1. The alliance is evolving: it is a comprehensive security provider that must consider a range of threats to its member states. These threats, which include energy security, are widely accepted as threats by both the international and national policy making and academic communities – yet there is a reluctance among many to accept a role for NATO in addressing them.
2. The proposed agenda for a NATO role in energy security is widely misunderstood and subject to considerable speculation, almost entirely negative. Too often, such a role is oversimplified and understood to be an either/or response – either the EU or NATO should deal with energy security. Too often NATO involvement is considered a simple military response – “boots on the ground”. And too often such speculation, driven by uncertainty about the alliance’s actual intentions, is exacerbated by an advanced but unrealistic agenda. Yes, it is important to have a strategic horizon, even a provocation to discuss, but such an agenda should not wholly overshadow the nature of the current agenda. Such signals are all important, given that they create the international context in which the alliance works.
3. The alliance has encountered the same difficulties as other organizations, national and international, in discussing energy security. In defining its role in energy security, the alliance faces two parallel debates centering on the definition of the term “disruption”. For NATO, given the nature of its enlarged composition and consensus nature of its decision-making – and thus the definition of its role, this is key. Understanding the different definitions of the word is central to grasping both the two roots of energy discussions in NATO and the difficulties of achieving consensus on a NATO role; it is central to understanding the tension between whether the alliance seeks a wider thematic and constructive role or the more focused, regional, and potentially confrontational role.