Why not a NATO for the Indo-Pacific?

How AUKUS can catalyze a broader security architecture

With wars in Europe and the Middle East and flashpoints in Guyana, the Red Sea and elsewhere, it would be easy to lose sight of the geopolitical primacy of the Indo-Pacific over coming decades. This would be a major mistake! The region spans from the West Coast of the Americas to the Indian Ocean. It is home to half the human population, 60 percent of the world’s economy, and seven of the world’s largest militaries. It is expected to drive two-thirds of global economic growth over coming decades.

The Indo-Pacific is also on the doorstep of China, whose aggression under Chairman Xi Jinping is growing worldwide and particularly in this region. Given China’s aggressive behavior toward Taiwan, the Philippines, and others, the requirement for a NATO-like security architecture in the region is increasingly pronounced, and AUKUS may be well-positioned to catalyze such an architecture.

China already accuses AUKUS of being a NATO replica for the Asia-Pacific. Perhaps our response should be: Yes, that’s exactly what it is! Promoting secure trade routes, territorial integrity, and rule of law is nothing to apologize for, especially when a larger player is undermining peaceful and lawful relations among regional countries.

Current Indo-Pacific Strategies

Both the US and UK have placed renewed emphasis on the Indo-Pacific over the last several years, most notably with the creation of AUKUS. When the alliance was announced, President Biden declared that “the future of our nations, and indeed the world, depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in coming decades.” His administration followed up with a comprehensive U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.

The UK adopted a parallel strategy referred to as the Indo-Pacific Tilt. Foreign Secretary James Cleverley went so far as to state that “security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific are indivisible from Europe’s.”

While the US and UK are correct to focus on the Indo-Pacific, their strategies don’t go far enough in creating a blueprint for the future. With AUKUS in its third year, alliance members would be wise to continue building out an Indo-Pacific grand strategy and long-term vision for security in the region.

China’s Aggression

China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific is well-documented and growing. According to the U.S. State Department, China has stolen resources in the South China Sea, challenged neighbors in the East China Sea, and provoked territorial disputes along the Indian border and elsewhere. It has repeatedly threatened Taiwan as well, stoking increased fears of an attempted invasion. Its regional approach includes a combination of outright theft, threats, and pressure to cooperate. In recent months, China’s escalated its bullying of the Philippines and has escalated its ADIZ violations in the Taiwan Strait. The media calls it greyzone, but it looks to me more like hybrid warfare.

Meanwhile, China’s renewed alliance with Russia is turning into a defining adversarial axis in global geopolitics, threatening both Western Europe and the Indo-Pacific. At their summit in Moscow in March 2023, Xi and Putin cemented a “no limits partnership,” bringing their ties into a “new era” of cooperation. China, acting as the senior partner, has been providing military-capable hardware and gear to Russia. The two leaders will meet again in Beijing this may.

History Rhymes

In many respects, today’s world looks like it did when NATO was created. Then, the Soviet Union was pursuing an expansionist vision under an authoritarian leader with an authoritarian ideology. Today, China is doing the same thing.

Then, the geopolitical order was in flux and a series of events like the Berlin Crisis raised concerns about the political and physical security of western Europe. Today, we are seeing the deterrent benefits of NATO in Europe while countries in the Indo-Pacific have no such protection against China. Today these countries are concerned about their political and physical security.

Then, the Cold War was defined by technology competition over nuclear or space. Today we are in an even more intense technopolar moment, with commercial technology companies like Starlink playing a growing role in shaping geopolitics. AUKUS is appropriately focused on advanced technological capabilities, and I like that it may expand Pillar II to other countries.

Some might say that the nature of China’s threat is different from that of the Soviet Union — that it is less of a conventional military threat than a threat of economic and political subversion. The economic threat from China is much more significant than it was from the Soviet Union, but the political threat is more similar than not. In NATO’s early days, the threat from the Soviet Union was not military invasion — although that was always a background concern — but political subversion and “indirect means.” Unconventional threats then were just as much of a concern with the Soviet Union as they are with China today with the added concern that China is using economic power as an additional factor not available to Russia in the 1950s.

There are some differences, of course. For example, when NATO was founded, Europe was still reeling from World War II. War was a fresh memory and visceral experience for many early NATO leaders. By contrast, the Indo-Pacific has enjoyed decades of relative peace, though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing aggression are wake-up calls.

Benefits of an Indo-Pacific NATO

As during the Cold War, the global geopolitical order is reconfiguring around the gravitational fields of two superpowers, the U.S. and China. And yet the U.S. has, so far, failed to make sense of the new order and its strategy in it. Today’s strategic situation is reminiscent of the mid-to-late 1940s, when George Kennan defined the U.S. reaction to the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union in his famous long telegram. For the Indo-Pacific and global geopolitics more broadly, now is the time to develop and coalesce around a grand strategy for the next era. Incrementalism and “business as usual” won’t cut it. What is needed instead is a total reassessment of the Indo-Asian defense posture of the U.S. and its major allies, both in the region and worldwide.

