The Folly of Interlinking NATO and U.S. Asian Alliances
Recent years have witnessed growing security engagement and cooperation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and key U.S. allies in East Asia — Japan and South Korea, most prominently. The two countries along with Australia and New Zealand — together dubbed “AP4” — have been invited to the annual NATO summit since 2022 and attended this year’s gathering in Washington. The development of security ties between the world’s greatest military alliance and Washington’s East Asian allies has gained momentum as they increasingly find a need for cooperation to counter security threats posed by the perceived revisionist ambitions of authoritarian Russia, China, and North Korea, and the solidifying partnership between the three.
However, rather than enhancing security across Eurasia, such developments may lead to further escalation of current flash points and the creation of new ones. Instead, Washington and its allies in both regions should prioritize conflict resolution and management in Europe and East Asia without needlessly interlinking the two.
Two Theaters, One Vision?
The concerns about an emerging authoritarian bloc among the so-called “Axis of Upheaval” are not unfounded. China and North Korea have each enabled Russia to prosecute its ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine through active commercial exchanges and supplies of weapons, respectively. At the same time, China and Russia have enabled North Korea’s continued nuclear development — by looking the other way as Pyongyang evades international sanctions; and in Russia’s case, through the outright expansion of economic and military ties with the northern regime.
In light of this, the interlinking of NATO and U.S. alliances in Asia more closely to bolster allied security cooperation across the two theaters has appeared to gain traction among U.S. leaders and their European and East Asian counterparts.
