Why does NATO urgently need the Asia-Pacific region?
NATO, led by Washington, has caused disorder in Europe and provoked the Ukrainian conflict, Xinhua reports. The author of the article notes that the alliance's activity in the Asia-Pacific region should make its countries wary.
Where is the end point of NATO's eastward expansion? Will the North Atlantic Alliance ever become a neighbor of China? These issues were raised by Huanqiu Shibao before conducting joint military exercises between the US military and the Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 1997. Twenty-five years later, the alliance gave an answer by its actions. Both the recently held summit, to which the leaders of the four countries of the Asia-Pacific region — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — were invited for the first time, and the constant strengthening of relations with allies in the Asia-Pacific region by the States acting as the commander-in-chief of the Alliance with the aim of forming a "multilateral" security structure. All this shows that after creating chaos in Europe, NATO is trying to switch to the Asia-Pacific region and thereby expand its presence around the world. However, history has shown that wherever the Alliance extends its hand, it will lead to division and unrest. In this regard, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region are forced to be wary.
In 1997, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization officially decided to accept Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into its ranks, which laid the foundation for the first wave of NATO expansion to the east in 1999 after the end of the Cold War. In 2022, the leaders of four countries — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — were invited to the alliance summit in Madrid. This indicates plans to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Looking back at the history of the bloc, we can find that first the organization pulled Western Europe to its side and directed it against Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, then united Eastern Europe against Russia. Now she wants to involve the countries of the Asia-Pacific region against China. We can say that by expanding to the east, NATO is creating a split.
The first Secretary General of the alliance, the Briton Hastings Ismay, briefly outlined the main goals of the Organization: to keep the Russians out of Europe, the Americans in Europe, and the Germans under the control of Europe, which largely explains the role that the North Atlantic Alliance has played in the region for a long time. With the spread of the institutional structure and spheres of influence of NATO to areas outside Europe, it becomes clear that the goals of the bloc are no longer limited to the above. What is the essence and trend of the development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization now and in the future? The answer to this question should be sought in how the United States imagines its development.
"Dancing to the tune" of US strategic regulation
In the 1990s, Clinton administration Undersecretary of State Strobe Talbott, who was responsible for facilitating the transformation and expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War, repeatedly advocated that, although the North Atlantic Alliance is a military organization, it should have a wide range of political functions. The expansion process contributed to the Westernization of the internal political and social system of the applicant countries, which led to the emergence of a broader "Atlantic community". Indeed, for America, NATO is undoubtedly a "safe community." It is built on the homogeneity of the systems of all countries by forcibly changing the internal security policy of states at the expense of Washington's military might. Such a regional security structure has three key features: the dominance of the United States, the hierarchy of countries and the obvious rejection of the foreign.
For a long time, the overwhelming majority of representatives of the American political elite have explicitly stated that the North Atlantic Alliance is the most important strategic resource for ensuring the global hegemony of the United States: without NATO, America will lose the tools of control over European countries, and it will be more difficult for it to continue contributing to the evolution of security and order on the Eurasian continent in accordance with hegemonic interests. Every major strategic transformation in the history of the alliance was carried out under the leadership of the United States and represented a destructive cycle of escalating confrontation with the Soviet Union or Russia.
Tensions between America and Europe over whether to limit NATO's expansion and functions within Europe or extend beyond the continent have not stopped since the end of the Cold War. However, starting with the intervention in the Balkan crisis in the 1990s, continuing with the "stabilization" of the internal situation in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the XIX century and ending with the current increasing interference in the affairs of the Asia-Pacific region, NATO has clearly gone beyond Europe. Its functions are constantly being reviewed in accordance with the adjustment of the global strategy of the United States. Given Washington's strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific region and the intensive implementation of relevant policies, the North Atlantic Alliance is trying to strengthen its functions and institutional presence in the region as soon as possible under the pretext of the "Chinese threat".
The desire to create the same "split" in the Asia-Pacific region as in Europe
In order to spread the global "anti-terrorist" operation implemented by the United States, at the Riga Summit in 2006, NATO officially launched the "associated Countries" program aimed at creating a new mechanism for security coordination with allies in the Asia-Pacific region. This step actually marked the beginning of the process of expanding the alliance's influence on the Asia-Pacific region. The priority of the strategic concept announced by NATO at the Lisbon Summit in 2010 was given to the Global Partnership program. Since then, within the framework of this mechanism, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has continued to strengthen coordination with the so-called "countries with common values" in the region in the field of intelligence, military affairs and other areas. Over the past ten years, with the help of this program, NATO has concentrated the resources of its allies in the region to "solve" the Afghan problem and accelerated security and defense cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Under the leadership of the United States, the alliance quickly began to apply the experience accumulated over 30 years — namely, the leadership of European security by creating a split in Europe — in the process of building NATO's security structure in the Asia-Pacific region. The military bloc created the structure of American hegemony in Europe with the help of a single multilateral mechanism, which includes the vast majority of European countries. Washington has a strong motivation to create a similar one in the Asia-Pacific region. Actions in this direction are in full swing.
