In September 2024, the heads of MI6 and the CIA jointly warned that the international order is under threat in a way not seen since the end of the Cold War, accusing Russia of a “reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe” that falls just below the threshold of conflict.  More recently intelligence agencies, and the NATO Secretary General, have warned of a possible Russian attack on NATO within the next four years.

NATO has been responding to Russia’s actions for over a decade, increasing its presence along its eastern borders and adapting its military posture. However, the alliance has also been working to improve the resilience and civil preparedness of its member states against “the full spectrum of threats”, an obligation that is set down in Article 3 of NATO’s founding treaty.

In today’s security environment, effective and sustained resilience therefore requires the full range of military and civilian capabilities, as well as a whole-of-society approach, which includes active cooperation across government, the private sector and civil society.

   NATO, Resilience, civil preparedness and Article 3

This paper briefly sets out NATO’s Article 3 requirements and the alliance’s collective resilience objectives and spending goals.

It forms part of a collection of Commons Library papers on the whole of society approach to defence and security, civil preparedness and resilience ahead of expected defence legislation later in the parliamentary session.

What is NATO’s Article 3?

The principle of resilience is enshrined in Article 3 of NATO’s founding treaty, which commits allies to pursue measures that enable them to resist an armed attack:  

       In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and             jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and                 develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

In its explanation of article 3, NATO says that “each NATO member country needs to be resilient in order to withstand a major shock such as a natural disaster, failure of critical infrastructure, or a hybrid or armed attack”. It says resilience is essential to alliance efforts to “safeguard its societies, populations and shared values” and ensure the continuity of NATO’s activities. Civil preparedness is considered a central pillar of that resilience and a critical enabler of collective defence.

A collective commitment but a national responsibility

NATO members agree that resilience and preparedness are a collective commitment and that the alliance can support individual countries in assessing and facilitating their progress towards achieving alliance-wide resilience goals (see below) and in sharing best practice.

However, individual member states are responsible for formulating and implementing their own national resilience plans. The UK Government, for example, published its current Resilience Action Plan in July 2025 and an Implementation Report in July 2026. In evidence to the Lords National Resilience Committee (PDF) in early September 2026, Defence Minister Louise Sandher-Jones MP said that the UK was meeting its NATO targets but that there was a balance to be struck between publishing details of UK actions and revealing information “that would be helpful to our adversaries”.

Using NATO’s baseline requirements for resilience (below) as a guide, states assess their own levels of preparedness and feed that information into NATO’s Defence Planning Process cycle.

Resilience is a national responsibility and a collective commitment, rooted in Article 3 of the Washington Treaty

   Washington Summit Declaration, July 2024

NATO’s baseline requirements for resilience and its national resilience objectives

Resilience, from a NATO perspective, is defined as “the capacity, at national and collective level, to prepare for, resist, respond to and quickly recover from shocks and disruptions, across the full spectrum of threats”.

Since the Warsaw Summit in 2016, NATO allies have been working to strengthen and enhance the resilience of the alliance against “the full spectrum of threats” in response to the changing security environment. In 2021 they agreed a Strengthened Resilience Commitment, which called for the adoption of “a more integrated and better coordinated approach” to resilience, and in 2023 they adopted a series of alliance-wide resilience objectives.

Core resilience objectives

NATO has three core objectives for resilience:

  • ensuring the continuity of government
  • ensuring the continuity of essential services and the security of critical civilian infrastructure
  • enabling civil support to military operations, in times of peace, crisis and conflict, including energy, transportation, supplies and communications.

Seven baseline requirements

From these core objectives stem seven baseline requirements for national resilience, against which allies can measure their levels of preparedness. These baseline requirements are assessed regularly and updated, when necessary, “to reflect emerging challenges and priorities”.

In September 2026, the baseline requirements were re-examined, and for the first time more detailed information has been provided on the specific objectives for each requirement. There is an increasing emphasis on ensuring military forces are adequately supported with civilian resources and infrastructure across the alliance.

