Selim Ibraimi- At the NATO Summit that took place in Washington (9 to 11 July ), in addition to well-known international issues and those affecting the interest of the member states of the alliance, attention in the final declaration of NATO was given to the technological superiority that must maintain alliance in the coming decades against adversaries such as China and Russia. To maintain this global status, NATO members must fulfill the obligations arising from previous summits, where NATO members have agreed on the importance of spending two percent of the national budget on the armed forces. Defense spending is an old issue and goes back to the founding time of NATO. With adequate spending by all NATO members, the security of the Euro-Atlantic space of the alliance is more secure in time, as it is done with appropriate means of the latest technology. Neither the defense nor the retreat policy can be implemented by the alliance, unless new technologies are applied by all NATO member states, in other words, if NATO does not maintain technological superiority over its adversaries, security and defense are put at risk. The lead can only be maintained if the member states of the alliance at least reach two percent of the expenditure. For the year 2023, 11 NATO countries have fulfilled this military spending obligation. Outgoing NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg’s latest annual report suggests that “in 2024, this number is likely to increase to 18 countries”. According to the report, North Macedonia has spent 1.7% of the budget on the army, always according to NATO requirements. While the budget policies are very clearly defined by NATO, without the technological superiority of all NATO members, in a changing world, the member states of the alliance will not be ready for tomorrow’s challenges. For this reason, the alliance and the US as a leader have for years begun to promote innovation to maintain technological superiority over China and Russia. The use of new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, certainly empowers various geopolitical actors, including less developed countries, non-state actors, and BRICS states. Therefore, “joint technological integration of allies in the air and cyber domain is seen as an important step in technological superiority”, thus increasing the protection of members from attacks from outside. A program that, according to NATO officials, required a large investment is the “Alliance Program for Permanent Space Surveillance”- (APSS). “APSS” increases NATO’s ability to observe activities on land and at sea accurately and in time.” According to the alliance announcements, “APSS” has now passed the implementation phase, using the satellite capacities in space for the needs of the member states. In this direction we have written earlier about “Cloud-Edge”- (ACE) services. This is seen as a new multinational “Cloud-Edge” acquisition activity that is expected to revolutionize the operations of NATO allies and members. According to alliance officials, “by integrating allied software solutions with the most advanced technologies, “Cloud-Edge” will improve operational efficiency by providing unified communications and enabling seamless data sharing across land, air, and sea operational domains.”, space and wider”. Finally, NATO announced investments of one billion euros in this field. With this fund, NATO seeks to strengthen its technological capacities in the midst of growing geopolitical tensions not only with Russia but also with China. In addition to the issues of technological superiority, the Balkan states that are members of NATO in cooperation with the main partners of the alliance have made significant advances in technology, becoming capable of new wars and dangers of the time. Days ago, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, emphasized the need to modernize the Macedonian army. While NATO seeks to remain the first in the world, China has also made extraordinary strides to catch up with countries like the US in technology or some areas have gone deeper in discoveries. The current race of nations to be first in land, space, and “Cloud-Edge” services will continue in the coming years. Historically states have done the same thing at different times with different means which have been considered as technology and framework for superiority over states or enemies.
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