlifting
of the African Union peacekeepers in and out of
Darfur, countries like Poland, Czech Republic,
and Slovakia used SALIS to import urgent medical
equipment like facemasks, surgical gloves and
protective suits during the COVID-19 pandemic.51
Similar to SALIS, the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC)
initiative allows partners to share flying hours and
costs. SAC involves 10 NATO members (Bulgaria,
Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and the United
States) and two close NATO partners (Finland and
Sweden). SAC consists in joint ownership of three
C-17 Globemaster heavy cargo aircrafts operated
by the Heavy Airlift Wing (HAW) based in Hungary
and staffed with personnel from all participating
nations. Established in 2009, SAC has supported
several operations, including the Unified Protector
in Libya and humanitarian relief in Haiti. During
the COVID-19 response, the SAC initiative allowed
Romania52 and Bulgaria53 to quickly receive several
tons of medical supplies.
Cooperation with multilateral organizations such as
the European Union, the World Health Organization
(WHO), and the United Nations also facilitated the
achievement of NATO deliverables. NATO’s Rapid
Air Mobility initiative, for instance, in cooperation
with EUROCONTROL (intergovernmental agency
for coordination of air traffic), allowed simplified
procedures for military relief flights. Conversely,
the EU also resorted to NATO logistics apparatus to
deliver aid between and even beyond EU countries.
Romania, for example, sent a 17-strong medical
team to Italy through the European Civil Protection
Mechanism in coordination with NATO’s EADRCC.54
In addition to it, NATO and EU cooperated through
sharing information in regular briefing on joint
procurement between the EADRCC and the EU’s
Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC)
and between the NATO COVID-19 Task Force and the
one created by the EU’s European External Action
Service (EEAS).55 Another area of cooperation was
medical resilience, where NATO and EU could count
on the experience of two initiatives inaugurated
in 2018, the Multinational Medical Coordination
Center (MMCC) and European Medical Command
(EMC), with the goal of increasing readiness in
medical capabilities through cooperation between
military medical services and civilian health system
of member states.56
A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF THE
TASK FORCE
With the pandemic ongoing, it is still too early to
issue a definitive assessment of NATO’s COVID-19
Task Force. In addition, it is hard to quantify NATO’s
contribution in terms of medical aid or to give a
precise estimate of which countries received or
have given the most, as there is no comprehensive
database where aid is measured in a uniform
fashion (some reports offer numerical quantities
of equipment disbursed, others list weight, and still
others list monetary amounts). Yet, some preliminary
conclusions and macro-level analysis can be drawn
from the EADRCC situation reports,57 the European
Council on Foreign Relations’ “European Solidarity
Tracker,”58 and from interviews with officials from
several NATO member states.
A first positive outcome of NATO’s COVID-19 Task
Force was the rapidity and the cost-effectiveness
in the delivery of medical aid compared to the aid
some NATO member states received from countries
outside the alliance (such as China, but also Brazil,
Cuba, and Egypt). This was made possible thanks
to the alliance’s experience in disaster relief, the
coordination operated by EADRCC, the easy access
to military heavy cargo planes thanks to the NSPA
procurement agencies,59 which also reduced
market competition between states over medical
supplies. However, it is important to specify that
7
as a military alliance, NATO personnel and means,
such as cargo aircrafts, come directly from the
resources allocated by its member states, and the
medical aid exchanged is ultimately the product of
bilateral arrangements performed under the NATO
umbrella through the help of the EADRCC.
When quantified — with the caveats mentioned
above — the impact of the NATO’s contribution in
terms of aid delivery on its hardest-hit member
states was quite modest. The cases of Italy and
Spain, the first two in Europe countries to face a
COVID-19 emergency, offer a good example. Data
from the European Solidarity Tracker and the
EADRCC situation reports shows that of 48 actions
of solidarity to Italy, seven (15%) were coordinated
by NATO (all via EADRCC), compared to 13 (27%)
from China. The number of masks that Beijing sent
to Italy, around 3.5 million, surpassed the quantities
received by Italy from both NATO-coordinated
actions (roughly 330,000) and bilateral actions
from EU member states not via NATO (2.85 million
masks) combined. Similarly, Spain received 24
actions of solidarity, six of which (25%) were made
via NATO (five via EADRCC and one through the
NATO Logistics Stock Exchange) and nine (38%) by
China, which sent 2.4 million masks compared to
30,000 through NATO and roughly 90,000 from EU
member states.
