The North Atlantic Alliance, NATO should act not only in Europe, but also very far from the Atlantic – in the Indo-Pacific region. At least, the UK leadership is confident in this. Why exactly did London put forward this initiative, what might NATO's advance in Asia look like – and how will it be met there?
The United States and Great Britain continue to distort the concept of "European security" in favor of their interests, which directly contradict the interests of Europe as such.
First, they forced Europe to abandon military security, and Euro-Atlantic elites rejected the Russian proposal for a unified security system from Vladivostok to Lisbon. Then they forced European countries to abandon energy security (that is, optimal routes for the supply of cheap Russian gas), after which the Bulgarian authorities buried South Stream, and now the German ones have put Nord Stream–2 into a coma.
Now Washington and London are demanding that Europe take another step. Namely, to actively engage in the struggle of "democracies against autocracies" announced by Joseph Biden. And quite on the other side of the planet.
To the East
Thus, British Foreign Minister Liz Truss made a number of interesting proposals. She believes that the G7 should be "more institutionally organized" and turn into an "economic NATO" in order to protect its members from Chinese economic pressure.
In addition, NATO itself should be "more global" in its vision of the world. The official suggested expanding NATO's area of responsibility – and not to Central Asia (where the alliance was already in Afghanistan, after which it left this country with defeat), but to the East.
"It is important that we focus on global NATO. Because while protecting Euro-Atlantic security, we also need to pay attention to security in the Indo-Pacific region," Liz Truss said. "We need to pre-empt threats in the Indo-Pacific region. Work with allies such as Japan and Australia to make sure that the Pacific Ocean is protected. We must be sure that democracies like Taiwan can defend themselves," the head of British diplomacy explained her thought.
At first glance, the idea looks strange. "This proposal comes from a country that (perhaps more than any other) over the past few years has been paralyzed by its own fragmentation, strategic confusion and short-sighted self–doubt," writes the Atlantic.
However, this is the logic. After leaving the EU, there are really centrifugal trends in Britain (first of all, in Northern Ireland and Scotland). In addition, London has a serious conflict with Brussels over the notorious exit conditions. And in order to boost the economy (due to expansion into foreign markets) and consolidate the population, Britain seriously set about restoring its external greatness. For turning, if not into a global power, then at least into a great one again.
Realizing that he did not have so many resources to capture greatness, London considered that the least resistance on the way to leadership would be if a British foreign policy destroyer sailed in the wake of an American aircraft carrier. That is why the British have actually strapped their foreign policy to the American one and, as a junior partner, are ready to participate in all Washington's foreign policy initiatives. And not just to participate, but to attract other European countries to them, so that these initiatives are implemented at the expense of the European economy, thereby removing competitors for British industry. And America clearly sees the main direction of its expansion in this century in Asia. In the immediate vicinity of China.
East asked?
At the same time, Europe itself (including Britain) may simply not have enough resources and opportunities for an independent – that is, in isolation from local forces – active policy in East Asia. "In order to interfere somewhere, you need to have something to interfere with. Military bases, infrastructure, etc. So in any case, the consent of local players will be required," Alexey Kupriyanov, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS, explains to the newspaper VIEW.
And here may be the problem. In East Asia (which, of course, was not asked), Liz Truss's initiative is unlikely to cause much enthusiasm. On the one hand, the more players in the region, the better. On the other hand, these players should not come to an eastern monastery with a Western neoliberal charter.
There is a specific – dynamic, so to speak – security system in the region. Countries prefer to negotiate with each other on the basis of pragmatic interests, rather than embed themselves in narrow ideological formats of conflicts (as the United States and European countries are used to).
"Everything, of course, depends on what the conditions of membership will be. If it is a formalized alliance with an anti-Chinese and anti-Russian orientation, with strict requirements for military budgets and obligations, then there will be few willing. Except Japan and Taiwan, and even that is doubtful," Alexey Kupriyanov assures.
Tokyo and Taipei, of course, would welcome the involvement of European countries in containing China, but they see that these countries: a) weak in terms of the possibility of force projection; and b) too unreliable. "It is possible that the Europeans, once they come to the region, will try to play an independent role instead of obediently listening to American orders. For example, they will not want to restrain China. After all, it's one thing to confront Russia in Ukraine, another thing is to get involved in conflicts in the South Seas for no clear reason," Alexey Kupriyanov continues.
The initiative of Ms. Truss does not cause enthusiasm in Moscow either. Russia sees it as another example of how the United States is trying to force its partners to act across national interests.
"We are talking about the revival of strict bloc discipline, unconditional subordination of the "allies" to the dictates of Washington," says Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. And, of course, as part of the global struggle for the reconstruction of the world, which Russia began with its special operation in Ukraine.
As Sergey Lavrov noted, today the question is what the future world order will be – fair and polycentric, or "a small group of countries will be able to impose a neocolonial division of the world on the international community." Well, which version of the world is fairer?
Gevorg Mirzayan, Associate Professor of Finance University
