A cyber attack on a NATO member state can potentially trigger an Article 5 collective response, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, said on March 25.
“Cyber is now a central part of virtually all crises and conflicts. NATO has made it clear that cyber-attacks can potentially trigger an Article 5 response. We need to detect and counter cyber-attacks early; improve our resilience; and be able to recover quickly,” Stoltenberg said in an opening keynote speech at the NATO Transformation Seminar in Washington, D.C.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing NATO, says that the alliance members agree that an armed attack on one or more of them shall be considered an attack against them all and that they are to assist the attacked parties through actions deemed necessary, including the use of armed force.
Referencing a previous summit in Wales, United Kingdom, Stoltenberg highlighted that “one of several important decisions we made in Wales was that we declared that a cyber-attack can also trigger collected defence, article five response. And that is the very clear message that we provide, is that a cyber-attack can be as serious as a more conventional attack.”
He also emphasized a more active cyber policy should be a focus of the organization leading up to the next NATO summit, planned for Warsaw, Poland in 2016.
Stoltenberg highlighted that the alliance needs to both deter and defend against hybrid attacks, including cyber.
“Cyber is extremely important as part of the strategy which we are developing against hybrid warfare.”
NATO not only needs to further develop its cyber capabilities but it also neesds to exercise more. “And I visited the largest exercise we have ever had in NATO on cyber some weeks ago and, or some months ago, just before Christmas, and that’s also part of the responsibilities of Allied Command Transformation, to develop and to, and to do exercises which we need to be able to also face the threats we are facing in cyber,” Stoltenberg said in a press conference following his speech.
Stoltenberg first stated that a cyber threat could trigger an Article 5 response on the week of March 16.
In response to a panel question asking if a “disabling” cyber attack could trigger an Article 5 request, he said “So the basic message is that NATO is ready to defend all allies against any threat and that one…that an attack on one ally is an attack on all 28. Then we see that the world is changing and therefore, for instance, we are addressing both hybrid, as I mentioned, but also cyber-threats.”
“Any attack on any ally is something that we are responding to, because are defending all allies against any kind of attack. And then of course we will address any kind of attack,” Stoltenberg said at the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels Forum on March 20.