NATO support operations may not have reached
the volume or the awareness in the general public
compared to Chinese aid (although it is important
to point out that some of the medical equipment
including masks coming from Beijing turned out to be
below standard or defective, and most importantly
took the form of regular purchases rather than
donations).60 Furthermore, as NATO COVID-19
Task Force head Olivier Rittimann highlighted in an
essay, most member states did not acknowledge
NATO’s efforts in their media, preferring instead to
present exchanges of aid as bilateral actions.61 Yet
the fact that the alliance was able to show solidarity
at a moment of severely depressed international
cooperation was perhaps the most important
achievement of its COVID-19 Task Force.
As the virus hit Europe, the EU’s Civil Protection
Mechanism appeared deficient: it was lacking
contributions from member states and several EU
members imposed exports ban on supplies for
medical equipment,62 which naturally determined
a delay in cooperation with NATO. The fact that
the EEAS created a special task force in support
of national armed forces in the fight of COVID-19
and promoting information sharing raised some
concerns around potential duplication with NATO’s
task force,63 and could speak to the fact that
both organizations wanted to play a primary role
in the fights against the pandemic and Chinese
and Russian disinformation. While the European
deadlock did not last very long and cooperation
was achieved, it is remarkable that NATO was
able to intervene during political hard times for
its member states and leverage the alliance’s
expertise in disaster relief support. In spite of
Trump’s distrust and undermining of the alliance,
even the United States resorted to NATO to send
medical equipment to several countries, including
members Italy, Montenegro, Albania, and North
Macedonia, as well as Georgia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Moldova.
Indeed, NATO’s wide reach in delivering aid and
help — not just to its member states but also to the
areas of NATO operations and countries outside
the alliance’s network — is an important sign of its
reliability and soft power.
LESSONS LEARNED
A military alliance such as NATO is not a first
responder in a health crisis, as most tasks must be
implemented at the domestic level. However, given
the impact and the spillover effects of COVID-19
on the very day-to-day operations of the alliance —
military personnel are not immune from viruses —
as well as on supply chains, and economies and
societies around the world, it was paramount for
NATO to take initiative both to protect its member
states against malign actors and to offer crucial
support in the spirit of solidarity.
8
In spite of these successful initiatives, the Operations
Division of NATO headquarters in Brussels has
admitted64 that the alliance was ill-prepared to
handle such a crisis. As Rittimann noted, the alliance
lacked its own means and political bandwidth to
do more.65 For this reason, NATO and its member
states should not miss the opportunity that the
COVID-19 crisis offers to set up more structured
plans to ensure readiness in crisis management.
In particular, they should expand the concept of
security to include the most pressing non-military
global security threats: climate change, health risks,
and social resilience against disinformation.
So far, NATO has set up a Lessons Learned Steering
Group (LLSG)66 on COVID-19, which collects inputs
by agencies, divisions, and delegations to help the
alliance design a strategy for both future waves
of this coronavirus and for future pandemics.
Stemming from the inputs of the LLSG and from the
reflections of officials interviewed for this paper, the
following recommendations to the alliance focus on
resilience and readiness in crisis management.
