Never Say Never to an Asian NATO

The Biden administration’s coalition-building with U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific has reached a fever pitch. It began early in the administration with the elevation of the U.S.-Japan-Australia-India quadrilateral dialogue, or Quad, to the level of regular leaders’ summits. Then, in September 2021, came the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact (AUKUS) to produce nuclear-powered submarines for Australia and collaborate on research into advanced capabilities such as hypersonic weapons and quantum computing.

In parallel, NATO released a new Strategic Concept in June 2022 that named China as a high strategic priority. To that end, the bloc began inviting the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea to its annual summits. And last month, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at Camp David to build on recent Japanese-South Korean reconciliation. The summit produced a pledge—using language usually associated with a collective defense treaty—to consult in the event of security contingencies.

After the Camp David summit, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan responded to speculation about U.S. intentions by pointedly denying that the trilateral security pledge is “a new NATO for the Pacific.”

The U.S. and partner governments may not have the intent of pursuing an Asian NATO today, but the unfolding geopolitics of the region makes that option more plausible than it has been for seven decades. To understand why, it is important to look at why the region never developed a collective security organization in the first place, why U.S. and allied officials are so adamant right now that no such bloc is planned, and why and how that could change.

The U.S. network of bilateral alliances in the Pacific was established through a series of negotiations in the aftermath of World War II, which led to the creation of bilateral treaties with Japan and the Philippines, as well as the ANZUS treaty with Australia and New Zealand. These were later followed by security treaties with Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan—with the latter treaty replaced in 1979 by the Taiwan Relations Act, following the normalization of U.S. relations with Beijing. There was also the ill-fated Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which approximated the collective security model of NATO but collapsed with the escalation in Vietnam and was quietly dissolved in 1977. The resulting security system was later dubbed the “hub and spokes” model, whereby the United States was the hub and bilateral alliances the spokes for a wheel of security in the region. The arrangement contrasted with NATO because the security commitments were not collective and did not create a military bloc.

It will be up to Chinese President Xi Jinping whether a NATO in the Pacific ultimately becomes reality.

According to Georgetown University professor Victor Cha, some in Washington did initially want a collective Pacific pact but backed away because of fears that impatient leaders like Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek or South Korea’s Rhee Syngman would use any collective security commitments to pull the entire region into a war against China and the Soviet Union in order to unify their divided countries. Bilateral security commitments also seemed more logical because of the region’s geography. Unlike in Europe, there was no contiguous group of countries facing the communist bloc, many Asian states strongly distrusted each other (because of unresolved borders or animosities resulting from World War II), and—perhaps most importantly—pacifist postwar Japan had a strong distaste for playing any sort of formalized military role in the region. Finally, the United States’ overwhelming naval and air power in a maritime theater stood in sharp contrast to Soviet land power dominance in Europe. Its military preeminence in the Pacific gave Washington the luxury of not needing a collective security arrangement.

Seven decades later, however, the logic of greater collective security in Asia is becoming more compelling than in the 1950s. First, the United States has lost its preponderance of military power in the maritime domain. Now, Washington and its allies face a quantitative, if not qualitative, threat comparable to what NATO confronted in Europe during the Cold War. Second, China’s and North Korea’s direct military threats against U.S. allies and partners have demonstrably increased in recent years. For decades, Japan and Australia were far from the front lines of the Cold War, with Japan a safe sanctuary for logistical support for U.S. forces and Australia far enough away to choose case by case how it might plug into any U.S.-led coalition with its niche combat capabilities.

That has all changed. Japan has revised the previously pacifist interpretation of Article 9 of its constitution to prioritize greater military readiness as well as joint operations with the United States and other countries. Leaders in Tokyo now see themselves on the front line of strategic tensions with Beijing, and a large majority of the Japanese public believes there will be a war in their lifetime. Australia has reduced its official warning time (the government’s calculation of the country’s window before a significant possible attack) from 10 years to immediate. (It’s helpful to remember that the reality of zero warning time—in other words, the need to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice—was one reason why both NATO and the U.S.-South Korea bilateral alliance established joint and combined commands.) Since China’s warfighting strategies appear to envision broader regional offenses against the U.S. military’s points of access in the region, Washington’s closest allies now see a high likelihood that they would be swept into a conflict regardless of their own intentions. With the growing prospect that any conflict would be region-wide and come with zero warning time, planners would clearly prefer joint command and control, as well as integrated deterrence, if they could get it. In other words, structures very much like those of NATO.

On the other hand, the arguments against an Asian NATO have also become more compelling, reflecting today’s complex and contradictory strategic environment. In contrast to NATO members’ relations with the Soviet Union during the early phase of the Cold War—when the United States and other allies generally had no significant economic relations with the Soviets—China today is the top trading partner for Japan, South Korea, Australia, and most other U.S. allies and partners in the region. In addition, these countries have stated their goal of eventually restoring a more productive relationship with Beijing despite the current friction, and they recognize that a NATO-style alliance would likely foreclose that future. Fears of entrapment would be another obstacle, given the different risk tolerance across potential alliance members with respect to any conflict involving Taiwan.

Finally, close allies such as Australia or Japan would quickly point out that, in an environment of strategic competition for influence in multiple military and non-military domains, a regional alliance would alienate critical countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Some traditional U.S. allies and partners might balk and defect rather than join, which would set back deterrence and embolden Chinese ambitions. No wonder, then, that Sullivan said so emphatically that the United States is not establishing an Asian NATO.

But never say never. If concerns about deterring and stopping a destructive and dangerous regional war surpass concerns about trade, regional cohesion, or retaining strategic autonomy, the current patchwork of arrangements among the United States, its bilateral allies, and like-minded partners could very well move in the direction of collective security. The basis of common values, similar threat perception, basic operating structures, and decades of experience with cooperation is there. Even without any overt Chinese use of force, Beijing’s coercive behavior against its neighbors could create this outcome in piecemeal fashion. That need not be Washington’s goal, but it should remain an option that quietly guides alliance priorities. Then it will be up to Chinese President Xi Jinping whether a NATO in the Pacific ultimately becomes reality.