NATO’s top military official Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone and Lieutenant General Remigijus Baltrėnas, Director General of the NATO International Military Staff, attended the Berlin Security Conference in Germany on 3 – 4 November.
The two senior figures took part in the 25th Berlin Security Conference, which was organised with Lithuania as the partner nation, NATO informed on Wednesday.
In a keynote speech, Cavo Dragone said threats were coming “across multiple domains and from several centres of power, at the same time and often in coordination”, adding: “We are not at war, but we are certainly not at peace.”
He also spoke during a debate titled “Europe and NATO: Together Strong”, where he referred to alignment between NATO and European Union security and defence agendas, including areas such as cyber defence, standardisation and innovation.
Cavo Dragone highlighted “military mobility” — the movement of equipment and personnel into and across Europe — as an example of combining the strengths of NATO and the EU.
Focus on Russian interference and ‘hybrid actions’
Baltrėnas took part in a panel discussion titled “Deterrence through Vigilance: How to contain the Russian interference.”
He said the “primary goal” for NATO’s 32 member states was to ensure a shared understanding of what is happening so they are not misled by Russian actions.
Baltrėnas also said “hybrid actions” — activity that can combine military and non-military methods such as information operations and other forms of pressure — could be deterred by building resilience in societies.
“A key aspect of countering hybrid actions is the resilience of societies, as it is by itself a deterrent,” he said, adding that NATO should engage openly with the public and explain that people are “part of our defence architecture.”