● Resilience: NATO must remain vigilant
against malign exploitation of crises. Under
whatever circumstances may arise, the
Atlantic alliance should not shift its focus
away from its main objectives of pushing back
against adversaries through deterrence and
response-readiness.67
○ NATO should have a protocol to follow in
case of crises like pandemics to ensure
continuity of operations. So far, the alliance
has shown impressive adaptability and
was able to keep its missions running and
continue with training and exercises, even
if at a reduced level. However, military
activities have been reduced by 33% with
80% fewer personnel participating,68 and
the climate of uncertainty surrounding the
impact of COVID-19 on NATO missions,
training, and exercises could have left gaps
for malign actors to exploit, especially in
more fragile settings like in Iraq. To prevent
future pandemics or similar events from
eroding NATO’s readiness capabilities, it
is paramount to develop structured plans
and protocols that would allow timely
adaptation, personnel protection, and
resilience against external threats. To
further protect core combat capabilities,
it would be necessary for NATO personnel
employed in quick-response units to receive
early access to vaccines; the alliance should
also be prepared with contact-tracing
capabilities to identify outbreaks quickly.69
○ NATO
should
increase
its
counter-
disinformation efforts and protect its
member states against malign actors
exploiting
crises
to
promote
their
geopolitical
and
economic
interests.
Although disinformation has been included
among the list of threats to NATO since the
2014 summit in Wales, the alliance has not
established a special agency or team to
focus on countering disinformation. During
COVID-19, when NATO member states were
targeted by Chinese “mask diplomacy”
and Russia’s claims about the inability of
Western countries to deal with COVID-19,
the organization resorted to its Public
Diplomacy Division — in cooperation with
the European Union’s East Stratcom Task
Force70 — to increase its public profile and
debunk Chinese and Russian fake news.
However, this is not yet enough to counter
the volume and reach of such propaganda,
which requires real-time investigation and
fact-checking and outreach to the audience
that has been targeted by disinformation,
with the possibility of providing training
for soldiers and commanders to react to
information warfare.71 For this reason,
the alliance should consider setting up a
dedicated team and establish a framework
of coordination with the East Stratcom Task
Force to broaden the scope of counter-
disinformation efforts and take more
targeted actions to strengthen societal
resilience across member states.
9
● Readiness: NATO must further enhance its
crisis management toolkit. The core lesson
COVID-19 taught NATO concerned crisis
management capabilities and culture. The
alliance adjusted fairly quickly and made
an incredibly efficient use of its logistical
apparatus; yet, more can be done to enhance
NATO readiness to face challenges of this
nature.
○ Strengthen the Euro-Atlantic Disaster
Relief Coordination Center. As mentioned,
over the past few years, the EADRCC staff
had been reduced to three people; as
COVID-19 hit Europe, NATO was forced to
rapidly reallocate military personnel from
other departments to support the work
of NATO’s clearinghouse for aid requests
and delivery. At a time when the impact
of global challenges can no longer be
ignored, NATO should invest in and expand
the EADRCC’s capacity and scope to
increase preparedness in preparation for
subsequent COVID-19 waves and other
future catastrophic events. Along with the
EADRCC, the alliance should enhance the
flexibility in the NSPA procurement process
in order to speed up access to cost-effective
airlifting as well as to the procurement of
medical equipment. Beyond overseeing
the transportation supplies and medical
assistance, the EADRCC could also play
a role in coordinating NATO’s support to
national armed forces in member states,
in the event that such forces experience
significant losses.
○ Increase
knowledge,
prediction
capabilities, and awareness. Building
on existing analytical platforms and
programs72
and
intelligence
sharing
between allied nations, NATO should
increase its understanding and awareness
of how global challenges and threats
such as pandemics can affect NATO
operations and personnel and increase
preparation of tailored contingency plans
for suitable responses. Some of these
actions may include several aspects of the
alliance’s activities, from decisionmaking
to technological potential and research
through its own laboratory (the Center for
Maritime Research and Experimentation
located in La Spezia, Italy) and its Science
for Peace and Security (SPS) Program.73
Given NATO’s renewed sensitivity to
biological risks, intelligence sharing could
be crucial to elaborate plans for countering
new threats such as bioterrorism.74
○ Coordination with the European Union.
