NATO Can Help Create a Global Security Architecture

NATO’s annual summit last week in Vilnius, Lithuania, was significant beyond discussions about Russia, Ukraine’s membership, and NATO’s future. The leaders from NATO’s four Asia-Pacific partners (loosely called the “Asia-Pacific Four” or “AP4”)—South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—also participated in their second consecutive NATO summit.

Their attendance followed last year’s meeting in Madrid, during which NATO adopted its new Strategic Concept (the first since 2010), including China for the first time. It called Beijing a “systemic challenge” to Euro-Atlantic security, in tandem with the Madrid declaration, which described China as a systemic competitor. This year’s Vilnius communique stated that NATO is taking steps to protect against China’s “coercive tactics” and called on Beijing to play a “constructive role” as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—something that Beijing has shown little sign of doing so far.

The time is ripe for the NATO-AP4 partnership to become a critical linchpin for global security and stability. It is a critical link that connects three regions: North America, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific. Last year, there was enough political impetus to lay the foundation at the Madrid summit with a consensus that security is global and inseparable.

Capitalizing on the NATO-AP4 partnership could send a strong deterrence message to all three authoritarian regimes in possession of nuclear weapons—China, North Korea, and Russia. It can be a linchpin that not only brings the three regions together on shared challenges but knits together the United States’ patchwork of different regional security systems into a global security architecture of networked alliances and partnerships.

The NATO-AP4 partnership is an underappreciated entity whose history dates back to the early 1990s, first with Japan, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Until recently, NATO’s conception of “Asia” was primarily Central Asia as well as its cooperative missions in Afghanistan with both Central Asian and some Asia-Pacific countries after the 9/11 attacks. The four AP4 countries are officially “partners across the globe” of NATO and have begun to transition into the alliance’s new Individually Tailored Partnership Program. NATO is rightfully strengthening bilateral relations with individual countries in the Indo-Pacific. But it should also focus on multilateral cooperation with them.

The United States has long maintained a multilateral security system in Europe and a series of bilateral alliances (“hub and spokes”) in Asia that have largely been dealt with separately. But the evolving global security landscape in which a crisis in Europe affects the Indo-Pacific, and vice versa, requires a comprehensive and integrated approach. Russia’s war on Ukraine has resulted in inflation, food shortages, and disruptions in global supply chains while likely emboldening and providing tips for Beijing’s and Pyongyang’s own strategic calculations.

NATO for its part would be able to broaden its political-military network and contribute to Indo-Pacific security in practical ways, and its AP4 partners would become members of a global security community of like-minded countries that support one another across multiple domains. In these ways, NATO could also become the first forum in which hard security issues are discussed at a global level.

To be clear, NATO’s priority and top preoccupation will likely always be Russia and defending the North Atlantic region against all threats. It is unlikely to expand into a global alliance that commits to defending Asian countries militarily or get involved in a conflict militarily (unless perhaps North Korea or China struck the U.S. homeland). But with NATO’s recent recognition of the threat from Beijing and Pyongyang, there are opportunities for it to do far more than just dialoguing with Indo-Pacific countries for cultural education or putting forward rhetoric about a united front, important as those goals also are.

Since the 2022 Madrid summit, NATO and its AP4 partners have ramped up high-level political discussions and amplified rhetoric about solidarity to defend the rules-based international order. During his visit to Tokyo this January, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed: “What is happening in Europe today could happen in East Asia tomorrow. So we must remain united and firm.” He expressed interest in opening up NATO’s first liaison office in Asia in Tokyo (although France has expressed objection). The Vilnius communique reportedly omitted language about such plans in the final round of talks.

All of these movements and aspirations are headed in the right direction. But more can and should be done to translate talk into practical action that conforms to the framework of NATO’s priorities, outlined in its 2022 Strategic Concept, while staying true to the alliance’s statutes.

First, NATO should host regular Track 1 and Track 1.5 dialogues on deterrence and other key security topics to deepen all three regions’ respective situational awareness about one another’s immediate security threats, experiences, and deterrence targets as well as their understanding of different regional contexts. Deterrence should feature prominently on their agenda because it is one of NATO’s core tasks and each region faces adversaries whose incentives to use nuclear weapons could originate from non-nuclear domains, while advanced weapons risk blurring the line between nuclear and conventional capabilities.

