NATO College Foundation

📢 Welcome to the Weekly Recap of "NATO Affairs: Today's Overview"

🌍 Stay up to date with the latest developments, key decisions, and strategic moves shaping NATO's role in global security.

📰 This week in NATO:

🔷 NATO ready to defend ‘every inch’ of territory as Russian drone hits Romania
🔷 Bulgaria aims to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP, PM Radev says
🔷 The German-Dutch corps to lead NATO land forces in Estonia and Latvia
🔷 NATO Secretary General meets with Prime Minister Magyar of Hungary

Stay informed as NATO continues to adapt and respond to emerging security challenges. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

👉🏻 Follow us for the latest updates on global security and NATO's strategic direction.

🚨BREAKING🚨
Change of programme!
The live High-Level Conference will be available HERE: https://youtube.com/live/m2f1qL2L2Kk

The future of security is increasingly shaped by information, technology, and the battle for public trust.

As the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region face evolving challenges linked to geopolitical competition, hybrid threats, and the rise of artificial intelligence, strengthening democratic resilience has never been more important.

“Balkans and Black Sea Perspectives 2026 Democratic resilience, AI, and cognitive security” brings together top-level voices from NATO, the EU, and the Western Balkans to confront these challenges head-on: building a coordinated response to cognitive threats, artificial intelligence, and the vulnerabilities that external actors continue to exploit.

The High-Level conference is organised by the NATO Defense College Foundation, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (D.G.U.E.), International Council on Environmental Economics and Development (ICEED), Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CSF, and the NATO Defense College (NDC).

Be part of the conversation shaping tomorrow’s resilience.

🔗 Follow the conference live here: https://www.youtube.com/live/m2f1qL2L2Kk

The future of security is increasingly shaped by information, technology, and the battle for public trust.

As the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region face evolving challenges linked to geopolitical competition, hybrid threats, and the rise of artificial intelligence, strengthening democratic resilience has never been more important.

“Balkans and Black Sea Perspectives 2026 Democratic resilience, AI, and cognitive security” brings together top-level voices from NATO, the EU, and the Western Balkans to confront these challenges head-on: building a coordinated response to cognitive threats, artificial intelligence, and the vulnerabilities that external actors continue to exploit.

The High-Level conference is organised by the NATO Defense College Foundation, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (D.G.U.E.), International Council on Environmental Economics and Development (ICEED), Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CSF, and the NATO Defense College (NDC).

Be part of the conversation shaping tomorrow’s resilience.

🔗 Follow the conference live here: https://www.youtube.com/live/m2f1qL2L2Kk

From 12 founding members to 32 Allies. From 6 nations to 27 Member States.

The story of NATO and the EU is, at its core, a story of a continent choosing peace over conflict.

Now, the Western Balkans are writing the next chapter.
NATO’s Open Door Policy, grounded in Article 10, and the EU’s €6 billion Growth Plan are turning ambition into action. The framework is there, the momentum is building.

On 26 May, the NATO Defense College Foundation will host the High-Level Conference “Balkan and Black Sea Perspectives 2026”, bringing together leading voices from NATO, the EU, and the Western Balkans to tackle the future of EU enlargement, NATO’s Open Door Policy, and the challenge of hybrid threats.

Be part of the conversation shaping tomorrow’s resilience.

Hybrid Threats Series #03 | FIMI | Foreign information manipulation and interference

If the previous two installments of this series examined how information is manipulated from within by domestic political actors exploiting their own citizens, this final chapter turns to the threat that comes from outside.

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) is coordinated, covert, and industrial in scale. It is the deployment of bot networks, fake news sites, deepfake videos, paid influencers, and laundered narratives, all of them engineered to make foreign interference look like local opinion.

And the Western Balkans remain a key battleground.

Why? Because unresolved tensions, political polarisation, and unfinished Euro-Atlantic integration create opportunities for external actors to exploit existing vulnerabilities.

This wraps up the third and final carousel in our Hybrid Threats series, but the conversation is far from over. Stay tuned as the NATO Defense College Foundation continues to analyse and expose emerging Hybrid Threats in an increasingly contested security environment.

Hybrid Threats Series #02 | Domestic Information Manipulation

Disinformation is often associated with foreign actors such as Russia, troll farms, and state-sponsored bot networks.

Unlike overt foreign interference, domestic information manipulation often operates through trusted politicians, media, and digital ecosystems, making attribution more difficult and its societal impact more corrosive. Its objectives are strategic: consolidating political power, delegitimising opposition, weakening civil society, and amplifying social polarisation through coordinated narrative manipulation.

Across Europe, including in the Western Balkans, disinformation campaigns increasingly exploit ethnic, political, and geopolitical fault lines to undermine democratic accountability and erode public trust in Euro-Atlantic institutions.

NATO, the European Union, and partner organisations have responded by strengthening strategic communications, monitoring hostile information activity, and integrating resilience-building into broader democratic governance frameworks.

Next up: FIMI - Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference

📢 Welcome to the Weekly Recap of "NATO Affairs: Today's Overview"

🌍 Stay up to date with the latest developments, key decisions, and strategic moves shaping NATO's role in global security.

📰 This week in NATO:

🔷 NATO SG visits Montenegro and praises its contributions to NATO and stability in the Western Balkans
🔷 NATO sg at B9 in Bucharest: We need a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO
🔷 NATO Strengthens Eastern Defences After Russian Drones Enter Baltic Airspace

Stay informed as NATO continues to adapt and respond to emerging security challenges. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

👉🏻 Follow us for the latest updates on global security and NATO's strategic direction.

The new Strategic Balkans is now online! Explore the complex and ever-evolving dynamics of the Balkan region through the expert editorial work of Stefano Giantin and the NATO Foundation.

🔗 Don’t miss out, head over to our website to read the full issue. Let yourself be transported into the spirit of the Balkans, as told with accuracy, nuance, and insight.

Hybrid threats are central to modern geopolitical competition.

Blending military and non-military tools, state and non-state actors operate deliberately below the threshold of war, exploiting ambiguity, institutional vulnerabilities, and social divisions. From disinformation campaigns and cyber operations to economic coercion and proxy networks, these activities are designed to destabilise without triggering conventional responses.

Regions such as the Western Balkans remain particularly exposed, where unresolved political tensions, external influence, and fragile institutional frameworks create fertile ground for sustained hybrid activity.

For NATO and the EU, the challenge is quite serious. Effective countermeasures require an integrated approach: intelligence fusion, societal resilience, cyber defence, and rapid attribution mechanisms.

Stay tuned as the NATO Defense College Foundation advances its work to analyse, expose, and counter hybrid threats in an increasingly contested security environment.

Kazakhstan and Pakistan are entering a new chapter of strategic cooperation.

A landmark visit by President Tokayev (Kazakhstan) to meet Prime Minister Sharif (Pakistan) has laid the groundwork for stronger economic ties, deeper political dialogue, and improved regional connectivity.

From ambitious trade targets to major infrastructure plans linking Central Asia to the Arabian Sea, this partnership reflects a shared vision for growth, stability, and integration across Asia.

Don’t miss Fabio Indeo's latest ! Read the full article on our website.