Strategizing NATO’s Narratives

Abstract

NATO has within the last two decades been involved in a series of operations from the Balkans over Afghanistan to Libya and out of the Horn of Africa. In each instance NATO has had difficulties communicating the “why and how,” resulting in challenges when it comes to the achievement of strategic objectives and the balancing of other actors’ “storytelling,” or narratives, about the alliance’s actions. Some of these challenges, it is argued, stem from a lack of ability to formulate a common and coherent strategic narrative as a part of NATO’s strategies to deal with these crisis response operations. This is partly due to the fact that 28 nations have to come to a common understanding and agreement on the strategic narrative and also because there has been no formal process behind its creation—it has not been strategized. But is it at all possible to create a common understanding of the “why and how” in a multinational setting as NATO? It will be this contribution’s claim that it is—if the process is based on a number of critical strategic variables, or as it has been put: “Iraq and Afghanistan point to the need for strategic planning focusing on a few key variables before political commitments and horse trading takes over”(italics added).¹