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First, it ignores the entirely different power balances between our region and the Euro-Atlantic. Following the Second World War and the descent of the Iron Curtain, the European continent was divided into two clear blocs. Although a few European nations were not members of either NATO or the Warsaw Pact (for instance, Austria, Switzerland and Yugoslavia), the overwhelming majority were. Following the democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe, the former Warsaw Pact nations, as well as the Baltic states liberated from Soviet captivity, rightly perceived that their future security could not be chanced on the continuation of glasnost and perestroika, and so sought NATO membership. The events of the past 18 months on Russia’s southern border show how right they were to have done so.
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In the Indo-Pacific, there is no such geopolitical binary. Neither India nor Indonesia – the largest regional players besides China – would support, let alone participate in, a NATO-style alliance, nor would any of the south-east Asian or South Pacific nations. Not even the most pro-Western of the south-east Asian nations, Singapore, would be interested. All of these countries seek to manage their relationships both with China and the West; the most likely effect of an unwelcome NATO expansion would be to strengthen China’s hand.
This would also unsettle the existing complex regional architecture. The Quad – Australia, India, Japan, and the US – is not, and was never intended to be a proto-NATO. It would be entirely unacceptable to the nations of ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum.
And what would we be defending? The dangers of regional disruption come primarily from China’s unlawful claims in the south and east China Seas, and its threats against Taiwan. Yet Taiwan – not claiming to be an independent nation and not recognised as the government of China by a single NATO state – could not be a member. The four Pacific nations that attended the Vilnius Summit already have their own security pacts with the US. In the case of the ANZUS Treaty, that includes a defence guarantee analogous with Article 5 of NATO’s foundational document, the North Atlantic Treaty.
The closer convergence of the NATO nations and Indo-Pacific democracies will continue, with greater recognition of their mutual strategic and trading interests, and ever-growing military co-operation – of which AUKUS is a prime example. That is not the same thing as the creation of an Indo-Pacific NATO presence, as Keating seems to think. Yet his larger point is right. It’s just a shame it got lost in an angry rant.
George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK, and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is now a professor in the practice of national security at the ANU’s National Security College.
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