Decision-making during a crisis has become more difficult, and the chances of miscalculation have increased, particularly amid great-power competition in a multipolar nuclear era. In the conventional military domain, questions continue to loom as to whether China might one day invade or blockade Taiwan.

East Asian countries could draw on relevant experiences from NATO, including deterrence measures, practices, and consultative mechanisms to strengthen U.S. extended deterrence in Asia—particularly the reassurance component of Washington’s defense commitment to its Asian allies. A common understanding of the security lexicon is also necessary because basic terms such as nuclear-sharing and arms control have been used in some Northeast Asian countries with varying definitions and different perceptions of them.

The three regions should devise and practice joint plans for crisis response and management that expand and deepen the existing political dialogues held between the North Atlantic Council and NATO’s AP4. A coordinated response among NATO, the AP4, and the European Union that is aligned with United States across multiple domains (military and nonmilitary) is important in dealing with threats from Beijing—or any potential crisis in Asia. Political, policy, and military officials should be involved in drawing up and implementing these plans.

At the very least, political and military officials from the three regions could conduct tabletop exercises together on scenarios—including a crisis in Taiwan, on the Korean Peninsula, or in the South China Sea—that result from a failure in deterrence. Practicing these scenarios is important to minimize disarray when a crisis happens and to prevent adversaries from driving wedges among the allies. Having a basic plan would also manage expectations and provide predictability and a supportive role for member states in NATO (and the EU) in crisis response scenarios.

For example, some NATO or EU member states, including Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, have recently been deploying naval and other military assets to the Indo-Pacific to symbolize solidarity in defending a rules-based international order. What happens if a crisis occurs while any one of them is there for a routine drill? What would these ships and aircraft do? Some European lawmakers recently told me that those military assets would “run back home.” That might be the politically and legally realistic reaction. But while NATO members would not engage militarily in a response outside the Euro-Atlantic region, the mission and message of solidarity would instantly crumble and hand adversaries an opportunity to divide them.

Therefore, like-minded allies and partners need to discuss at least a basic conception of their supporting roles, bearing in mind that there could be numerous possibilities for a crisis scenario. NATO could assist in economic and political ways or even provide military support in similar forms that some AP4 countries have to Ukraine. After all, the Indo-Pacific countries that have supported Ukraine expect Europe to do the same if a crisis happens in Asia.

U.S. allies and partners from all three regions could also deepen joint and combined military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. These could be stand-alone drills or held on the sidelines of existing multinational military exercises, such as those hosted by Australia (Talisman Sabre). Such drills could be conducted using carefully imagined hypothetical scenarios and targets to minimize misperceptions by Beijing, Pyongyang, and Moscow, but the skills that are practiced would be transferrable to a real-life situation if and when warranted.

Finally, the United States could initiate a process to appoint an Indo-Pacific coordinator at NATO or a Pacific-Atlantic coordinator in Washington—perhaps someone who understands all three regions and deterrence. It would also be prudent to coordinate NATO-AP4 meetings with other minilateral groupings—such as the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security partnership and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—to prevent duplicating initiatives while working closely with the Indo-Pacific point persons in each capital.

North American, European, and Indo-Pacific allies and partners should practice readiness together and build habits of tri-regional cooperation sooner than later. But there certainly are road bumps for this vision of the way forward. Undoubtedly, budget, resources, and consensus would be among the top hurdles in devising and coordinating action plans or practicing joint drills. More fundamentally, the AP4 is not a formal grouping on its own, and NATO so far cooperates only bilaterally with those countries. The AP4 countries have not yet aligned on a common agenda as a group, and the Japan-South Korea relationship is bumpy. For these reasons, it would be understandable if some NATO members are still hesitant about the alliance formalizing initiatives with the AP4.

Despite all these challenges, practical first steps should still be taken. The stakes are too high to wait until after a conflict or crisis occurs in the Indo-Pacific.