New Atlanticist July 19, 2024 How to institutionalize NATO’s cooperation with its closest Pacific partners By Ira Straus and Francis Shin

New Atlanticist

July 19, 2024

How to institutionalize NATO’s cooperation with its closest Pacific partners

By Ira Straus and Francis Shin

How to institutionalize NATO’s cooperation with its closest Pacific partners

For the third year in a row, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea attended NATO’s annual summit. Speaking on the sidelines of the Washington summit last week, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell declared that he “fully, 100 percent” supports NATO extending a standing invitation for future summits, going beyond its present ad hoc ones, to this grouping, known as the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4). This, he held, would place Atlantic-Pacific cooperation on a more solid footing and enable scaled-up joint planning. The United States, he has said before, should “weave” its Atlantic and Pacific alliances together.

There are two concrete steps NATO should take that will help achieve this goal.

First, NATO should upgrade its recent summit invitations to the IP4 by offering them a standing invitation. It is unwise to continue leaving this practice up in the air each year.

Second and more substantively, NATO and the IP4 should establish an Atlantic-Pacific Partnership Forum (APPF). This would be in the tradition of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and its Mediterranean Dialogue. Adding an APPF is the next step, arguably an overdue one.

The need for closer cooperation

The enduring threats from the revisionist autocracies show the need for closer Atlantic-Pacific cooperation among democracies, just as recent new channels for NATO-IP4 cooperation provide momentum for it. The increasingly aggressive alliance of autocracies is seen in China’s military exercises in Belarus near NATO’s border and in its de facto aid to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. It is also present in North Korea’s military pact with Russia.

Despite the geographic distance, NATO strategists increasingly see Indo-Pacific security as a necessary and complementary part of Euro-Atlantic security. This reality was recognized in the 2022 Strategic Concept and reaffirmed at the Washington summit. Any deterioration in Indo-Pacific security, such as a mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan or escalation of other territorial disputes in the region, would not just damage the world economy; it would challenge the larger international order as well. And China has consistently challenged NATO members directly with threats of economic coercion over Taiwan.

Making it official

So far, Atlantic-Pacific cooperation has occurred mostly in silos between NATO and the individual IP4 states, and much of it is unsecured from being disrupted by ordinary changes. For example, Japan’s ambassador in Brussels has met semi-regularly with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other senior figures in the NATO secretariat to discuss progress on Japan’s Individually Tailored Partnership Programme. Its higher-level meetings regarding security cooperation have occurred mostly at the past three NATO summits, plus recent Group of Seven (G7) summits and one visit by Stoltenberg to the region in 2023.

The relatively slow pace of these summits’ convenings—as well as the conspicuous absence of Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea from the most recent G7 summit in Fasano, Italy, after their previous attendance at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan—indicates that these channels, without institutionalization and supplementation, cannot be relied upon consistently.

The domestic political situations in the IP4 states also risk the continuity of this cooperation. This is normal; in fact, a prime motive for institutionalizing cooperation is to ensure that it won’t die out when domestic politics take their next turn. It has been overlooked how easily the intense transatlantic cooperation of 1946-1948 could have dissipated after Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 if it had not been institutionalized in 1949 in NATO and already gathered momentum in the years after.

Today, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have low approval ratings in polls in their respective countries. A change in government in either country might well shift it away from its pro-NATO stances, and from their efforts to improve Japan-South Korea bilateral relations. This would be a major reversal of recent progress.

An APPF would address these structural shortcomings in Atlantic-Pacific Cooperation. Developing new institutionalized platforms would help ensure continuity across shifts in domestic politics. For example, the APPF could overcome existing deficits in NATO-IP4 meetings by committing to convene respective foreign and defense ministers at least twice a year—a wider version of the 2+2 ministerial consultative committees. NATO could likewise invite its APPF partners to be observers in NATO committees. There is a precedent for this move: The security and partnerships and the cooperative security committees are already open for participation from partner countries on an ad hoc basis.

