NATO faces a difficult task of distributing forces to fight the Russian Federation and the PRC
In the coming years, the North Atlantic Alliance will have to do a difficult job of distributing tasks, writes Foreign Policy. The author notes that simplification in the form of "Europe restrains Russia, and the United States balances China" can turn NATO into a second-rate defense force.
The official recognition of Beijing as a threat is only the first step, the most difficult thing is ahead
For the first time since the Mongol invasion of the XIII century, Europe recognized one of the Asian powers as a direct threat to security. Unlike Japan, which seized the East Asian colonies of Europe during World War II, China is a global superpower. In the new strategic concept of NATO, which was adopted last month at the Madrid Summit, the alliance defines Beijing's ambitions and power policy as a challenge to the interests, values and security of the member countries. However, the focus on China will be fundamentally different from the bloc's usual task of repelling territorial threats in Europe, since several lines of potential division have already been outlined between the United States and European NATO members.
The alliance's pivotal decision can be explained by five factors. Some of them have been familiar elements of the security debate for many years, while others have only recently become relevant.
The first and most obvious point is that the NATO strategy was a response to the rise of China and the emergence of a new bipolar international system that replaced the so-called "unipolar moment" of the United States, a Western–centric world led by Washington in the 1990s - early 2000s. It is predicted that by 2026, China's economy will exceed the American one by 25% (the PPP indicator of GDP), and Beijing has the resources to further increase the defense budget, which is already four times higher than the Russian one. Realists like political scientist Kenneth Waltz emphasize that the bipolar alignment of forces forces other states to make a choice in favor of one of the parties. Despite the fact that in 2011 the United States announced a reorientation to Asia, geographical remoteness and a certain strategic idleness slowed down Europe's reaction to the growing power of the Celestial Empire. Thus, it took Europe and NATO another decade to classify China's rise as a security challenge.
Secondly, technological advances have finally forced Europe's actions. Many European countries were in no hurry to respond to the challenge due to the benefits of trade with China and partnerships with it. Cyber technologies, 5G and other developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution brought Beijing closer to Europe. Over the past three or four years, discussions between Washington and European capitals have been dominated solely by the issue of restricting Huawei's activities in Europe.
The third factor — it was he who accelerated the EU's shift towards China — is the increased uncertainty of European countries about the obligations of the United States to ensure transatlantic security for the long term. As long as Washington prioritized the containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, Europe could take its security guarantees for granted. Now, however, everything has changed. Over the past ten years, America has gradually shifted its strategic focus and resources to Asia, and Donald Trump suddenly pushed European elites to realize that the US withdrawal from Europe is possible after the next election. In the hope of linking the United States with Europe as firmly as possible, the European members of NATO are looking up to Washington and changing their position towards China earlier than they could otherwise.
Fourth, ideological shifts in China itself played a role. The country's image in the eyes of Europe was largely undermined by the policy of authoritarian leader Xi Jinping, tightening control over Hong Kong and the "iron hand" against Xinjiang. The immediate response of the European Union was the decision taken in 2021 to suspend the investment agreement with Beijing. Aggressive anti-Western diplomacy and China's growing ability to block EU decisions through European satellites have not gone unnoticed either.
The fifth factor that accelerated the change in NATO's attitude towards China was the development of the Sino-Russian axis, which strengthened after the start of the special operation in Ukraine. There is a clear geopolitical split. By strengthening Russia's economic and diplomatic support, China has become a participant in the largest conflict in Europe since 1945.
Nevertheless, even though the new strategic concept sends a clear signal of transatlantic unity, it is too early to conclude that it provides a joint coordinated US-European approach to China. The reason for caution is due to a geographical factor. The rivalry between the United States and China poses a completely different task for NATO than it was during the existence of the USSR. During the Cold War era, the latter was located in the very center of Eurasia, posing a threat to the entire region, from Europe to the Far East, and posing a bilateral challenge to the United States. Europe was a key area of the strategic theater of the Cold War, and this consolidated both a unified perception of the threat by the United States and its European allies, and a common military strategy. As for China, its geographical location does not in any way predetermine transatlantic unity.