NATO’s logistical apparatus was crucial
in delivering aid when the EU’s Civil
Protection Mechanism was under stress,
and after initial hesitation, in coordination
with the EU mechanism. Moving forward,
in the words of Malcom Chalmers, deputy
director-general of Britain’s Royal United
Services Institute (RUSI), the EU-NATO
relationship will be crucial “if the West
is to survive as a coherent entity.”75
Given that many NATO countries are also
EU member states, all that applies to
logistics, transportations, and purchases
falls under the regulatory umbrella of the
European Union. For this reason, a more
established framework of cooperation
between NATO and the EU will be crucial
to ensure a smoother application of crisis
protocols and ease the transportation of
essential items within alliance territory,
similarly to what was envisaged to ensure
military mobility for the DEFENDER-Europe
20 drilling. In particular, the EU and NATO
should also collaborate to establish
permanent stockpiles76 and reduce the
alliance’s dependence from global supply
chain for crucial medical material, but also
to develop cost-effective strategies for the
production and distribution of a COVID-19
vaccine. Such coordination should also
remain wary of duplicating efforts — as in
10
the case of the NATO pandemic relief trust
fund,77 which risks creating overlapping
with the Civil Protection Mechanism for the
accumulation of medical supplies.
WHAT COVID-19 MEANS FOR THE
FUTURE OF THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE
COVID-19 has been a systemic wake-up call,
exposing vulnerabilities in health, international
cooperation, and the global economy. NATO showed
reliability and solidarity under the initiative of its
civil and military personnel amid COVID-19. Yet, one
could only imagine how easier and more efficient
NATO’s response would have been if the alliance
did not have to overcome tense political issues
between member states and if NATO’s stronger
member, the United States, had adopted a more
cooperative approach78 to the virus response both
internationally and domestically, similarly to what
had been done for Ebola in 2014.79 This could
not only have helped the NATO Public Diplomacy
Division’s outreach in pushing back against
disinformation, but also used the resources of
the organization — constantly targeted in Trump’s
complaints because of its financial burden — to
share costs and responsibilities and ultimately
reassure partners and markets.
Instead, from a political perspective, the global
pandemic revealed that American leadership can
no longer be taken for granted.80 Trump not only
denied the gravity of the virus, but also imposed
travel bans without coordinating with European
allies, abdicated leadership of the G-7 which the
United States was chairing,81 withdrew from the
World Health Organization,82 and refused to join
international efforts to produce a vaccine.83 This
behavior will leave significant scars in the trans-
Atlantic partnership, of which NATO is the main pillar,
and has pushed Europeans to talk more concretely
about increasing their own defense capabilities.84
In spite of its respectable performance during
COVID-19, one might be tempted to argue that
there is not a lot to be optimistic about when it
comes to NATO’s future, given widespread fatigue
with multilateralism, political tensions within and
between member states, and a global economic
recession.
With GDP plummeting worldwide, policymakers
and public opinion may be reluctant to support an
increase in defense spending. Because of shrinking
economies, the 2% of GDP commitment for NATO
members will, ironically, be easier to achieve, in the
very short term. However, once GDP recovers to earlier
levels there may be significant downward pressure
on defense budgets throughout the alliance. Yet, in
the short to medium term it is reasonable to worry
about defense sector supply chains and how this will
impact NATO’s fighting capabilities.85 It is therefore
of paramount importance that the alliance rethink
the defense spending requirement, adapting it to
new technological challenges which entail not only
more cost-effective options but also a broader
concept of security that encompasses protection
of supply chains, infrastructure, and humanitarian
operations.
Although disruptive, COVID-19 will not be the
main factor that influences the future of NATO,
which has survived sharper political divergences
between its members in the past, like on the U.S.-
led Iraq War in 2003. With major challenges ahead,
including nuclear deterrence, Chinese and Russian
geopolitical ambitions, terrorism, and increased
migration flows, it is critical for NATO allies to
build a common vision. As Stoltenberg recently
remarked,86 the alliance needs to become “more
global,” and to do so it is paramount for the U.S.
and Europe to develop a common stance towards
China, increase efforts to fight terrorism, and make
defense more sustainable in the future. While the
COVID-19 crisis will hopefully be overcome with a
vaccine and NATO will benefit from this experience
to increase its resilience towards future challenges,
the future of the alliance itself depends on the trust
between the allies. In this regard, the outcome of
the U.S. election will have a major impact on the
alliance itself and on its focus, and will determine
either a relaunch of the trans-Atlantic cooperation
11
on strategic infrastructure, environmental security,
and deterrence against outside powers, or an
historical retrenchment occurs that leaves it up to
Europeans to take the lead in one way or another.
