We, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance, stand united in our resolve to maintain and further develop our individual and collective capacity to resist any form of armed attack. In this context, we are today making a commitment to continue to enhance our resilience against the full spectrum of threats, including hybrid threats, from any direction. Resilience is an essential basis for credible deterrence and defence and effective fulfilment of the Alliance’s core tasks.
Our commitment is rooted in the North Atlantic Treaty. It is based on the indivisibility of our security and underpins our solidarity andour commitment to defend one another.
We now face a broader and evolving range of military and non-military security challenges, which is the context for the Alliance’s long term adaptation. Being resilient against these challenges requires Allies to maintain and protect critical civilian capabilities, alongside and in support of military capabilities, and to work across the whole of government and with the private sector. It also requires the Alliance to continue to engage, as appropriate, with international bodies, particularly the European Union, and with partners.
To complement and enable our military capabilities, we will continue to improve civil preparedness. Noting that civil preparedness is above all a national responsibility, we will strive to achieve the agreed requirements for national resilience. We will protect our populations and territory by strengthening continuity of government, continuity of essential services and security of critical civilian infrastructure; and we will work to ensure that our national and NATO military forces can at all times be adequately supported with civilian resources, including energy, transportation, and communications. This will include NATO support to assess and, upon request, facilitate national progress.
We will also continue to prepare for, deter and defend against attacks that employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material.
We will enhance resilience by continuing to invest in robust,flexible, and interoperable military capabilities in accordance with NATO’s Level of Ambition and in line with our pledge on defence investment made at our Summit in Wales. We will protect our military supply chains and are working to address, as appropriate, existing dependencies on Russian-sourced legacy military equipment through national efforts and multinational cooperation.
We will also strengthen and enhance, as a matter of priority, the protection of our national infrastructure and networks against the increasing threat and sophistication of cyber-attack. In this context, we have today made a Cyber Defence Pledge to ensure that the Alliance keeps pace with the fast evolving cyber threat landscape.
The actions and commitments by individual Allies in other international bodies, such as the European Union, will also contribute to enhancing resilience and we commit to appropriate engagement between NATO and such bodies, as highlighted in the joint declaration issued today by the NATO Secretary General, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission. In addition, we will continue to support our partners in addressing vulnerabilities in their countries to make our neighbourhood and the Alliance more secure.
The foundation of our resilience lies in our shared commitment to the principles of individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. By taking the necessary steps today to enhance our resilience, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to defend our populations and our territory against any threat, and to uphold these values.
