Evolving threats and emerging capabilities

Creating strategies to harness emerging and disruptive technologies to maintain NATO’s competitive advantage and cohering a transatlantic approach to hybrid threats.

About

The Transatlantic Security Initiative carries out programming and cutting edge research to:

  • Understand how technological changes will shape the battlefield of the future
  • Ensure the NATO Alliance and transatlantic community are positioned to seize the benefits of emerging technologies, including in cyber, space, quantum, and AI
  • Support long-term resilience across transatlantic governments and societies
  • Adapt to the long-term challenges posed by climate change and migration
  • Build a network of future transatlantic leaders

Stay Connected

Featured highlights

Public Event Thu, December 4, 2025 • 2:00 pm ET

General Aurelio Colagrande on preparing NATO for the challenges of tomorrow

The deputy supreme allied commander transformation talks about shaping the Alliance’s future through foresight and innovation.
Defense Policy National Security NATO United States and Canada

Analysis

Evolving threats and emerging capabilities

Issue Brief Jul 1, 2026

When innovation becomes security: Finland’s innovation ecosystem in transition

By Satu Vasamo-Koskinen

Geopolitical tensions are reshaping innovation ecosystems, with dual-use technologies increasingly linking economic competitiveness and security. In Finland, NATO membership has accelerated this shift, creating new opportunities for innovators to engage with NATO DIANA and contribute to allied defense innovation.
Europe & Eurasia NATO
Evolving threats and emerging capabilities

Report Mar 30, 2026

How NATO can integrate AI to prevail in future algorithmic warfare

By Dominika Kunertova

NATO’s competitive edge in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies will come from treating AI as a general-purpose enabler embedded across the Alliance’s digital backbone. Military AI does not generate new risks but creates more room for human error and miscalculation. Accidents and inadvertent escalation thus become more likely as military systems bring in more AI components.
Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity
Evolving threats and emerging capabilities

Issue Brief Feb 4, 2026

Sweden’s role in countering hybrid threats in the Baltic Sea region

By Justina Budginaite-Froehly

The accession of Sweden to NATO brought the majority of the Baltic Sea under alliance control. Despite NATO’s conventional superiority in the region, Russia continues to probe the Alliance’s resolve with actions below the threshold of armed conflict. What advantages can NATO’s newest members offer the Alliance as it faces this aggression?
Defense Policy Eastern Europe
Evolving threats and emerging capabilities

Dispatches May 20, 2026

How Russia exploits drone incursions in the Baltics—and how to respond

By Justina Budginaite-Froehly

A series of recent drone overflights in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland have revealed a shifting strategy from Russia.
Drones Eastern Europe

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

Learn more