Setting the Stage and Outlook: The World in 2030

Setting the Stage: The World in 2030

H.E. Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany (by video).

Outlook: The World in 2030

As NATO looks toward 2030, what sort of world is the Alliance likely to face? The world has changed fundamentally over the past decade. Advancing authoritarianism increasingly challenges the international rules-based order, which underpins transatlantic freedom and security. Instability is on the rise in the Alliance’s neighbourhood. Cyber threats are growing exponentially. New technologies change the nature of peace, crisis, and conflict, and global challenges like climate change and the pandemic require more coordinated global responses. Arguably, the coronavirus has accelerated some geopolitical and geo-economic trends already visible before the pandemic. NATO will be most directly affected by new dynamics in the strategic environment, including trends in military power. But the Alliance will also be impacted by shifts outside the security realm, from demography to politics, from the environment to technology, from changing economies to cultural shifts.

What trends will characterize the next decade? What are the key unknowns? What could possibly surprise us, within the Alliance and globally? How can the Alliance adapt to the changing security environment? What is the role for leadership and civil society in shaping the world toward 2030—and hedging against shocks?