Our proposed vision is to create a NATO-like alliance for the Indo-Pacific and catalyze it through AUKUS. Some might say this is too aggressive and expensive, or that it would unnecessarily escalate tensions with China. But the argument is stronger in the other direction. If you want peace, prepare for war. If you want cost-effectiveness, forge alliances and share capabilities. If you want to prevent a costly disruption in shipping lanes, then invest in their protection.

A NATO-like structure in the Indo-Pacific would bring significant benefits. It would create an overall architecture for regional security, territorial and political sovereignty, capabilities sharing, coordinated responses to shared threats, strengthened defense cooperation, and promotion of shared values. It would provide a vehicle to align interests and leverage defense dollars, and a bulwark against China’s provocations and bullying. In sum, it would provide the security architecture needed to contain China and promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

China would view such an alliance as provocative, but it is already acting as if an Indo-Pacific NATO is on our agenda. It has already vowed to build its own security architecture with Putin to counter the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy. As a result, there isn’t much benefit to soft pedaling at this point. If China doesn’t want the U.S. and others to adopt a Cold War mindset, then it should not act like the Cold War has started again.

Another counterargument is that turning AUKUS into an Indo-Pacific NATO-like structure is duplicative and disruptive to other agreements, such as the Quad, ASEAN, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, where the Biden administration announced an agreement to coordinate supply chains to reduce dependence on China. But these agreements are complementary, not duplicative. If anything, they have already set the stage for a deeper and broader alliance. An Indo-Pacific NATO-like architecture could patch together these alliances into something broader and more enduring.

Some might ask, why not expand NATO to the Pacific, especially since China has already sounded that alarm as a pretext for its aggressive behavior? Visions of a global NATO have been considered in recent decades, but it’s always been a step too far for members. Plus, it would detract from NATO’s distinct focus on the Western hemisphere. A separate “sister” security architecture catalyzed by AUKUS makes more sense, one adapted to unique aspects of Indo-Pacific security that can cooperate with NATO when appropriate. Thus, we envision not an exact replica of NATO but a sister alliance with many similar characteristics.

Recommendations

Pursuing a NATO-like security architecture for the Indo-Pacific may be facilitated by the following recommendations.

1) Invest in open-source intelligence and public education

Considering China's actions like targeting our military bases with malware, it is difficult to conclude anything other than we're already in a Cold War with China, if not something warmer (a deniable war?). Yet public consciousness has not yet acknowledged or accepted the reality that China is conducting warfare against the U.S. and its allies. This may be by design. As Qiao Liang wrote in Unrestricted Warfare:

“If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins. And this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked.”

China’s modus operandi across the globe conforms to Qiao Liang’s dictum. The obvious countermeasure is exposure and public education, pressing the point that China is already waging war on us, rather than treating these issues as one-offs or as being unrelated to China’s larger purposes. One place to start is by investing in open-source intelligence documenting China’s bad behaviors. There is an opportunity to apply the playbook that has been used to keep the Soviet Union and an aggressive Russia in check. Standing up Bellingcat-like organizations focused on China would be money well spent. An overall information campaign exposing China’s acts of warfare across countries in the Indo-Pacific would be smart as well.

2) Develop Pacific institutions that span the Indo-Pacific

The development of an Atlantic community is an under-appreciated factor in the rise of NATO. These countries had experienced WWII and shared a long history. They had growing economic ties (including the Marshall Plan), cultural ties, and shared democratic values. Over time, an Atlantic community formed, with its own distinctive cultures, institutions, and rhetoric. Alliance cohesion became, in a way, a function of Atlantic cohesion.

In today’s context, fostering a Pacific community would be helpful groundwork for a broader alliance. This is already being done diplomatically and has developed – if unacknowledged – by the economic and trade investments of Atlantic-oriented countries in South and Southeast Asia. Collaborative efforts on issues such as disaster response, environmental conservation, and economic development can demonstrate the tangible benefits of a united Indo-Pacific cooperation structure. Over time, AUKUS needs to develop its own framework of rhetoric, grand strategy thinking, and cadence of meetings and intellectual gatherings.

We recommend fostering institutions that span the Indo-Pacific. Imagine a group like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), or an equivalent to the Atlantic Council, with offices in Santiago, Tokyo, Canberra, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. No such Indo-Pacific-wide institutional footprint currently exists, though ASPI is off to a great start. Pax Pacifica requires more centers of gravity for intellectual activity and collaboration.

3) Put AUKUS work groups on steroids

While most of the attention on AUKUS to date has focused on Pillar 1 and nuclear submarines, Pillar 2’s focus on sharing advanced capabilities is a core piece of the alliance. A report to Congress on Pillar 2 points to increased activity, but it is not ambitious enough. The Administration’s FY2024 budget has a line item for an AUKUS "AI development hub" (see report page 5), but it is only for $5 million. This is a tiny and unserious amount, especially in the face of China’s economic imperialism in the region.

Better organizing, funding, and staffing of the AUKUS work groups would accelerate the development of technological capabilities while demonstrating to the larger Indo-Pacific region the value of pooling expertise and resources. Such a significant and visible increase in technological capabilities would be an effective value proposition for joining the alliance. Each work group, in effect, could become its own Manhattan Project-like effort focused on the targeted technologies: underseas capabilities; quantum technologies, AI and autonomy; advanced cyber; hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities, and electronic warfare.

