20 • Luxembourg in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) NATO is a defensive military alliance. It is a guarantor of security in the Euro-Atlantic area. The guarantees of collective security founded on a strong transatlantic link have made it possible to cultivate an area of peace embracing the values of democracy, human rights and freedom. The solidarity among Allies is based on concrete commitments in a context of equitable burden-sharing. The North Atlantic Treaty sets out the obligations of its signatories, who define themselves as a community of values that include freedom, democracy and the rule of law and are rooted in a common history and heritage. Based on a Strategic Concept defining what the Alliance requires to implement the Treaty’s Article 5 collective defence clause, the Allies are committed under Article 3 to develop individually and collectively the military capacities needed for that collective defence. Each Ally is therefore required to invest in military capabilities, and the sum of the capabilities of all the Allies must enable NATO to ensure the collective defence of the entire Alliance. To that end, NATO has established a defence planning mechanism that defines the nations’ contributions and helps nations to achieve them. This same process defines capability goals consistent with national and Alliance needs. The assignment of capability goals is based on the principles of equitable sharing and reasonable challenge. This equitable sharing involves not just equipment and military acquisitions: each Ally must maintain operational forces capable of being deployed in jointly decided operations. Luxembourg, like the other Allies, must provide a fair share of NATO’s collective capability requirements. *** NATO has embarked on a long-term adaptation process designed to allow it to confront the new risks affecting the security of all the Allies. These risks call for comprehensive, concerted approaches. The process was launched at the Wales Summit in September 2014. The Warsaw Summit in July 2016 reviewed progress and gave new impetus. The adaptation covers three dimensions: military, policy, and institutional. It aims to ensure NATO’s enduring relevance in continuing to guarantee the security of all the Allies in a degraded environment. It involves all of the Allies, in solidarity. With this adaptation, the priority in terms of NATO operations has shifted from crisis management to collective defence. The military will no longer solely be deployed in operations such as that of KFOR in Kosovo or the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, but increasingly in the context of reassurance measures for Allied nations finding themselves in a degraded security situation. Military adaptation involves concrete measures to which Luxembourg contributes in the following areas in particular: - responsiveness of forces and NATO’s decision-making agility are to be enhanced: NATO’s troops must be capable of being deployed more rapidly. The NATO Response Force (NRF) has consequently been reinforced, and within it a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) has been established in which all Allies take part, and which can be deployed in-theatre very rapidly in the event of an incident or an attack; - an array of assurance measures will be sustained, particularly for the Baltic States. This involves ensuring a significant level of defensive military activity on the territory of Allied countries and in international airspace and waters; - continuous multinational military presence will be ensured by rotation on the territory of certain Allies requesting it, in the context of enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) and tailored Forward Presence (tFP). In conjunction with assurance measures, the aim is to ensure that the solidarity of all the Allies is visible by means of multinational defensive forces of limited size acting as a deterrent and affirming the credibility of collective defence. From 2017, Luxembourg will contribute to an eFP battalion in Lithuania with Germany as Framework Nation; - a strategy to counter hybrid threats and a reinforcement of national cyber defence capabilities help to improve our societies’ resilience to these complex threats. Resilience encompasses the full range of measures needed to ensure that institutions and public services continue to function and that populations and critical infrastructures are safeguarded. Policy adjustment aims in particular to improve the ability to project stability for regional partners and organizations that share our values and interests. The Defence Capacity Building Initiative (DCBI) is the major initiative designed to help requesting countries to develop military capabilities that are interoperable with NATO. At the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, Heads of State and Government made the commitment to increase their defence effort and move towards the target of 2% of GDP in the medium term. They also agreed to allocate 20% of their defence effort to investments. Luxembourg has met the 20% investment target and intends to continue exceeding that figure through its national defence effort. Our country has moreover agreed to increase its defence effort from 0.4% to 0.6% of GDP by 2020. The intent is to consolidate this commitment to an augmented defence effort. Luxembourg will continue to invest in military capabilities that are relevant for the Alliance, in a solidarity-oriented effort aimed at collective defence. Our country has taken part in NATO military operations and deployments and will continue to do so. In addition to deployments in the context of reassurance measures, Luxembourg has been