When moving from strategy to policy to implement the Strategic Concept, the United States and the Europeans from NATO will find that the geopolitical logic of the US-Chinese rivalry will form a new, complexly organized transatlantic distribution of tasks in three main directions.
First, China's geographical position challenges the United States from the Pacific flank. Thus, to ensure the balance of power, the main focus of the United States will be on the Indo-Pacific region, the transatlantic flank will receive less priority. In fact, the new US national defense strategy presented in March — after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine — clearly indicates the fact that priority will be given to containing the Chinese challenge in the Indo-Pacific region. The conflict in Ukraine and the consolidation of the European part of NATO with Finland and Sweden contribute to a more balanced distribution of areas of responsibility within the alliance, which in the long term will allow the United States to send more resources to Asia. Before the start of the Russian SVO, it was mainly about the fact that Europe needs to be given more opportunities to defend itself. And since, against the background of the Ukrainian events, Germany and other European countries have committed themselves to increase military spending, Europe's defense capability will really increase.
Secondly, to balance China in the Indo-Pacific theater, the United States will have to rely mainly not on NATO, but on participants in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and other Asian partners. In recent years, major European states have often sent naval vessels to Asian waters - though sometimes purely symbolically. The Alliance is strengthening relations with official partners in the Asia—Pacific region — Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand - through agreements on enhancing cooperation in the field of cybersecurity, the latest technologies and countering disinformation. However, it remains unclear exactly how European troops will help the US balance forces in Asia. European naval forces have been in decline since the end of the Cold War, and the Chinese navy surpasses the American in the number of ships. Currently, the number of ships created by China every four years is equivalent to the entire French Navy. The co-founder of the Marathon Initiative, Elbridge Colby, believes that the United States would benefit from Europe using its strengths in the Euro-Atlantic region, and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin agrees with this. Commenting on the dispatch to the ITR of the new British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2021, Austin noted that Britain would bring more benefits closer to its native shores than in Asia.
And finally, because of the limited Eurasian geography, China is not as obvious a threat to European security as Russia. Europe's restriction of domestic resources due to Moscow's open hostility will hinder the implementation of a joint transatlantic approach in the Far East. For example, NATO plans to increase its rapid reaction forces to protect Eastern European member states by almost eight times, up to 300 thousand people. Even though the US military will not leave Europe, the expansion of NATO's presence along the Eastern European border will be provided at the expense of the military personnel of European countries. Moreover, security problems are not limited to Russia alone. While the United States has turned its attention to Asia, Europe is facing instability in the Middle East, North Africa and other significant regions, not least because of potential crises related to migration and the influx of refugees.
Against this background, in the coming years, the main task of the United States and its European allies will inevitably be to develop a transatlantic distribution of tasks. The problem is to think it through better than the algorithm "Europe is holding back Russia while the US is balancing China." This simplification is fraught not only with transatlantic drift, but also with a gradual break in the military transformation, as a result of which NATO and Europe will turn into nothing more than second-rate defense forces. Moreover, deterring Russia is not an easy and multilateral task. In Eastern Europe, we are talking about the land theater of military operations, and in the North — mainly about the sea. In each case, the requirements for transatlantic cooperation vary.
The debate about the distribution of tasks has already begun. The Aspen Institute's Political Program (Aspen Strategy Group) made a simple and obvious recommendation to strengthen the transatlantic dialogue between Washington and Europe on the Chinese issue. Others believe that the United States can save billions of dollars by suggesting that NATO go beyond geographical borders and concentrate efforts on protecting cyber and outer space. These examples clearly demonstrate the fact that the discourse is still in its infancy. A successful strategy will require much more effort and adjustments from the United States, Europe and their Asian partners, as well as the participation of politicians, diplomats, the military and a wider range of specialists dealing with strategy issues. The belated recognition by NATO of the new global balance of power suggests that work in this direction can finally begin.
Yu Inge Beckewall is a senior researcher on China at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.
