October 2025
Enhancing NATO’s operational readiness through energy interoperability Written by Jason Knapp, Christopher Olson, and Chamai Shahim NATO faces significant new gaps in energy interoperability, but allies’ commitment to increase defense spending presents a pivotal opportunity for the Alliance to fix these deficits and ensure operational success.
Introduction At the recent summit in The Hague, NATO allies committed to increase defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, including a dedicated 1.5-percent allocation to protect critical infrastructure. This provides a unique and pivotal opportunity to address two of the most pressing issues facing NATO: energy security and interoperability. Russia’s war in Ukraine and its ongoing systematic attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure exposed energy systems as viable targets and strategic vulnerabilities, which, if damaged, can paralyze civilian, commercial, and military operations.1 NATO’s challenge is to guide Alliance-wide energy interoperability without dictating national energy choices. It must strike a balance between supporting flexibility and driving convergence where mission assu-
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rance depends on it. To facilitate this, NATO must consider developing standards at an operational level that national leaders can address and that can help drive civilian and military infrastructure development, as well as weapons and equipment development and procurement. Energy interoperability is a critical operational imperative for NATO forces in an era of hybrid warfare and contested environments. NATO forces face significant energy-related operational constraints: Military transport and host-nation support often rely on civilian contracts and commercial energy systems.2 The transition from fossil fuel standardization under the Single Fuel Concept to a fragmented landscape of electric vehicles (EVs), hydrogen systems, and hybrid technologies has created new interoperability gaps.3 National energy transitions are contributing to this fragmentation, proceeding in parallel
1.
Vytautas Butrimas, et al., “Hybrid Warfare against Critical Energy Infrastructure: The Case of Ukraine,” NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, 2023, https://www.enseccoe.org/ publications/hybrid-warfare-against-critical-energy-infrastructure-the-case-of-ukraine/.
2.
Leonid I. Polyakov, U.S.-Ukraine Military Relations and the Value of Interoperability (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004), https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/760/.
3.
Paul J. Kern, et al., “An Albatross around the US Military’s Neck: The Single Fuel Concept and the Future of Expeditionary Energy,” Modern War Institute, June 29, 2021,https://mwi. westpoint.edu/an-albatross-around-the-us-militarys-neck-the-single-fuel-concept-and-thefuture-of-expeditionary-energy/.
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