The Alliance Would Leave the Region Less, Not More, Secure
By Mathieu Droin, Kelly A. Grieco, and Happymon Jacob
July 8, 2024Writing in Foreign Affairs last week, NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, took aim at Beijing, condemning its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and declaring that NATO had entered a new era of “enduring competition with China.” This situation “shows that in today’s world, security is not a regional matter but a global one,” he wrote, adding, “Europe’s security affects Asia, and Asia’s security affects Europe.” This is not a new idea. Stoltenberg has long championed a greater role for NATO in countering China’s rise. “Everything is intertwined,” he said in June, referring to European and Asian security at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “and therefore, we need to address these challenges together.”
Stoltenberg’s statements echoed a crucial pillar of U.S. President Joe Biden’s vision for countering China and Russia, as laid out in his administration’s October 2022 National Security Strategy: “We place a premium on growing the connective tissue—on technology, trade and security—between our democratic allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and Europe.” NATO, with Washington’s backing, has made some progress toward this goal of strengthening cooperation with key partners in Asia. In 2022, for the first time in the alliance’s history, NATO officially identified China as a security challenge. The organization is now strengthening political dialogue and practical cooperation with its Indo-Pacific partners on a wide variety of issues including cyberdefense, new technologies, space, and maritime security.
The alliance has also boosted its visibility in the region. In another landmark first for the organization, in 2022, NATO observers attended regional military exercises in the Indo-Pacific. Acting in their national capacities, NATO allies such as France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom increasingly participate in large-scale military drills with Asian partners and have dispatched naval vessels to high-profile waters including the South China Sea amid rising tensions between China and its neighbors. At the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore in June a high-ranking Chinese general accused Washington of trying to build an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO.” Lest anyone miss it, the alliance’s 75th-anniversary summit, beginning on July 9, will offer a very public reminder of NATO’s focus on the region. For the third consecutive year, the leaders or representatives of four non-NATO states—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, known as the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4)—will take to the NATO summit stage.
That NATO and its Asian partners are deepening their cooperation is clear. What is less clear is that this cooperation is in either’s best strategic interests. China’s assertiveness presents complex challenges, and transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security are interconnected in important ways, particularly because of closer collaboration between Beijing and Moscow. NATO, however, is not the correct forum for fostering transregional cooperation to counter China. Pulling the alliance into Asia fuels Beijing’s narrative of a U.S.-led confrontation between global blocs and risks alienating Asian countries without ultimately helping to shore up regional security or deterrence.
NATO can still contribute indirectly to Indo-Pacific security, however, by prioritizing the threat posed by Russia—and by building up European military capabilities that would allow the United States to pivot toward Asia. At the same time, the alliance should adopt a lower profile in Asia to avoid stoking Chinese paranoia and instead emphasize practical and discreet cooperation with the region. Instead of drawing NATO into Asia, policymakers should leverage the European Union’s considerable economic and diplomatic power to build transregional cooperation among Asian, European, and North American states, using a web of flexible and overlapping partnerships and issue-based coalitions. Only through such a network of close ties can the United States and its partners effectively counter threats that span the globe, but having NATO lead that effort would ultimately be counterproductive, leaving both Asia and Europe less, not more, secure.
SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE
NATO’s Indo-Pacific outreach may be a largely welcome development for its IP4 partners—particularly Japan, which has pursued close collaboration with the alliance in the face of mounting provocations from China as well as Russia. South Korea and New Zealand, however, have been more cautious in their engagement with the organization, given their extensive trade ties with China, as well as Seoul’s desire to secure Beijing’s cooperation on North Korea and Wellington’s long-standing tradition of foreign policy independence. Australia’s enthusiasm has varied over time, reflecting shifts in its domestic politics regarding support for a tough stance toward China. But NATO has a deeper problem: its engagement in Asia is out of sync with broader regional political dynamics, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia, where many states fear it will destabilize the delicate balance that they strive to maintain in their relations with Washington and Beijing.
Even though concerns about Chinese aggression and lack of respect for international norms in arenas such as the South China Sea are steadily growing, most Asian countries tend not to perceive Beijing as an existential threat and in turn are unwilling to pick a side in the U.S.-Chinese rivalry. Depending on the issue at hand, Asian countries may seek to work with China, the United States, neither, or both. Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto, for instance, stated in June that his country would “continue our strong cooperation with China” but “at the same time, we will work to expand and deepen our close partnership with the U.S. and the West.”
