NATO efforts to identify non-traditional threats maturing, officials say

NATO efforts to identify non-traditional threats to the allies' home territory and populations is placing the focus of efforts to the protection of critical infrastructure systems, harbours, and maritime trade and energy supply lines, say NATO policy planners.

"NATO moves 90% of its own material by sea, thus the safety and security surrounding this alone is very much on our agenda," Jamie Shea, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, stated on 10 December.

"We need to move away from idea that NATO can only act in reaction to something, or that a threat must come from a state-actor or beyond our borders. Future threats will be more likely to come from non-military threats than from traditional military ones," he said.

The range of non-traditional threats to NATO - and society in general - is long and getting longer, various experts have stated. These range from cyber-sabotage to climate-change related disasters to attacks on energy infrastructure on land and at sea.

Jennifer Giroux, senior security researcher at Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, has pointed to the rising global risks of attack against energy infrastructure of the last 20 years.