Description
How does a feminist critique of resilience enhance our understanding of a whole of society approach to defence? At the 2025 NATO Summit, allies committed to spending 5% of their GDP on defence, with 1.5% of this reserved to spend on ‘resilience’. NATO’s Article 3 also commits member states to ensure their societies are resilient and able to withstand an armed attack. Yet they remain far from it, and despite NATO’s rhetoric it was not a substantive item at the Summit in The Hague. Resilience is undermined across the Euro-Atlantic by a backlash against gender equality; the rise of populism and the far right; the defunding of NGOs; and an increase in the cost-of-living set against on-going geopolitical tensions and grey zone warfare, austerity measures, and the legacy of Covid-19.
The paper draws on and extends feminist critiques of resilience, defence spending, and the ethics of care to bridge the gap between military readiness and societal resilience in the context of NATO. It argues that a whole of society approach to deterrence and defence assumes not only investment in military capabilities but also robust public services, education, and health, all being equally important in withstanding a possible aggression below and above the threshold of conflict. In other words, it is far from a zero-sum game of one over the other as many NATO members and the Secretary General have argued. We contend that addressing gender inequalities is essential to a sustainable, inclusive, whole-of-society approach to defence. It ensures states are equipped to recognise and meet the differing needs of people of all genders before, during, and after conflict, while enhancing societal resilience as a vital component of deterrence in the context of grey-zone threats.