NATO is not the correct forum for fostering transregional cooperation to counter China.
Many regional leaders—and some European ones—have expressed concern that NATO’s deepening involvement could not only force them to pick sides but also divide Asia into rival blocs. President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., of the Philippines, for instance, has called on the region to reject a “Cold War mindset.” Policymakers throughout the Indo-Pacific are wary that NATO’s foray into Asia could constitute another step in Washington’s efforts to build a U.S.-led regional security bloc to counter China. These fears are fed by the legacy of European colonialism and Western intervention in the region and by uneasiness over NATO’s military approach. Kishore Mahbubani, formerly Singapore’s ambassador to the United Nations, for example, has warned that the “biggest danger” of NATO’s Indo-Pacific shift is that the alliance “could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture” to East Asia.
NATO is not a good fit for a region where states such as India and Indonesia have long traditions of not aligning with military alliances. And leaders in key capitals have pushed back on the idea of an “Asian NATO.” India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, for example, referred in 2021 to the use of that term as a “mind game” and asserted that India has never had a “NATO mentality.” The power to set the country’s own path, he declared, is “my national choice.”
NATO has attempted to allay these fears, offering repeated assurances that it will neither move into the South China Sea nor admit Asian members. But skeptics and opponents of NATO in Asia remain unconvinced of the alliance’s intentions, especially as NATO now routinely invites top officials from IP4 countries to its summits and ministerial meetings. The alliance has also pushed for the opening of a liaison office in Japan. Nor has it helped the organization’s messaging when influential figures such as James Stavridis, NATO’s former supreme allied commander, have floated the idea of expanding the alliance to include Asian democracies. If NATO continues to insert itself into the Indo-Pacific, it is possible that some will see the alliance, rather than China, as a risk to regional security dynamics—alienating the very countries the United States and Europe need to balance Chinese power in the first place.
WORST OF ALL WORLDS
Supporters of engagement with Asia, both within the alliance and among NATO’s Asian partners, believe that these partnerships can enhance deterrence in the region. The organization is a military alliance, after all, so some observers imply that it could play some larger military role in Asia. At a minimum, the argument goes, the alliance could offer indirect support such as weapons, logistics, and intelligence sharing to Asian partners as well as to NATO member states choosing to intervene militarily under their national flags in a Taiwan Strait or South China Sea contingency. But it is unclear how this kind of deterrence would work in practice—and a more active NATO role in Indo-Pacific security could well backfire.
Rather than bolstering regional security, the alliance’s growing engagement with Asia could fuel insecurity and instability. Indo-Pacific states can see firsthand how NATO’s recent tilt feeds China’s paranoia, and they worry about being caught in the crossfire should a conflict break out. Beijing regularly accuses Washington of using the alliance as a “handy tool” for unifying its European and Asian allies into an “Asia-Pacific NATO” designed to “encircle” and “contain” China. Such rhetoric could be dismissed as Chinese propaganda, but many states in the region fear that Beijing could lash out if it felt it were backed against a wall. This kind of security dilemma would become more likely with a larger NATO presence in the region—and the alliance’s half-hearted military engagement and its less-than-perfect security assurances would offer scant protection for its Indo-Pacific partners.
Indeed, there are good reasons to doubt that NATO has the political will or military capabilities to make a meaningful contribution to Indo-Pacific security and deterrence. Many European allies would not be willing to support a NATO mission to check Chinese aggression in a far-off theater, either because they are busy dealing with Russia; because of their extensive economic ties with Beijing; or because Asia is, strictly speaking, not an existential interest for European countries.
Pulling NATO into Asia fuels Beijing’s narrative of a U.S.-led confrontation between global blocs.
The bulk of NATO’s enhanced cooperation consists of individually tailored partnerships with IP4 countries rather than “ironclad” security commitments, amounting more to cheap talk than credible signals of intent. As a result, Asian states are well aware that closing ranks politically with NATO in the absence of any security commitments could raise the risks of becoming a target. As the aftermath of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia—and its invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022—make clear, the alliance does not intervene directly to protect mere partners. NATO’s collective defense, via Article 5 of its founding treaty, applies only to full-fledged members, and is geographically limited via Article 6 to attacks occurring on their territory or their assets in “the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.” In a contingency affecting a regional partner—a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, for instance—NATO would have no obligation to intervene, and as a consensus-based organization, it would most likely remain on the sidelines.