  1. assured continuity of government and critical government services – including formalised, exercised and tested plans that clarify the line of succession and chain of command within government, allow for sustained representation and decision making within NATO and identify “national essential functions” and critical government agencies. The requirement also states the necessity of a “hardened and resilient” crisis management centre, and “alternative arrangements” to ensure continuity of government operations.
  2. resilient energy supplies – including the ability to scale up energy production and distribution in times of crisis or conflict, ensure priority access in line with the NATO requirements for host nation support (PDF) and have back-up plans in place in the event of disruption. The requirement specifically calls for “verified and exercised repair and restoration plans, developed and implemented with infrastructure operators” and legislation or “robust contractual agreements” with private sector operators to mitigate the potential risks associated with any harmful economic activities.
  3. effective management of the controlled and uncontrolled movement of people – including contingency plans to address and mitigate the impact of the mass movement of people, from both within and outside national borders, national arrangements for the controlled evacuation of civilians from conflict areas or to ensure protection of the population through restrictions on movements and measures to limit the impact of civilian movements on any deploying military forces.
  4. resilient supplies of food and water – including comprehensive contingency plans for the provision of food and water during times of crisis or conflict, that are “regularly exercised nationally and/or with allies”. The requirement also highlights the need to consider workforce availability, supply and cross-sector dependencies and the risks associated with potentially harmful economic activities.
  5. effective management of mass casualties and disruptive health crises – including ensuring civilian health systems can cope, stockpiles of medical supplies are sufficient and mechanisms to share information and situational awareness between key stakeholders, as well as relevant international organisations, are in place. The requirement also calls for “comprehensive civil-military training and exercises to test plans, procedures and cooperation among all relevant stakeholders”.
  6. resilient civil communications systems – ensuring that telecommunications and cyber networks can continue to operate in times of crisis and that national authorities have priority access. This includes introducing legislation, where necessary, in cooperation with private sector stakeholders and the military. The requirement also calls for the establishment of a list of supply chains, including “sources of critical components, dependencies, foreign ownership, and control of vendors and service providers that are critical to the availability of communications networks, systems and services” and for the introduction of national alert and warning systems.
  7. resilient civil transport systems – ensuring both the movement of NATO forces across allied territory (including national borders) and reliable transportation networks for civilian services in times of crisis. Legislation, policies and arrangement to ensure the continuity of essential services should be put in place.

The Resilience Committee

NATO policy on civil preparedness and national resilience is guided and coordinated by the Resilience Committee, which was established in 2022.

Reporting directly to the North Atlantic Council (NATO’s primary decision-making body), the committee assumed the roles and responsibilities of the Civil Emergency Planning Committee, which was first established in the 1950s.

The committee’s main tasks and responsibilities include:

  • setting the priorities for resilience activities within the alliance
  • maintaining a planning and review cycle for resilience, including formulating, reviewing and monitoring NATO’s resilience objectives.
  • coordinating with NATO military authorities
  • overseeing the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre, which organises disaster relief efforts among NATO allies and partner countries

The work of the committee is supported by six specialised planning groups: civil communications, civil protection, energy, food and agriculture, health and transport.

Spending goals

At the Hague Summit in 2025, NATO allies agreed new spending targets. By 2035, allies have committed to spend 5% of GDP annually on defence and security:

Spending plans will be reviewed in 2029. NATO does not impose sanctions or penalties on countries that do not meet its spending targets.

UK defence spending, and how it compares to NATO allies, is examined in Commons Library briefing UK defence spending, July 2026.

Coordination with the European Union

NATO and the European Union share 23 member states in common.

NATO has committed to deepening cooperation with partners, in particular the European Union, which are engaged in similar resilience and civil preparedness efforts.

For example, the NATO-EU Strategic Partnership has identified civil preparedness, strengthening resilience and the protecting critical infrastructure as specific areas for cooperation and coordination.    

In 2022, NATO and the EU established a Structured Dialogue on Resilience in order to coordinate efforts and share best practice. Within the framework of that dialogue, in 2023 the EU and NATO launched a taskforce specifically focused on the resilience of critical infrastructure. The intention of the taskforce was to map out security challenges to CNI in the areas of energy, transport, digital infrastructure and space, share best practice and situational awareness and develop principles to improve resilience.

The final report of that taskforce was published in June 2023 and made several recommendations on military mobility, information exchange, threat assessment and monitoring. Those recommendations are being taken forward within the Structured Dialogue on Resilience.

Useful reading and resources

In July 2026, the Defence Select Committee launched an inquiry into whether the UK is meeting its obligations under NATO’s Article 3 and what measures might be required in the forthcoming Defence Readiness Bill: The UK’s Article 3 obligations and the Defence Readiness Bill. This inquiry is accepting evidence until 7 October 2026.

Further watching and reading:

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