Risk Beyond Doctrine II - An Empirical Study of NATO's Risk Management integration in Decision-Making

This study investigates how NATO military headquarters integrate risk management into decision-making during ongoing operations, complementing earlier research on planning. Over 14 months, the authors conducted about 800 hours of non-participant ethnographic observation across seven headquarters and 27 interviews with key personnel. Findings reveal two concurrent "risk pathways." Formal processes through Assessment Boards, Risk Working Groups and Joint Coordination Boards which provide structured, traceable mechanisms. Alongside these, tacit practices such as informal adaptations, anticipatory reorganization, cross-functional discussions and leadership framing embed risk thinking in daily routines without explicit terminology. Risk deliberation appeared across nearly all headquarters activities, especially working groups and senior-level updates, but many issues raised informally never entered official registers. Leadership emphasis, staff preparation and dialogue enabled effective risk management, while checklist mentalities, training gaps, bureaucratic filtering and the need for resource trade-offs constrained it. Overall, NATO's risk management is more pervasive than doctrine prescribes but lacks mechanisms to reliably connect informal practices with formal processes, limiting visibility and continuity of risk decisions.

Keywords: Doctrine, Risk Management, Decision-Making, NATO.