Even if every NATO member wanted to intervene in Asia, the alliance has little to no spare capacity for operations thousands of miles away. European defense budgets are on the rise, spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine, but those funds will be used primarily to replenish weapons sent to Ukraine, and to close urgent shortfalls for collective defense against Russia. Moreover, the type of military assets that NATO countries in Europe require for deterrence and defense on the continent—such as heavy artillery, antitank weapons, and tactical drones—are quite different from the maritime and air capabilities needed to project power into the Indo-Pacific. NATO is simply not equipped to deal with Asian contingencies.
NATO’s Asian proposition, in short, is the worst of all worlds: it feeds fears about the alliance’s intentions and infuriates Beijing without giving Asian partners the means to further deter China. Half-measures meant to counter China could end up sparking the very conflict the alliance is seeking to defuse.
IT’S NOT NATO OR NOTHING
Even if NATO avoids deeper involvement in Asia, however, greater European engagement in the region remains critical to countering China’s rising power and assertiveness. A reimagined European contribution to Asian security should proceed along several tracks. First, instead of trying to project military power into Asia, NATO’s European members should prioritize strengthening conventional deterrence and defense on their own territory, building up their own military capabilities to allow the United States to shift more resources to Asia. In keeping with this more indirect approach to Asian security, NATO should concurrently lower its public profile in the region, emphasizing tailored, discrete, and useful technical cooperation with the IP4 in areas such as intelligence threats, standardization of equipment, cybersecurity, and maritime security over high-profile military exercises and photo ops.
Transregional cooperation should also leverage Europe’s advantages—its diplomatic clout and economic, financial, and technological resources—to counter Beijing. Europe, the United States, and like-minded Asian partners should work together to promote good governance, particularly at the United Nations, where Chinese nationals have served in many leadership positions in recent years and used those opportunities to advance Beijing’s promotion of authoritarian rules and norms. NATO members must engage in diplomatic cooperation with Asian allies, including to jointly elect candidates to top UN positions, to effectively push back against Beijing’s efforts. Europe should also leverage its position as an economic powerhouse to expand trade and foreign direct investment with Asian partners, providing an economic counterweight to China. The European Union should start by finalizing free trade agreements with India, Indonesia, and the Philippines and delivering on its promise to invest 10 billion euros in areas such as sustainable infrastructure and digital connectivity in Southeast Asia through the Global Gateway initiative over the next few years. Most Asian countries are looking for more than just military assistance; they want help in achieving fast-paced economic growth, technological advances, and regional stability.
NATO is simply not equipped to deal with Asian contingencies.
The European Union is far less politically controversial than NATO and much better equipped to address this broad array of concerns. Indo-Pacific policymakers should make the most of EU security and defense tools that have already proved their value in the context of the war in Ukraine and that offer an alternative path for building Asian-European cooperation in the absence of NATO. These instruments include the European Peace Facility, which coordinates the provision of military equipment to partners and EU training missions for partner countries; and the Critical Maritime Routes Indo-Pacific (CRIMARIO) project dedicated to enhancing maritime security and capacity building with Indo-Pacific partners. These EU programs offer an effective alternative to the kind of defense cooperation NATO boosters claim the alliance could provide. Moreover, cooperating through the European Union would also open opportunities to address a wide array of security-related issues that fall outside NATO’s remit, such as protecting critical infrastructure, regulating foreign investments, and building societal resilience against disinformation and hybrid threats. Whereas NATO’s hard military focus could provoke a regional backlash, the EU’s inclusive approach is likely to garner far more support in the Indo-Pacific.
Finally, European states should work to integrate themselves more fully into the region’s security architecture. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the security challenge presented by Beijing; states in the Indo-Pacific are building different strategies to address their China problems. Europe should lean into the region’s mix of bilateral and multilateral arrangements, including more robust collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on issues including cybersecurity, sustainable clean energy, and supply chain resilience. It should also deepen and expand minilateral initiatives with the region, such as the trilateral initiative between France, India, and the United Arab Emirates focused on defense, technology, and climate innovation projects, or Germany and the United Kingdom’s joint efforts to address the threat Pacific Islands face from rising sea levels through the Blue Pacific Initiative.
If the objective is to effectively counter China’s growing assertiveness in Asia, militarized Western platforms are not the best answer. Instead, Asian and European countries must come together to forge more nuanced and calibrated approaches that won’t stoke further conflict—or put the region in an impossible, and potentially ruinous, position.