The US is not satisfied with the current "patchwork" security structure in the Asia-Pacific region. The current military alliances — the "trilateral security partnership" between America, Great Britain and Australia, the "quadrilateral security dialogue" and the "Five Eyes" alliance — hardly embody the model of behavior inherent in the States in the pursuit of hegemony, hierarchy and exclusivity in the region. In recent years, America has been constantly trying to promote the integration of the existing allied mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, contributing to the speedy transition of NATO in terms of system and actions to the Asia-Pacific region, thereby strengthening the dynamics of expanding its influence in it.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stressed several times that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its partners in the Asia-Pacific region should strengthen practical cooperation in various fields, including maritime security and network technologies. The political message sent by the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand is very clear: coordination between the alliance and US allies in the Asia-Pacific region will be more frequent and deeper. The idea of NATO's expansion into the Asia-Pacific region plays an obvious role in the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" promoted by Washington. The United States hopes to adjust the existing allied relations by strengthening the multilateral mechanisms "USA-Japan-South Korea" and "USA-Australia-New Zealand" in order to eventually create a large-scale security structure.
Undermining the peace and prosperity of the region
Following the shift of strategic focus to the east, the United States has recently significantly accelerated the pace of building a security structure in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to strengthening ties and cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and others, representatives of the American government, including Biden, make frequent visits to other countries in the region in order to create an atmosphere of "Chinese threat" in international public opinion. Washington is seeking to speed up the procedures for developing security strategies of these countries with NATO. In addition, the United States wants to accelerate the formation of a regional and even global security system with the alliance as the core to encourage America's allies in the Asia-Pacific region to contain China.
These steps by America are very similar to its practice of constantly increasing contradictions between NATO countries and Moscow, which contribute to a split in Europe. The expansion to the east led to a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a long confrontation between Russia and the alliance, and a big split. Based on this observation, the expansion of the influence of NATO led by the United States in the Asia-Pacific region will be disastrous and undermine peace and prosperity in the region. According to the logic of geopolitical competition between major powers, this military alliance will certainly force the countries of the Asia-Pacific region to choose sides between China and America, which will lead to more intense crises and conflicts in the region and will probably contribute to a large split in the region's security and economy. As a result, the process of regional economic integration will be completely stopped.
According to the "NATO Strategic Concept 2022" approved at the Madrid summit, the bloc faces three main tasks for the next ten years: deterrence and protection, crisis prevention and management, and security cooperation. As part of the first, the United States and its allies plan to increase military spending, which will provoke an arms race in many regions and lead to regional tensions. As for "crisis prevention and management" — we all remember how NATO, guided by this goal, got into the affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. The consequences of these actions by Washington are obvious to the whole world. On "security cooperation": if the alliance wants to expand its functions in the Asia-Pacific region, it is likely to create a serious crisis over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. In this regard, NATO is planning and rapidly advancing its so-called "global partnership". This process is also likely to represent a transformation of the internal political, economic and social systems of other countries. In the Asia-Pacific region, where the situation is already complicated, NATO's approach will inevitably lead to contradictions and conflicts.
Weakening of the UN's authority
If NATO's expansion into the Asia-Pacific region is successful, a "global NATO" security model will eventually be created. Such a model would become the basis of the US global security structure project, but this is not at all what countries that really strive for world peace would like to see.
According to the North Atlantic Treaty, its "parties reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the desire to live in peace with all peoples and Governments." NATO also stated that the legitimacy of its main function of "collective defense" stems from the provisions of Article 51 of the UN Charter on the "inalienable right to collective self-defense." However, the alliance launched a war in Kosovo without UN sanction; violated its resolutions by launching a war for regime change in Libya; and continued to conduct military operations outside the defense zone. All this shows that NATO's actions are increasingly going beyond the UN Charter and goals. The North Atlantic Alliance is turning into an extremely aggressive "weapon" and an accomplice serving the hegemony of America.
NATO, which holds the banner of the "alliance of values", seeks the hegemony of the West and weakens the authority of the United Nations, is trying to create a new split and block confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region. During the Madrid Summit and the meeting of foreign ministers held by the Alliance this year, intensive discussions and decisions were made on institutional mechanisms to strengthen coordination with the allies of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. All this did not happen without the spread of the "Chinese threat" in order to strengthen the function of NATO in the field of global security.
Even more remarkable is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has repeatedly stressed the importance of establishing international rules recently. Indeed, long-term stability of relations between States can be maintained only if all parties comply with international rules. However, the rules established by the military alliance, which calls for a "theory of civilizational superiority" and "relativity of sovereignty" and plays block politics, cannot be recognized by the overwhelming majority of countries in the world. The future structure of global security should not be built on the basis of the allied system of "global NATO", instead it is necessary to embark again on the path of rational and healthy strengthening of the key position of the United Nations.
