The principle of resilience is rooted in Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that signatories shall, “through continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” For NATO, this means ensuring robust civil preparedness, defined through three core functions: continuity of government, continuity of essential services for the population and civil support to military operations.
The Telecommunications Sector as a Strategic Partner
The importance of telecommunications stems from its role as a critical dependency for other sectors and from its relevance to the core functions outlined above. Public services, emergency response systems, energy networks, transport systems, healthcare services and military operations all rely on communications infrastructure. As a result, a disruption to telecommunications can create cascading negative effects across society and impair operational capacity, making the sector a key strategic partner underpinning both social stability and military capability.
However, resilience comes at a cost, and strategic ambitions in security and resilience must be supported by an enabling environment if meaningful objectives are to be achieved. At the same time, these investments are likely to be far less costly than the consequences of failing to make them.
Given this essential role, NATO identifies five objectives that define resilient communications:
· Continuous availability of reliable and secure civil communications.
· National risk assessments.
· Visibility and oversight of supply chains.
· Guaranteed priority access to civil communications networks and services to support both societal resilience and military capabilities.
· Capabilities and mechanisms to facilitate communication between authorities and the civilian population.
Continuous Availability of Reliable and Secure Civil Communications
Communications networks are essential for providing civil support to military operations, facilitating coordination among authorities, supporting Host Nation Support obligations – defined in the Allied Joint Doctrine for Host-Nation Support as “civil and military assistance rendered in peace, crisis, or war by a host nation (HN) to Alliance forces” – and allowing Allied forces to operate effectively. Therefore, reliable, resilient and secure civil communications services must remain available regardless of adverse conditions, ensuring service continuity when it is most needed and most difficult to maintain.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that civilian telecommunications can become a strategic defence asset. The DELTA system, used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to generate a unified, real-time picture of the battlefield, relies on communications networks, mobile devices, cloud services and commercial technologies to integrate information from drones, sensors and multiple intelligence sources. This is reinforced by the active participation of civilians who, through applications, digital platforms and volunteer networks, contribute verified information. Connectivity and citizen collaboration have thus become key elements of national resilience and operational superiority.
National Risk Assessments
NATO calls for comprehensive national risk assessments covering both physical and digital vulnerabilities, including those arising from cyberattacks. These assessments should consider the broader consequences of communications failures, particularly their impact on critical sectors and military activities.
Supply Chain Visibility
A distinctive feature of NATO’s 2026 resilience requirements is the emphasis on understanding and managing communications supply chains. NATO encourages Allies to maintain visibility over critical components, service providers, supplier dependencies, foreign ownership structures and managed services essential to network availability. Resilience therefore extends beyond operating networks and includes ensuring that the equipment, software, services and expertise needed to sustain them remain available during periods of disruption.
Ensuring Priority Access to Civil Communications Networks and Services
Resilient telecommunications infrastructure provides dual-use capabilities for society. On the one hand, it supports the normal functioning of civilian sectors that are themselves essential for resilience. On the other, it is a prerequisite for effective deterrence and defence, enabling command and control, coordination, information sharing and operational continuity. Secure connectivity is therefore a cornerstone of modern military operations as well as civilian life, making priority access essential.
Mechanisms to Facilitate Communication Between Authorities and the Civilian Population
Beyond supporting governments and armed forces, telecommunications play a vital role in maintaining social cohesion during emergencies. NATO stresses the need for authorities to retain the ability to communicate with the population during crises and conflicts, including through national alert and warning systems. Reliable communications enable governments to issue alerts, provide instructions, distribute accurate information and counter confusion during emergencies. In this sense, resilience protects not only infrastructure but also public trust and social stability.
The DELTA model demonstrates how a digital platform can become a two-way communication channel between authorities and citizens during crises or conflicts. By leveraging civilian telecommunications networks and everyday devices, DELTA integrates information from multiple sources, including verified citizen contributions, and makes it available to decision-makers in real time. This approach enhances situational awareness while turning the population into a distributed sensor network, strengthening early warning, response coordination and collective resilience.
Conclusion
NATO’s 2026 resilience framework identifies the telecommunications sector as a key strategic partner at the heart of national and collective security. In Spain, capabilities such as the SIRDEE network, currently being upgraded towards broadband services, are fundamental to providing law enforcement agencies and emergency services with secure, highly available communications capable of supporting large-scale data, video and critical applications. Complementing this is Séneca, Telefónica’s platform for advanced emergency management and coordination, which facilitates information sharing among organisations and enhances real-time situational awareness. Public warning systems such as ES-Alert further provide a direct, immediate and geolocated channel between authorities and citizens, ensuring the dissemination of critical alerts and instructions during emergencies.
Taken together, these capabilities form the foundation of a national digital resilience ecosystem that strengthens institutional coordination, accelerates operational response and brings Spain closer to advanced models of cooperation between public authorities, telecommunications operators and citizens. Both Telefónica and NATO recognise that, as modern societies become increasingly interconnected and dependent on digital infrastructure, ensuring the availability, security and reliability of telecommunications networks is not just another requirement, but the very backbone of resilience.
