NATO–EU Strategic Priority: Cyber Defence & Digital Resilience
In recent years, the growing frequency, intensity, and sophistication of malicious cyber activity has transformed the digital domain into a central vector of risk for NATO, the European Union, and allied national governments. Cyber operations conducted by state and non-state actors target not only sensitive government and military networks, but also critical infrastructure systems essential to economic continuity, public safety, and societal stability. These threats manifest across multiple vectors, including ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, supply chain vulnerabilities, espionage campaigns, and hybrid disinformation operations. They affect strategic deterrence, operational readiness, and public trust simultaneously. The war in Ukraine has reinforced the operational relevance of cyber tools, as digital attacks preceded and accompanied kinetic military actions. European allies now recognize that defending the cyber domain is essential not only for securing communications and data integrity, but also for ensuring the survivability of command structures, civilian services, and national decision-making autonomy under pressure. As interdependencies grow between civil and military systems, and as digital transformation accelerates across sectors, cyber defence and digital resilience have become strategic enablers for all other defence functions. This shift demands coordinated institutional action, dedicated capabilities, secure supply chains, and targeted investment in future technologies. It also requires an adaptive policy framework capable of integrating innovation, regulating digital risk, and mobilizing both private and public actors toward common security objectives. Within this context, the protection of the digital domain is now defined not only as a technical challenge, but as a multidimensional strategic task core to collective security in the Euro-Atlantic area.
The report adopts a structured analytical format to assess how cyber defence and digital resilience have emerged as a strategic priority and how this priority is being translated into institutional practice. It begins by examining the political and strategic rationale underlying the elevation of this issue within NATO and EU policy frameworks, considering the nature of the threat landscape and the core motivations driving allied governments’ decisions. It then analyses the operational dimension of the priority, describing how cyber defence requirements are being embedded into military planning, joint exercises, and domain integration, including coordination across civil and military actors. The third section derives specific capability needs from these operational objectives, detailing the technological, procedural, and human resources necessary to meet cyber resilience targets at the tactical level. The fourth part focuses on administrative and regulatory implementation, covering the role of EU programmes, NATO initiatives, and national instruments in funding, procuring, and certifying cyber capabilities and infrastructure. The fifth section identifies key structural bottlenecks and strategic dependencies that constrain effective implementation, including supply chain vulnerabilities, human capital shortages, and regulatory fragmentation. The final section evaluates the implications for the defence-industrial base, technological innovation ecosystems, public and private research institutions, and sources of financial capital, with a particular focus on future investment pathways. The structure is designed to provide a comprehensive assessment that aligns political strategy, operational needs, technical capabilities, and institutional mechanisms into a coherent analysis of allied cyber resilience.