NATO NOT PACIFIC

The Pacific has no need of the destructive militaristic culture of the Atlantic alliance, NATO's Asian partners circling, NATO Cannot Survive with Trump or without USA

Jul 10, 2024

Asia, say 'no' to Nato

By Kishore Mahbubani (2021-2022)

The Pacific has no need of the destructive militaristic culture of the Atlantic alliance

America is back,” U.S. President Joe Biden has announced to the world—but in Southeast Asia, the United States is playing catch-up again. And it has much to recover. The last four years witnessed Washington’s dwindling diplomatic and political capital in the region.

The United States has no regional initiative of significance. It has excluded itself from two economic groupings: the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans Pacific Partnership. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump did attend the ASEAN–U.S. summit in the Philippines, but missed out on all four East Asia summits during his term. U.S. embassies in four ASEAN countries (Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, and the Philippines) have been operating without ambassadors, and the United States is the only major country that does not have a permanent representative to the ASEAN Secretariat. In the Philippines and Indonesia, getting too close to Trump was seen as a political liability—which explains why Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, never visited Trump at the White House. U.S. support for the region during the COVID-19 crisis has been modest at best.

The Biden administration is now undertaking steps to reverse course, repair the damage, and restore U.S. credibility. His first step in foreign policy, Biden has said, is to win back allies and partners while pushing back adversaries. Policies are being recalibrated across the board.

ASEAN countries would certainly welcome a robust U.S. engagement in the region—but in the right way.

First, they do not want to see a heightened U.S.-Chinese rivalry in Southeast Asia, a region that has been a cockpit of conflict between major powers in the past and could well become that again. ASEAN countries do not want to be polarized, pulled in different directions by different powers, and see the cohesion of the ASEAN community undermined. ASEAN countries are hoping that the Biden administration will lower the temperature, tone, and tension of U.S.-Chinese relations and keep the rivalry manageable.

Second, it is in the national interest of ASEAN countries to maintain good relations with both the United States and China. They all want to extract benefits from both powers. They believe that Southeast Asia, and the Indo-Pacific, have ample space for engagement for both superpowers. As such, ASEAN countries would not like to see a repeat of the aggressive anti-China rants that former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo uttered in his final months in office.

Indeed, Southeast Asia’s perspective on China is different from that of the United States. While ASEAN members remain rightly anxious about China’s moves in the South China Sea, they have also recognized that China will be a big part of their future—bilaterally and regionally. Of course, they have no illusions about their relationships with China, which will be complex and challenging. Still, while the bipartisan view in Washington sees China as a threat to the United States’ long-standing supremacy, Southeast Asians generally accept China as an important partner for their development plans.

Southeast Asians hear the alarm sounded by the Biden administration on the danger democracy is facing from autocracy, explicitly referring to China. Yet the reality on the ground is that no Southeast Asian country particularly minds China’s political system, mainly due to the principle of non-interference, but also because they simply have no interest in China’s domestic politics.

Not a single ASEAN country has echoed the U.S. State Department’s claim that China is committing “genocide” against Muslims in Xinjiang. Not one Southeast Asian country—not even Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country—considers China an ideological foe.

In fact, ASEAN’s leaders would sympathize with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s statement that every country has a right to choose its own path of development, because this is being practiced in ASEAN itself.

Third, Southeast Asian countries do not want to see the erosion of ASEAN centrality—the principle that ASEAN, which unites an increasingly cohesive group of nations, should take charge of affairs in the region. ASEAN centrality presumes that the major powers have a strategic trust in ASEAN and are willing to let the organization lead on some aspects of regional affairs. ASEAN’s credibility depends on its ability to maintain good relations with all the major powers: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, the European Union, and India. This is why ASEAN does not want to choose sides and does not want to be pressured to do so. Choosing one side will automatically mean alienating the other. Doing so will reposition ASEAN away from the center of complex relationships.

The ASEAN countries noticed with curiosity that Biden’s first foreign policy move in Asia was to convene the Quadrilateral meeting of the United States, Australia, Japan, and India—and elevate it to a leader-level summit. While the Quad leaders strongly endorsed ASEAN centrality, questions are being asked within ASEAN regarding the Quad’s strategic objective and whether it will undertake measures that may be incompatible with ASEAN’s goals. To date, the relationship between ASEAN and the Quad remains fluid, unclear, and uncertain.

The Quad also inevitably invites questions whether Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy will be any different from Trump’s. Beijing was not entirely wrong to suspect that the Trump administration’s version of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific contained an anti-China bias.

The Biden administration should convincingly demonstrate that its Indo-Pacific vision—indeed its strategy for Asia—is not intended to marginalize, let alone contain, any resident power. It is a good sign that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has increasingly used the phrase “free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific”—”inclusive” is a code word in the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific for keeping the door open for China to come in.