12
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14
30 Alicia Chen and Vanessa Molter, “Mask Diplomacy: Chinese Narratives in the COVID Era,” Freeman
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31 Lisa Winter, “Chinese Officials Blame US Army for Coronavirus,” The Scientist, March 13, 2020,
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int/cps/en/natohq/topics_117757.htm
15
45 Documents extracted from unclassified material from NATO’s Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned
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ATA(2020)651955.
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57 See Annex to this paper for a list of the completed requests for assistance organized per country.
58 Claire Busse, Ulrike Esther Franke, Rafael Loss, Jana Puglierin, Marlene Riedel, Pawel Zerka,
“European solidarity tracker,” European Council on Foreign Relations, June 2020, https://www.ecfr.eu/
solidaritytracker.
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International Affairs in Rome, Italy, September 9, 2020.
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16
62 Maurizio Massari, “Italian ambassador to the EU: Italy needs Europe’s help,” Politico, March 10, 2020,
https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-italy-needs-europe-help/.
63 Alexandra Brzozowski, “European military task force to fight COVID-19,” Euractiv, April16, 2020,
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covid-19/.
64 Documents extracted from unclassified material from JALLC, obtained through correspondence
with Vlasta Zekulic, “Plans and Operational Preparedness at Operations Division,” NATO Headquarters,
September 8, 2020.
65 Olivier Rittimann, “NATO and the COVID-19 emergency: actions and lessons.”
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Foundation, May 5, 2020), https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/natos-role-pandemic-response.
68 Documents extracted from unclassified material from JALLC, obtained through correspondence
with Vlasta Zekulic, Plans and Operational Preparedness at Operations Division, NATO Headquarters,
September 8, 2020.
69 My Brookings colleagues John R. Allen and Michael E. O’Hanlon, with co-authors, made similar
recommendations for police forces in times of pandemic. See John R. Allen, John Donohue, Rick Fuentes,
Paul Goldenberg, and Michael E. O’Hanlon, “The military, policing, and COVID-19,” (Washington, DC:
The Brookings Institution, April 2020), https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-military-policing-and-
covid-19/.
70 East Stratcom Task Force is an EEAS initiative that focuses on countering disinformation and
highlighting EU activities in Eastern Europe. See “EUvsDisinfo,” EUvsDisinfo, https://euvsdisinfo.eu/.
71 Marta Kepe, “NATO: Prepared for Countering Disinformation Operations in the Baltic States?”
RAND Corporation, June 7, 2017, https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/06/nato-prepared-for-countering-
disinformation-operations.html.
72 “Science for Peace and Security Programme,” NATO, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/
topics_85373.htm.
73 Through this program, for example, in May 2020 scientists from Italy and Switzerland started working
on developing rapid diagnosis tools for COVID-19, while in Morocco and Tunisia, scientists are working on
developing mobile analytical laboratories to include the COVID-19 agent. “Fighting COVID-19 with science,”
NATO, September 7, 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_177729.htm?selectedLocale=en.
74 Ion A. Iftimie, “The implications of COVID-19 for NATO’s counter-bioterrorism,” in “COVID-19: NATO in
the Age of Pandemics,” ed. Thierry Tardy, (Rome: NATO Defence College, May 1, 2020), https://www.jstor.
org/stable/resrep25148.12.
