ABSTRACT
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries are far superior to Russia should they muster their combined economic and military resources in a unified effort. NATO credibility depends on a command structure that can lead large joint and multinational forces to defend NATO's territorial integrity, in addition to tasks such as crisis management, cooperative security and maritime security. Since Russia is deploying long-range precision weapons systems, NATO's ability to deploy forces to exposed areas might be seriously restrained. NATO should build on US naval partnership concepts to unlock even greater potential for integration and cooperation among NATO forces. NATO must give priority to high-end collective defence and deterrence in the North Atlantic, but there are other low-end threats that must also be taken seriously. NATO must relearn some of the maritime concepts that dominated the Cold War period, while acknowledging that the present security environment differs greatly from that of the earlier period.
