NATO and Emerging Technologies—The Alliance’s Shifting Approach to Military Innovation

NATO has long taken a top-down approach to upstream military innovation and technology governance––supporting the production of platforms and capabilities to counter specific threats. Yet, traditional partnerships in the military–industrial complex are ill-suited to many contemporary challenges lying at the intersection of technology and great-power competition with Russia and China. Today’s emerging and disruptive technologies are increasingly dual-use and do not always have clear military applications. Embracing the new era of defense innovation will require NATO to innovate itself.