75 John Andreas Olsen, “Future NATO: Adapting to new realities,” (London: Royal United Services Institute,
April 4, 2020), https://rusi.org/publication/whitehall-papers/future-nato-adapting-new-realities,
17
76 In this regard, some progress has already been made with the United States donating ventilators
to NSPA stockpile in Taranto, Italy as a preemptive measure against another wave of COVID-19, see:
“COVID-19 response: United States delivers ventilators for NATO stockpile,” NATO, September 18, 2020,
https://www.nspa.nato.int/news/2020/covid19-response-united-states-delivers-ventilators-for-nato-
stockpile.
77 “NSPA response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” NATO, https://www.nspa.nato.int/covid19.
78 Ed Yong, “How a Pandemic Might Play Out Under Trump,” The Atlantic, December 20, 2016, https://
www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/outbreaks-trump-disease-epidemic-ebola/511127/.
79 “The Administration’s response to Ebola,” The White House, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/
ebola-response.
80 James Goldgeier and Bruce W. Jentleson, “The United States Is Not Entitled to Lead the World,”
Foreign Affairs, September 25, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2020-09-25/united-
states-not-entitled-lead-world.
81 John Hudson and Souad Mekhennet, “G-7 failed to agree on statement after U.S. insisted on
calling coronavirus outbreak ‘Wuhan virus,’” The Washington Post, March 25, 2020, https://www.
washingtonpost.com/national-security/g-7-failed-to-agree-on-statement-after-us-insisted-on-calling-
coronavirus-outbreak-wuhan-virus/2020/03/25/f2bc7a02-6ed3-11ea-96a0-df4c5d9284af_story.html.
82 Donald G. McNeil Jr., “Trump Administration Will Redirect $62 Million Owed to the W.H.O.,” The New
York Times, September 2, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/health/trump-world-health-
organization-funding-coronavirus.html.
83 Lauren Aratani, “US refuses to join international effort to develop Covid-19 vaccine,” The Guardian,
September 1, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/us-covid-19-vaccine-refuses-
international-effort-coronavirus.
84 Raluca Csernatoni, “EU Security and Defense Challenges: Toward a European Defense Winter?”
Carnegie Europe, June 11, 2020, https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/06/11/eu-security-and-defense-
challenges-toward-european-defense-winter-pub-82032.
85 Vincenzo Camporini and Michele Nones, “Covid-19 e (in)sicurezza internazionale” [COVID-19 and
international (in)security], Affarinternazionali, April 4, 2020, https://www.affarinternazionali.it/2020/04/
covid-19-e-insicurezza-internazionale/.
86 Jens Stoltenberg, “The Geopolitical Implications of COVID-19,” (speech, Brussels/Hamburg, June 30,
2020), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_176983.htm.
18
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Giovanna De Maio is a visiting fellow at George Washington University, and a nonresident fellow and former
visiting fellow at the Center for the United States and Europe (CUSE) at the Brookings Institution. She
analyzes Italian domestic and foreign policy in its relations with the European Union and great powers, along
with the impact of populism and nationalism on foreign policy. Prior to joining Brookings, she held positions
as transatlantic post-doctoral fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) in Paris and at the
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Washington, DC. De Maio holds a Ph.D. in international
relations from the University of Naples, L’Orientale.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank Thomas Wright and Natalie Britton for trusting her with this research supported
by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, as well as her colleagues Constanze Stelzenmüller, for connecting her
with key relevant scholars and professionals in international security, and Agneska Bloch, who offered
outstanding research assistance and put together the annex to the paper summarizing aid deliveries
operated under the NATO umbrella. Sarah Chilton and Gibbs Mckinley provided background research. The
author is particularly grateful to the following professionals who offered advice, comments, and feedback:
Stefanie Babst, Olivier Rémy Bel, Catherine Flumiani, Stefan Kowitz, Fabio Liberti, Alessandro Marrone,
Pierre Morcos, Alice Pannier, Paola Sartori, Ambassador Francesco Maria Talò, and Vlasta Zekulic. Ted
Reinert edited this paper, and Rachel Slattery provided layout.
This policy brief was made possible by support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. The views expressed
in this report are those of its author and do not represent the views of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, its
officers, or employees.
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy
solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to
provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and
recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the
views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars.