Jin Ling

Sculptures and flags of NATO headquarters in Brussels,Belgium.

In recent years as the strategic focus of the U.S.pivots,the focus of NATO’s action on crisis management have been gradually shifted to superpower games.Its geopolitical priorities have also pivoted to the Asia-Pacific region.Comprehensive crisis management gives way to the enhancement of military containment capacity.However,NATO’s security threats happen to come from its interior,since the values it advocates including the so-called human rights,democracy and the rule of law are being undermined from within.Under the hegemonic logic,the U.S.cannot bring peace or security through either active interventionism that was once executed by force or building exclusive alliances today by tying its allies to its chariot.

GLOBAL NATO SERVES THE LOGIC OF PRESERVING POST-COLD WAR U.S.HEGEMONY

Since the establishment of NATO’s so-called “global partnership”,the concept,scope and action priorities of the Global NATO have been constantly adjusted from the initial aim of exporting the Western model to the world through crisis management,conflict prevention and nation building to today’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region,which serves the U.S.strategic goal of superpower games.The evolution of Global NATO is closely related to the international environment and reflects the strategic intention of the U.S.to maintain its hegemony.

In 1999,NATO’s Strategic Concept put forward its security objectives of strengthening the alliance for the first time,in which crisis management beyond NATO’s borders and partnership played an important role.It can be regarded as the embryo of the Global NATO.Since the 21st century,the Global NATO has gradually taken shape as the alliance expands its reach.Starting with NATO’s take over of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2003,its operations has become worldwide,covering a wide range of military and civil fields.In 2005,Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,the then Secretary General of NATO,made his point that since the NATO has already set its foot outside the region,it needs to strengthen cooperation with other countries that are interested,and should establish an alliance with global partners.

Against this background,the Riga Summit in 2006 marked a watershed for NATO going global.The U.S.and the UK jointly proposed to build a global partnership for a platform to expanding the dialogue between NATO and other democratic countries.Later,NATO’s Strategic Concept 2010 highlighted the importance of crisis management and partnership,pointing out that crises and conflicts beyond NATO could pose a direct threat to the territory and security of the alliance.NATO should participate in crisis prevention and management as well as post-conflict stability support and reconstruction where possible and when necessary.

In March 1999,a villager with two children standing in the destroyed home,after NATO carried out an air strike against Yugoslavia.

In the two decades after the Cold War,NATO has transformed from a regional collective security organization to a global political and security institution.Its traditional defense and containment capacity has given way to crisis management capability.Its network has also broken through the traditional alliance framework and it has sought to build a global partnership network that extends far beyond the Euro-Atlantic region to the surrounding areas and spreads to the Asia-Pacific region.NATO’s global transformation reflects its efforts in seeking legitimacy after the Cold War,and the fundamental characteristics of serving the needs of the U.S.to maintain its hegemony.NATO’s transformation from a military organization to a political military organization and its emphasis on common values as well as the role of conflict prevention and nation building in crisis management,are all in line with U.S.concept of maintaining hegemony.From a practical perspective,the consistency of NATO’s transformation and its mission to serve U.S.hegemony is clearly demonstrated either in the decrease of NATO’s crisis management actions beyond its borders,or expansion of NATO’s antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan to a process of nation building,which eventually came to an end with the“Fall of Kabul” in 2021.

PROCESS AND CAUSE OF GLOBAL NATO PIVOTING TO ASIA-PACIFIC

Since Obama’s strategic pivot eastward,the U.S.has increasingly shifted its global strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region,a profile that has been clearly revealed in NATO’s transformation in recent years.The latest NATO Strategic Concept 2022 points out that the situation in the Indo-Pacific region directly affects the Euro-Atlantic security,and that NATO will strengthen dialogue and cooperation with both new and existing regional partners to address cross-regional challenges and bind their security interests.

The role of Asia-Pacific countries as NATO’s global partners is ascending.Dialogues and cooperation between NATO and Japan dates back to 1990.New Zealand established dialogue and cooperation with NATO in 2001,and South Korea and Australia in 2005.NATO has significantly strengthened its political contacts with the four partners in Asia-Pacific region since 2016.In December 2016,NATO held its first formal meeting with the four Asia-Pacific countries in Brussels,which institutionalized their cooperation.In December 2020,the foreign ministers of the four countries participated in the NATO Foreign Ministers’ Meeting for the first time to discuss the changes in the global balance of power and the rise of China.In May 2022,NATO Military Committee invited the defense ministers of Australia,Japan,South Korea and New Zealand to its Chiefs of Defence conference.In June,with the goal of working more closely with like-minded countries in an era of strategic competition,NATO members invited Japan,South Korea,Australia and New Zealand to the NATO summit for the first time.

China is obviously NATO’s target as it pivots to the Asia-Pacific region.At its London Summit in 2019,NATO expressed its concerns about the challenges posed by a rising China for the first time,and made it clear that it would do more to deal with China’s growing influence and military strength.In November 2020,the NATO 2030 Reform Agenda further elaborated the challenges of China’s rise,and defined China as a new strategic focus of NATO.The report held that China’s strength and global influence pose a grave challenge to open and democratic societies,and that China should not be regarded merely as a pure economic force or a security actor focusing on Asia,but as an all-round institutional opponent.The NATO Strategic Concept 2022 adopted at the NATO Summit in Madrid last June included China’s challenge for the first time,alleging that a series of presumed actions taken by China pose systematic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security.

Global NATO’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region is on the same wavelength with U.S.strategy on China.Since the Biden administration took office,it has gone by the logic of democracy vs.autocracy and made frequent moves in the Asia-Pacific region.It has institutionalized the Quad cooperation with Japan,India and Australia,and made the quadrilateral framework a pillar of its Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China’s rise.It established the AUKUS trilateral security pact with Australia and the UK,in an attempt to integrate its Indo-Pacific and European partners to tackle China’s rise.NATO’s new Strategic Concept further highlights ideological antagonism,prioritizes defense and containment,and underlines the Indo-Pacific and China factors.It is highly consistent with the U.S.strategic views on China.It illustrates that the process of Global NATO pivoting to the Asia-Pacific region,be it the increasingly prominent position given to its Asia-Pacific partners or its strategic orientation against China once again reveals that NATO’s transformation is pulled by U.S.strategic orientation,and serves the latter’s core objective of tackling great powers strategic competition and maintaining its hegemony.

UNDERLYING CONTRADICTIONS BEHIND GLOBAL NATO PIVOTING TO ASIA-PACIFIC

NATO keeps expanding its membership as well as its so-called security concerns throughout its global transformation.Its reach has extended far beyond the traditional Euro-Atlantic region and across the globe in one form or another.Meanwhile,its security concept is increasingly over generalized.Apart from traditional security issues,it incorporates nontraditional security issues to the maximum extent.However,NATO’s global actions,be they the once “model export” by the active intervention policy,or today’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific for great power competition,have failed to bring about peace and stability but rather have become the source of world tensions and conflicts.The root cause lies in the underlying contradictions behind NATO transformation.

First,the essence of NATO’s global transformation is to serve U.S.hegemony,and maintain the West-centered international system.However,the West-centered international system that NATO’s global transformation aims to maintain faces internal and external challenges in context with profound changes unseen in a century.On the one hand,structural shift in the balance of power radically shakes the power base of the international system led by the West.As multi-polarization continues to grow,especially since the 2008 financial crisis,the balance of power has undergone gigantic changes,and Western countries increasingly seem to be on the decline.On the other hand,NATO member states represented by the U.S.,have sustained grave economic,political and social rifts from within,with populist forces,extreme parties and anti-globalization forces being on the rise.The liberal international order they advocate is facing structural challenges.A review of the themes of the Munich Security Conference in recent years,such as “Westlessness”and “collective helplessness”,vividly presents the predicament of the Westcentered international order.

At the NATO Summit in Madrid,Spain,U.S.president meets with Korean president and Japanese prime minister.

Second,there is a logical conflict between NATO pursuing great power competition and building exclusive alliance and global security challenges.Although NATO emphasizes partnership building,it shows obvious exclusiveness.In Europe,NATO saliently features Russian exclusion as displayed in its multiple rounds of expansion after the Cold War,and keeps squeezing Russia’s strategic space,and eventually sees Europe falling into war again.At present,Global NATO pivots to the Asia-Pacific,plays up “China threat”,and attempts to build an “Anti-China circle”,all of which brings new risks to Asian security.In addition,though non-traditional security threats used to occupy an important place in NATO’s global transformation its new Strategic Concept highlights geopolitical conflict,defense and containment and geo-politicizes nontraditional security threats instead.This runs counter to cooperative security it has always advertised and new uncertainties for world peace and security will definitely ensue.

Third,by making values its security concerns in the process of its global transformation,NATO underscores its historical and practical dilemma .After the Cold War,exporting Western values and institutional model became an important mission of NATO’s transformation.However,instead of spreading democracy and peace,NATO’s global operations have led to conflicts and instability in Kosovo,Afghanistan,Iraq and Libya with no exception.The model of active intervention and export of democracy in the context of NATO’s global transformation has completely failed,and has lost its legitimacy inside out.NATO’s new Strategic Concept attaches unprecedented importance to values so much that it makes them its security concerns,playing up the so-called“authoritarian threat” and regarding authoritarian actors as challenging its interests,values and democratic way of life.However,a look at NATO member states shows that all their democratic predicament derives from none other than within,economic fragmentation,political polarization and increasing loss of government credibility being the root cause of the crisis in Western democracy.The threat never comes from the outside.By setting the searching on for external “authoritarian threat”,NATO barks up the wrong tree and errs in both diagnosis and prescription.

Fourth,the U.S.will face more internal constraints in pushing for NATO’s Asia-Pacific pivot.Common threats and security perceptions are the basis for alliance formation and transformation.Although the“China challenge” was into NATO’s new Strategic Concept for the first time,it is hard to conceal divergence between the U.S.and Europe in terms of strategic positions regarding China,strategic priorities in the Asia-Pacific region and ways to address challenges.Unlike the U.S.that tries to bind China with Russia and defines China as a “threat”,Europe is reluctant to define China as a “threat”but considers it at most a “challenge”instead.Likewise,European countries also have reservations about the democracy vs.autocracy narrative and decoupling from China proposed by the U.S..They are concerned that the so called alliance of democracies of the U.S.is not for democracy,but for itself.On the issue of decoupling,Europe,as an open economy,depends on global market far more than the U.S.,and the geopolitical logic can hardly transcend the reality of economic interdependence between China and Europe.

Obviously,the focus of attention differs between the U.S.and Europe concerning the so called Indo-Pacific strategy.The former is building military alliances and cooperation mechanism against China in the region,while the latter focuses on non-military cooperation.Sylvie Bermann,former Ambassador of France to China,once penned an article and observed that the EU cannot simply follow U.S.policy on China,and that different countries should learn to coexist;as such the EU should not closely follow U.S.policy of containment and threat in the Indo-Pacific region,but rather develop relations with other countries.Macron’s comments on China after the NATO Summit 2021 highlighted the differences between the U.S.and Europe.He believes that NATO is a military organization and its relationship with China is not only a military issue,but an economic,strategic and technological one;China is not only a competitor but also an important force in our endeavors to tackle global issues;China is a competitor all the same but more important we must not be prejudiced against our relations with China.

Thousands of people in the Spanish capital participating in the anti-NATO march,2022.

CONCLUSION

At the Madrid Summit in late June 2022,heads of state and government of the NATO allies stated that they have come together “at a critical time for our security and for international peace and stability”.This summit came as a watershed for NATO to strengthen alliance and accelerate transformation.Compared with the NATO 2010 Strategic Concept,the new Strategic Concept adopted at the summit displays a stronger Cold War mindset at the cost of the base color of a previous security concept featuring global perspective,interdependence and cooperation.Indeed,we are at a critical time for global peace and stability,but a NATO transformation toward a new Cold War will not bring security.Just like NATO’s export of democracy failed to achieve the peace,and its eastward expansion failed to avert new wars in Europe,so too NATO’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific will bring to Asia new security risks and challenges.A globalized world means global challenges and security interdependence.Only by NATO adopting a concept of common,comprehensive,cooperative and sustainable security can it be possible to co-safeguard world peace and security.