How has NATO impacted national communication systems?

NATO not only plays a role in nations’ security and defense but, for example, was also involved in how international communication systems were designed. Wallenberg Academy Fellow Mandy Tröger will now explore NATO’s role in the development of national media and communication systems and the long-term consequences of this.

Modern societies have well-developed communications infrastructures: radio transmitters, TV masts, satellites, fiber optics and base stations for the mobile network. All these masts and cables have not only been built or laid so that we can watch television and talk on the phone, but also to build national defenses. In fact, the internet was originally designed as a decentralized network, because the US military wanted to make it difficult to be disrupted.

Dr Mandy Tröger at the University of Tübingen, Germany, is conducting an interdisciplinary project that analyses NATO’s role in the expansion of national and international communication systems. By bringing together military studies, history, and media and communication research, she will investigate which conflicts and common interests have existed between NATO and its member states in the building of international communication infrastructures.

Using archive materials from the UK, Belgium, Germany and the US, Tröger will also map the organizational structures within NATO that deal with communications. As a Wallenberg Academy Fellow she will work at Södertörn University. 

Photo: Patrik Lundin