The plan by the United States to “institutionalise” four Asia-Pacific countries within the Nato framework is likely to hinge on a raft of factors such as the course of the Russia-Ukraine war, China’s continued “aggression” and the coming US presidential election.
Observers also say the move is aimed at ensuring a future American administration cannot easily reverse the arrangement, which is motivated by growing disappointment with other existing US-led alliances such as the Quad.
Last Wednesday, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in an interview with South Korean news agency Yonhap that the US wanted to “institutionalise” the four Indo-Pacific partners of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or Nato, as Washington refocuses its attention on the region. The grouping of Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea is commonly referred to as the IP4.
Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst at the think tank Rand, said the institutionalisation of IP4-Nato cooperation would depend on the outcome of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the level of “Chinese assertiveness” in Asia-Pacific, and the US presidential election in November “If the war ends on Ukraine’s terms, then IP4 would probably have less salience going forward”, but if Russia were to defeat Ukraine or achieve even limited goals, the US and Nato would view IP4 “as part of maintaining what is left of the liberal rules-based international order”, Grossman said.
Campbell’s comments came after the IP4 leaders attended last week’s Nato summit for the third year in a row in Washington, during which they issued a joint statement to “strongly condemn the illicit military cooperation” between Russia and North Korea. The event is widely seen as a big step undertaken by the 75-year-old military alliance of European and North American countries to forge closer ties with its Pacific partners over common security threats. During his meeting with IP4 officials, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said both sides must work even more closely together “to preserve peace and protect the rules-based international order”.
In the final communique approved by all its 32 members, Nato called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine and accused Beijing of employing “coercive tactics and efforts to divide the bloc”. The alliance also reaffirmed that the “Indo-Pacific is important for Nato and promised to continue deepening cooperation with its IP4 partners on shared security concerns involving China, Russia and North Korea”. In response, China accused Nato of seeking security at the expense of others and told the bloc not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Nato-IP4 cooperation was starting to be institutionalised through regular meetings, coordinated policy statements, and agreements for increasing interoperability. “US allies in Europe and Asia are looking to do more together because regional threats to international order are increasingly linked,” he added. Stephen Nagy, professor of politics and international studies at Tokyo’s International Christian University, said the institutionalisation of IP4 into Nato was an attempt by the current US administration to “ensure that a Trump administration cannot walk back [on] this institutional cooperation”.
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