There’s a history to opposition towards an Asian NATO

The demand for an Asian NATO remains negligible in Southeast Asia. This is because most countries are convinced that a multilateral security architecture will only elevate regional insecurities, and make them subservient to great power contestations

Early last month, in the run-up to the electioneering campaign in Japan for the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s leadership position, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba proposed the idea of an Asian NATO, alarming many in the foreign policy community, in Japan and the region.

Ishiba expanded his ideas of an Asian NATO in a paper for a US based think tank, the Hudson Institute, stating that ‘the Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China from its Western allies’.

However, rather than getting applause, the idea has received cold shoulders, as even Japan’s close partners like Australia and India distanced themselves from it. However, Ishiba is not backing down. In a press conference in mid-October, Ishiba said, ‘It [the idea] is something I have had in mind for a long time. But it is my idea, and I expect discussions will take place within the LDP to make it more concrete’. Moreover, the absence of the idea from his recent discussion at the ASEAN summit highlights that it has been put on the back burner.

Nonetheless, the idea has rekindled a debate about Asian NATO and its necessity in the region, particularly in the context of China’s rising military power.

Old wine in a new bottle

Much of the answers to the questions about Asian NATO trace back to South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), a formal treaty organisation created on September 8, 1954, in Manila, the Philippines. SEATO was the first post-war multilateral security organisation in the Asia-Pacific.

Nonetheless to understand the emergence of a possible Asian NATO is it critical to look at the deficiencies of SEATO.

There are some problems with an Asian version of NATO. First, it is expected that a similar organisation will be subjected to US foreign policy decisions. Second, the US presence in any multilateral security grouping makes it difficult for other countries to push beyond a limit if their interests diverge and risks pulling them into a US-led war inimical to their interest. Taiwan remains a case in point. Third, the post-colonial countries in the region still regard their strategic autonomy and sovereignty as sacrosanct, and being a part of a multilateral security arrangement takes away the sense of independence.

Additionally, the absence of many Southeast Asian countries from SEATO, apart from the Philippines and Thailand, was a major reason for its illegitimacy, which hit rock bottom during the Laotian crisis (1960-1963) as it failed to act.

Today, the demand for an Asian NATO remains negligible in Southeast Asia, highlighting the different interests in terms of security. This is because most countries are convinced that a multilateral security architecture will only elevate regional insecurities, and make them subservient to great power contestations.

This does not mean that the region will remain bereft of any kind of security co-operation mechanism; we already see new kinds of architecture like the Quad, AUKUS, the trilateral security co-operations between the US and Japan with South Korea, and with the Philippines.

The search for an adequate security model will continue to take place in the region, be it via an evolving structure like the lattice framework led by the US in the form of a US-Japan-South Korea trilateral or a more decentralised flexible system like Quad, where emerging powers share greater security responsibility engaging through zone balancing.

While an Asian NATO is unlikely to emerge in the Indo-Pacific region in the coming years, we will see greater minilateralism, focused on issue-based alignment in the region. This move from a hub and spoke model to the lattice framework, indicates the importance of security mechanisms in an emerging multipolar order, different from the NATO template.

Continuing legacy

For India, the idea of Asian NATO is not a new proposition. This has been part of the diplomatic conversation since the end of World War II, and India has always been against the idea of securitising Asia. Under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, India opposed the idea of the Pacific Pact even before SEATO was formed. For Instance, at the Baguio conference, India was a key country that opposed any military co-operation due to its recognition of communist China and its non-intervention policy. This was soon followed by India’s opposition to the SEATO, where the leadership played an important role by indirectly influencing Sri Lanka and Burma against joining the treaty.

In the last few years India has made it clear against the acquisition that Quad is an Asian version of NATO, reiterated by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at various forums, calling it a ‘lazy analogy’. However, this was made clear when Jaishankar distanced India from the Ishiba’s Asian NATO idea, stating, “We have never been a treaty ally of any country. We don’t have that kind of strategic architecture in mind”.

India’s Indo-Pacific vision was stated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 2018 Shangri La Dialogue, where he said that ‘India does not see the Indo-Pacific Region as a strategy or as a club of limited members … Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate. And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country’, stressing as much on ‘free’ and ‘open’ as on the ‘inclusive’ characteristics of the vision.

Apart from India, Australia and even Southeast Asian countries do not favour the idea. In a press conference after meeting with the Japanese PM on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, Australian PM Anthony Albanese said that ‘we have our security arrangements that are in place, and its not a matter of containment, but making sure that the international rules applies.’ Similarly, Southeast Asian scholars have opposed the idea, calling it ‘offensive to the ten-member ASEAN.’

While India will continue working with like-minded countries in the region to uphold the international rules-based order, strengthening maritime security and defence co-operation, that does not mean that it will be willing to join an exclusive anti-China grouping in the Indo-Pacific, an Asian version of NATO.

The regional security environment has worsened in the last decade with most countries recognising the increasing threat of China’s military power, however, they would still prefer alternative ways to protecting their interests rather than entering an Asian NATO and making the region again a theatre of great power politics.

(Abhishek Sharma is research assistant, ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme. X: @AVIRAL96.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.