Finally, Southeast Asians want to see the United States and China cooperate in their region. A few years ago, Xi called for a “new type of great power relationship” with the United States based on ”win-win solutions.” Biden has confirmed that his administration wants “competition, not conflict” with China and ”is ready to work with Beijing when it is in America’s interest to do so.” Blinken also said that the U.S. “relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be.”

Given these encouraging words, can either side overcome its strategic ego and start exploring avenues for cooperation? Can Southeast Asia be the place where some form of concrete U.S.-China cooperation takes place? This is, after all, a region that has seen a long list of seemingly intractable conflicts turn into lasting cooperation: between Indonesia and Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia and Timor Leste, Malaysia and the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia—the list goes on. Countries in this region have demonstrated that enmity can be turned to amity.

There is no shortage of issues for Washington and Beijing to explore cooperation on: industry, infrastructure, maritime security, piracy, climate, environment, green energy, natural disasters, COVID-19, youth exchanges, and so on. While this will not change their rivalry on a global scale, it might just change the texture of U.S.-Chinese relations in Southeast Asia. That would be good enough for ASEAN. It really comes down to whether there is political will and diplomatic guile to do so.

NATO Seeks to counter China

NATO and its Asian partners are moving closer under US leadership

By Chen Wanqing and Aamer Madhani

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the third year of the war in Ukraine, NATO is set to deepen relations with its four Indo-Pacific partners, which, although not part of the military alliance, are gaining prominence as Russia and China forge closer ties to counter the United States and the two Koreas support opposing sides of the conflict in Europe.

The leaders of New Zealand, Japan and South Korea for the third year in a row will attend the NATO summit, which starts Tuesday in Washington, D.C., while Australia will send its deputy prime minister. China will be following the summit closely, worried by the alliance’s growing interest beyond Europe and the Western Hemisphere.

“Increasingly, partners in Europe see challenges halfway around the world in Asia as being relevant to them, just as partners in Asia see challenges halfway around the world in Europe as being relevant to them,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week at the Brookings Institution.

America’s top diplomat said the U.S. has been working to break down barriers between European alliances, Asian coalitions and other partners worldwide. “That’s part of the new landscape, the new geometry that we’ve put in place.”

NATO Cannot Survive Without America

If Trump Pulls Out, the Alliance Would Likely Fall Apart

By Hans Binnendijk, R. D. Hooker, Jr., and Alexander Vershbow

Last month, NATO, the world’s most successful military alliance, celebrated its 75th anniversary. Some fear that it may have been its last anniversary with the United States playing a leading role. Former U.S. President Donald Trump still views the alliance as obsolete. If reelected, he says he would encourage Russian leaders to do “whatever the hell they want” to member states that do not pay what he considers to be enough for defense. A second Trump presidency could have dire implications for European security.

Trump’s defenders argue that he is bluffing to pressure Europe into spending more on defense. But former U.S. officials who worked closely with Trump on NATO during his tenure, including one of us (Hooker), are convinced he will withdraw from the alliance if he is reelected. Trump hugely resents the more moderate advisers who kept him in check during his first term. If he reaches the White House in 2025, the guardrails will be off.

The U.S. Congress is concerned, too. It recently enacted legislation to prohibit a president from withdrawing from NATO unless Congress approves, either by a two-thirds vote in the Senate or an act of both houses of Congress. But Trump could circumvent this prohibition. He has already raised doubts about his willingness to honor NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause. By withholding funding, recalling U.S. troops and commanders from Europe, and blocking important decisions in the North Atlantic Council (NATO’s top deliberative body), Trump could dramatically weaken the alliance without formally leaving it. Even if he does not withdraw American support completely, Trump’s current position on NATO and his disinterest in supporting Ukraine, if adopted as national policy, would shatter European confidence in American leadership and military resolve.

EUROPE, ABANDONED

If Trump is reelected and follows through on his anti-NATO instincts, the first casualty would be Ukraine. Trump has opposed additional military aid to Kyiv and continues to fawn over Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is already trying to Trump-proof aid to Ukraine by coordinating it under the aegis of the alliance rather than the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Should the United States weaken or terminate its defense commitment to Europe under Trump, European countries would feel more vulnerable and may become increasingly reluctant to send Ukraine their own vital military supplies. With dramatic aid cuts, Kyiv could be forced to negotiate an unfavorable agreement with Moscow that would leave Ukraine a rump state militarily and economically vulnerable to Russia. Should Ukraine’s defenses collapse altogether, brutal repression and forced Russification await some 38 million people.