Meanwhile, an APPF could open partnership offices in its two main regions, like the one NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue is opening in Jordan. This would fill in for NATO’s inability to reach agreement on the more daring step of opening a formal office of its own in the Indo-Pacific region.

The larger picture

The APPF could accelerate NATO members’ progress on developing Indo-Pacific policies and act as a consultative platform between NATO and the IP4 in times of crisis, such as in the event of conflict in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea.

An APPF goal would—to borrow a 1990s NATO phrase—be to develop “interlocking but not interblocking” institutions. One model for such an effort is the Australia, United Kingdom, and United States grouping, known as AUKUS, discussing the inclusion of Japan and South Korea under pillar two of the partnership. Another would be the forthcoming secretariat for the US-Japanese-South Korean entente. These could be briefed with the NATO members in the APPF, ensuring they remain informed on the policy trajectories of these minilateral groupings. The APPF could then facilitate further development of the minilateral structures; for example, its discussions could encourage the trilateral entente secretariat to invite NATO, UK, Australian, and New Zealander delegates as observers, keeping avenues of cooperation open between the entente, AUKUS, IP4, and NATO.

Thus, more than seventy-five years after NATO’s founding, establishing an APPF would demonstrate that the Alliance remains ready to adapt to the challenges throughout the world. It would provide NATO with much-needed channels to deepen the cooperation across the two theaters between its annual summits. Perhaps most important, it would further underline the Alliance’s role as a values-based organization, reconnecting it to its moral and intellectual roots.

The IP4 are NATO’s best democratic partners by far in the wider world. Already in 1939, American journalist Clarence Streit called for uniting the leading democracies of the world—mostly Atlantic but also Pacific—for their shared economic and security interests, and as a nucleus to rally other democracies around. The founders of NATO were greatly motivated by his call. As democracies face the threat of growing autocratic aggressiveness, they can benefit by harkening back to the NATO founders’ vision: building a wider and deeper unity on the basis of shared democratic values.

Ira Straus is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Francis Shin is a research analyst specializing in transatlantic institutions, anti-corruption, and clean energy policy. He has previously worked at the Atlantic Council, Royal United Services Institute, and Center for a New American Security.

How to institutionalize NATO’s cooperation with its closest Pacific partners

For the third year in a row, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea attended NATO’s annual summit. Speaking on the sidelines of the Washington summit last week, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell declared that he “fully, 100 percent” supports NATO extending a standing invitation for future summits, going beyond its present ad hoc ones, to this grouping, known as the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4). This, he held, would place Atlantic-Pacific cooperation on a more solid footing and enable scaled-up joint planning. The United States, he has said before, should “weave” its Atlantic and Pacific alliances together.

There are two concrete steps NATO should take that will help achieve this goal.

First, NATO should upgrade its recent summit invitations to the IP4 by offering them a standing invitation. It is unwise to continue leaving this practice up in the air each year.

Second and more substantively, NATO and the IP4 should establish an Atlantic-Pacific Partnership Forum (APPF). This would be in the tradition of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and its Mediterranean Dialogue. Adding an APPF is the next step, arguably an overdue one.

The need for closer cooperation

The enduring threats from the revisionist autocracies show the need for closer Atlantic-Pacific cooperation among democracies, just as recent new channels for NATO-IP4 cooperation provide momentum for it. The increasingly aggressive alliance of autocracies is seen in China’s military exercises in Belarus near NATO’s border and in its de facto aid to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. It is also present in North Korea’s military pact with Russia.

Despite the geographic distance, NATO strategists increasingly see Indo-Pacific security as a necessary and complementary part of Euro-Atlantic security. This reality was recognized in the 2022 Strategic Concept and reaffirmed at the Washington summit. Any deterioration in Indo-Pacific security, such as a mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan or escalation of other territorial disputes in the region, would not just damage the world economy; it would challenge the larger international order as well. And China has consistently challenged NATO members directly with threats of economic coercion over Taiwan.

