Securing a Strategic Advantage in Biosecurity for NATO

In an era of heightened biological risk, the world grapples with a growing list of biological threats – whether natural outbreaks, zoonotic spillovers, lab leaks, or synthetic bioweapons. Accelerated by climate change, mass migration, globalisation and breakthroughs in biotechnology, this new risk landscape makes it increasingly likely that a Covid-scale pandemic could arise in the coming years. Recent outbreaks of mpox, Marburg virus, and Oropouche virus only underscore this unsettling new ‘normal’. As pandemic risk modelling suggests, the likelihood of a pandemic of a respiratory pathogen on the scale (and global mortality) of Covid-19 over the next 25 years hovers around 50/50 – essentially a coin toss. With such stakes, NATO cannot afford to overlook biology as a critical domain of operations. 

To safeguard its strategic interests, NATO must formally incorporate biology as part of its multidomain operations (MDO) framework and create a biosecurity strategy that leverages existing alliances and structures. Doing so would recognise biology as a domain where adversaries are already taking decisive steps. For instance, China openly considers biology a ‘new domain of warfare’, and Russia has been enhancing high-containment biological facilities near European borders, with a demonstrated willingness to deploy chemical and biological weapons as a hybrid threat. 

Such developments signal the necessity for NATO to take the biological domain as seriously as it does kinetic warfare and cyber defence. Failure to do so risks NATO’s force readiness and national security in ways that rival the potential impact of cyber attacks, missile strikes, or aerial bombardments.

Recognising the Importance of Biology by Making it a Separate Domain 

Aligning a biosecurity strategy with NATO’s broader defence objectives would reinforce critical pillars, such as deterrence, resilience and collective defence, by addressing the unique challenges posed by biological threats. Integrating biology into NATO’s MDO structure enables the Alliance to project its core strength across multiple domains, reinforcing stability through biodefence capabilities. NATO’s defence ministers recently emphasised the importance of fortifying defence and deterrence; if biology was recognised as a domain, NATO would be better equipped to deter and neutralise intentional biological threats through deterrence anchored in the capacity for attribution and asymmetric response – a suite of tools like interoperable biosurveillance networks, bioforensic analysis centres and specialised biosecurity field teams that would enhance security and stability across the Alliance.

A comprehensive biosecurity strategy would centre on a robust, centralised biosurveillance network integrating biosurveillance, intelligence and rapid response. This network would empower NATO members to securely share real-time epidemiological and biological intelligence, combining military and public health resources. The result would be a powerful asset for microbial forensics, capable of detecting, characterising and accurately attributing the origin of biological threats – from laboratory leaks to intentionally-released agents – with tools like pathogen genomics, bioinformatics and mass spectrometry. This approach would enable joint military-civilian responses, allowing NATO to deploy resources quickly and minimise escalation of biological threats before they trigger regional or global crises.

Levering Existing Infrastructure in a New Operating Model

In principle, NATO already has the infrastructure necessary to anchor a defence strategy for the biological domain. Existing alliances, intelligence capabilities, and extensive logistics networks position the Alliance to establish an effective biosecurity apparatus. NATO’s Science and Technology Board could oversee biosecurity research and policy priorities, while the combination of the NATO Innovation Fund and the NATO Support and Procurement Agency could facilitate private-sector partnerships essential for biosurveillance. With Allied Command Operations leading logistical coordination and the Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems providing real-time intelligence, NATO would possess the cross-border reach needed to secure biological materials and coordinate public health information sharing among members. By expanding the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Centre of Excellence to include specialised biosecurity teams, NATO can train and equip personnel to manage pathogens with precision and efficiency.

While the infrastructure exists, the operating model will need validation, and a good mechanism for this would be to integrate biosecurity into NATO exercises, alongside its intelligence-sharing systems, to enhance early warning capabilities, prioritising indicators of emerging diseases and synthetic biology risks. Allied Command Transformation could drive forward initiatives in biodefence and biological intelligence, improving diagnostics and response frameworks. These measures would embed biosecurity deeply within NATO’s operational fabric, protecting both civilian and military infrastructure from potential threats.

Just as the cyber and space domains were integrated into operational doctrine in response to emerging threats, the biological domain must now be defended proactively if NATO is to maintain its competitive advantage in MDO. The time to act is now; this moment represents an opportunity for NATO to recognise and fortify the biological frontier, addressing the urgent demands of a new era in defence and security.

© Max Breet and Lauren Ross, 2024, published by RUSI with permission of the authors

The views expressed in this Commentary are the authors’, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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