4) Institutionalize AUKUS

The current, decentralized structure of AUKUS is insufficient to the task of providing a serious security architecture for, and an effective counterweight to China, in the Indo-Pacific. By formalizing AUKUS into its own organization, member countries can deepen their commitment and institutionalize their collaboration, paving the way for long-term strategic planning, joint military exercises, and collective decision-making. Moreover, a free-standing and technology-sharing organization would be an attractant to, and promote the inclusion of, additional like-minded countries in the region, enhancing the collective strength and influence of the alliance. Making AUKUS its own organization would signify a more permanent commitment to regional security and stability, enabling it to proactively address emerging threats, promote interoperability, and coordinate diplomatic efforts, further solidifying the Indo-Pacific's position as a region of peace, prosperity, and cooperation.

5) Establish a Truman-like Doctrine for the Indo-Pacific

Addressing Congress on March 12, 1947, President Truman announced that “every nation must choose between alternative ways of life.” It is a choice between “the will of the majority” that guarantees individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression on one hand, and “the power relied on terror and oppression” that is forcibly imposed with the control of media, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms on the other. The Truman Doctrine grew out of this address, promising that the U.S. would do whatever it could economically and militarily to prevent the spread of communism.

Today, a new Truman-type Doctrine for the Indo-Pacific is essential in safeguarding the region's stability, prosperity, and security. By publicly calling out and pledging unwavering support to countries facing Chinese aggression and coercion in the Indo-Pacific region, this doctrine would send a clear signal that these acts – which undermine the economies and political structures of the region’s countries – will not be tolerated. Through a Truman-like doctrine for the Indo-Pacific, the international community can foster a rules-based order, uphold democratic values, and ensure that the region remains free from the undue influence of any hegemonic power. Just as NATO is pushing back on Russia’s Ukraine invasion, so the US and AUKUS must provide support for any country facing Chinese aggression, whether military economic or through internal subversion. The most immediate case, of course, is Taiwan. But Chinese economic and military subversion and aggression requires a proactive and principled defensive doctrine that is essential to preserving and promoting peace, stability, and economic growth in the Indo-Pacific region.

6) Create a formal Atlantic-Pacific partnership

As the West grapples with an aggressive China and Russia axis, developing a formal Atlantic-Pacific Partnership is a necessary step to grapple with the threat. As others have noted, NATO is well-positioned to act as the central node in a global effort to counteract China’s and Russia’s hostile and malign activities. AUKUS, in turn, could step into its role as a sister alliance to NATO in the Indo-Pacific. While we do not believe NATO itself should expand to the Indo-Pacific, we do believe it is well positioned to share its experiences and capabilities, and act as a coordinating body.

An example of how such an Atlantic-Pacific cooperative structure might work is the following description from the Atlantic Council as to how an Atlantic-Pacific partnership could be formalized:

Establish an official Atlantic-Pacific Partnership that provides like-minded Indo-Pacific countries the opportunity to participate in a NATO-coordinated regional network. NATO should focus initial efforts on integrating its existing bilateral relationships with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand into a multilateral “30+4” consultative network. The APP would provide opportunities for multilateral dialogue to address the most pressing challenges facing the transatlantic-pacific community. Modeled after NATO’s existing efforts with Finland and Sweden, security cooperation under the APP could include “regular political dialogue and consultations; exchanges of information on hybrid warfare; coordinating training and exercises; and developing better joint situational awareness to address common threats and develop joint actions, if needed.”

7) Don’t forget the west coast of Latin America

Most people do not think of Central and Latin America as part of the Indo-Pacific, but this is a mistake, as exemplified by China’s recent Belt and Road economic incursions into South and Central America. Including the western rim of Latin America in an Indo-Pacific strategy is strategically sound for several compelling reasons. First and foremost, this region holds significant economic potential, with countries such as Chile, Peru, and Colombia boasting robust trade ties and valuable natural resources. By integrating these nations into an Indo-Pacific approach, we can bolster economic partnerships and prevent further incursions by China into the region under the guise of “economic assistance”.

Moreover, including the western rim can serve as a counterbalance to the influence of other global actors in Latin America, ensuring that the region remains committed to democratic principles and aligned with like-minded partners. Geopolitically, including Latin America’s western rim bolsters our collective security by increasing the scope of defense cooperation and increasing maritime domain awareness in the Pacific Ocean. Lastly, fostering economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties between the Indo-Pacific and Latin America can create a more economically robust, interconnected and cohesive global community, better equipped to address shared challenges such as climate change, transnational crime, and pandemic response.

Conclusion

Moving toward a NATO-like alliance for the Indo-Pacific is worth considering. It could strengthen regional security, foster multilateral cooperation, promote peace, and keep the PRC’s anti-Western and anti-democratic expansionism in check. By drawing upon the successful principles and practices of NATO, such an alliance could play a pivotal role in addressing the evolving geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific and, in turn, fostering peace and stability.