Making it official

So far, Atlantic-Pacific cooperation has occurred mostly in silos between NATO and the individual IP4 states, and much of it is unsecured from being disrupted by ordinary changes. For example, Japan’s ambassador in Brussels has met semi-regularly with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other senior figures in the NATO secretariat to discuss progress on Japan’s Individually Tailored Partnership Programme. Its higher-level meetings regarding security cooperation have occurred mostly at the past three NATO summits, plus recent Group of Seven (G7) summits and one visit by Stoltenberg to the region in 2023.

The relatively slow pace of these summits’ convenings—as well as the conspicuous absence of Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea from the most recent G7 summit in Fasano, Italy, after their previous attendance at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan—indicates that these channels, without institutionalization and supplementation, cannot be relied upon consistently.

The domestic political situations in the IP4 states also risk the continuity of this cooperation. This is normal; in fact, a prime motive for institutionalizing cooperation is to ensure that it won’t die out when domestic politics take their next turn. It has been overlooked how easily the intense transatlantic cooperation of 1946-1948 could have dissipated after Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 if it had not been institutionalized in 1949 in NATO and already gathered momentum in the years after.

Today, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have low approval ratings in polls in their respective countries. A change in government in either country might well shift it away from its pro-NATO stances, and from their efforts to improve Japan-South Korea bilateral relations. This would be a major reversal of recent progress.

An APPF would address these structural shortcomings in Atlantic-Pacific Cooperation. Developing new institutionalized platforms would help ensure continuity across shifts in domestic politics. For example, the APPF could overcome existing deficits in NATO-IP4 meetings by committing to convene respective foreign and defense ministers at least twice a year—a wider version of the 2+2 ministerial consultative committees. NATO could likewise invite its APPF partners to be observers in NATO committees. There is a precedent for this move: The security and partnerships and the cooperative security committees are already open for participation from partner countries on an ad hoc basis.

Meanwhile, an APPF could open partnership offices in its two main regions, like the one NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue is opening in Jordan. This would fill in for NATO’s inability to reach agreement on the more daring step of opening a formal office of its own in the Indo-Pacific region.

The larger picture

The APPF could accelerate NATO members’ progress on developing Indo-Pacific policies and act as a consultative platform between NATO and the IP4 in times of crisis, such as in the event of conflict in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea.

An APPF goal would—to borrow a 1990s NATO phrase—be to develop “interlocking but not interblocking” institutions. One model for such an effort is the Australia, United Kingdom, and United States grouping, known as AUKUS, discussing the inclusion of Japan and South Korea under pillar two of the partnership. Another would be the forthcoming secretariat for the US-Japanese-South Korean entente. These could be briefed with the NATO members in the APPF, ensuring they remain informed on the policy trajectories of these minilateral groupings. The APPF could then facilitate further development of the minilateral structures; for example, its discussions could encourage the trilateral entente secretariat to invite NATO, UK, Australian, and New Zealander delegates as observers, keeping avenues of cooperation open between the entente, AUKUS, IP4, and NATO.

Thus, more than seventy-five years after NATO’s founding, establishing an APPF would demonstrate that the Alliance remains ready to adapt to the challenges throughout the world. It would provide NATO with much-needed channels to deepen the cooperation across the two theaters between its annual summits. Perhaps most important, it would further underline the Alliance’s role as a values-based organization, reconnecting it to its moral and intellectual roots.

The IP4 are NATO’s best democratic partners by far in the wider world. Already in 1939, American journalist Clarence Streit called for uniting the leading democracies of the world—mostly Atlantic but also Pacific—for their shared economic and security interests, and as a nucleus to rally other democracies around. The founders of NATO were greatly motivated by his call. As democracies face the threat of growing autocratic aggressiveness, they can benefit by harkening back to the NATO founders’ vision: building a wider and deeper unity on the basis of shared democratic values.

Ira Straus is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Francis Shin is a research analyst specializing in transatlantic institutions, anti-corruption, and clean energy policy. He has previously worked at the Atlantic Council, Royal United Services Institute, and Center for a New American Security.