The disastrous consequences would only start there. A deflated NATO would struggle to mount an effective conventional deterrent against further Russian aggression. Russia is now on a war footing, spending six percent of its GDP on defense, and its authoritarian leader is committed to an ultranationalistic mission to consolidate his rule over what he calls the “Russian world,” an unspecified geographic space that extends well beyond his country’s internationally recognized borders. Moscow could reconstitute its armed forces relatively quickly. After subjugating all of Ukraine, Putin would probably focus on the Baltic states—NATO members covered by the alliance’s security umbrella but claimed as historic Russian lands by Putin. Should NATO’s conventional deterrence be weakened by the withdrawal of U.S. support, Russia would only be tempted to act more brazenly.

NATO countries collectively now spend two percent of GDP on defense, but in the absence U.S. support, European armies are still not sufficiently prepared, equipped, and able to fight against a major-power adversary. Europe remains heavily reliant on the United States in several important areas. On its own, it lacks many of the key toolsnecessary for successful defense, including airlift capabilities, air-to-air refueling, high-altitude air defense, space assets, and operational intelligence—these are all supplied primarily by the United States. Without American help, NATO would lose much of its military edge over Russia. Europe’s defense industry remains badly fragmented, and developing the needed defense capacities to compensate for the loss of American backing could take the remainder of this decade.

Should the United States abandon NATO, the erosion of nuclear deterrence would severely compound Europe’s conventional deterrence problem. Nuclear weapons underpin the United States’ commitment to defend its allies and its nuclear capabilities form the bedrock of NATO’s capacity for deterrence. Should Trump close the American nuclear umbrella, Europe would have to rely on less than 600 British and French strategic nuclear warheads, a fraction of Russia’s total force of over 5,000 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. Since Europe has no tactical nuclear weapons, it can hope to deter a Russian tactical nuclear attack only by threatening escalation to the strategic level, a move that Moscow may not find credible. In an attempt to scare Europeans away from backing Ukraine, Russia has on many occasions hinted it might use tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike the United States, France and the United Kingdom have not extended their nuclear deterrent to protect their allies. Should Washington leave Europe to fend for itself, Moscow might calculate that it could successfully resort to nuclear blackmail to capture the territory of NATO member states.

Without U.S. leadership in NATO, cohesion and unity among members would be difficult to maintain. It often requires a strong American voice to bring disparate member states to a consensus. Since NATO’s founding, a U.S. general officer has led the organization’s command structure, overseeing the military activities of all NATO member states. It is doubtful that any other country in the alliance could play this role.

NATO without the United States might limp along, but it is more likely that the alliance would collapse altogether. The European Union is not in a position to take NATO’s place any time soon, as its military capabilities are limited and more capable of managing regional crises than fighting major wars. Even if a rump NATO survives without strong American involvement, the challenges of divided leadership, inadequate deterrence capabilities, and an assertive adversary would heighten the risk of war with Russia, a major power bent on overturning the liberal international order.

THE FALLOUT

The damage would not be limited to Europe. If Trump wants to withdraw from NATO to punish allies for their inadequate defense spending, why would the United States maintain its commitments to its Asian allies, many of whom currently spend even less than NATO countries? For now, the defense ties between the United States and its allies in Asia, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, are growing stron

ger in the face of Chinese provocations. But a lack of confidence in U.S. commitments may well lead some of these countries to pursue nuclear weapons to offset China’s and North Korea’s nuclear advantages, undercutting the fragile stability that has prevailed in the region for decades. The withering of U.S. global leadership would also have profoundly negative consequences in the Middle East, where U.S. forces and U.S.-led coalitions are needed to deal with terrorist threats.

The United States’ economy might also suffer. Should a breakdown of deterrence trigger a general war with Russia or China, the economic costs would be staggering. Just a few Houthi fighters in Yemen have been able to disrupt global shipping through their attacks in the Red Sea. Imagine the consequences of a war among major powers. Moreover, trade ties often follow security ties. Last year, two-way transatlantic trade in goods topped $1.2 trillion. The United States has about $4 trillion invested in European industry. Some five million Americans work in European-owned industries. The United States has a huge economic stake in maintaining a peaceful Europe.

The United States has been here before. Before both world wars, Washington sought neutrality. Neither effort at isolationism worked and only prevented the United States from being able to help deter the aggressors in those wars. Eventually, the United States was pulled into both conflicts. After World War II, having learned the dangers of isolationism, the United States remained engaged and paved the way for the founding of NATO and 75 years of relative peace in Europe. The United States must not forget the painful lessons of the last century. To do so would risk undercutting U.S. global leadership, undermining the Washington-built international order, and making the world safer for authoritarian rule.

ASEAN Chair

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