T
he fact that security dynamics in the international system have taken on a nature that transcends regional boundaries necessitates that NATO summits be interpreted from a broader perspective. For this reason, assessing NATO summits solely from the perspective of European security has become increasingly inadequate in recent years. Although the Russia–Ukraine War continues to dominate the Alliance’s agenda, the summits also provide a significant body of data in terms of illustrating how the relationship between Euro-Atlantic security and strategic developments in the Indo-Pacific is being redefined.
In particular, China’s rise, the deepening of the US-China great power rivalry on a global scale, growing awareness of the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and supply chains, and issues such as advanced technologies and maritime security are key areas that inevitably extend NATO’s security agenda beyond Europe. Consequently, the NATO summits held in recent years have conveyed strategic messages that concern not only Europe’s security architecture but also the future of the Indo-Pacific and, by extension, the global system.
Viewed from this perspective, the Ankara Summit harbors a turning point that warrants careful analysis from an Indo-Pacific perspective. For the first time in NATO’s history, the Alliance’s Indo-Pacific agenda was brought to the table in the capital of NATO’s closest ally to Asia; moreover, it has laid the foundations for a new strategy regarding the region within NATO. At this very point, when the process is examined from a chronological perspective, a critical paradox emerges between the institutional visibility provided by the summits and NATO’s actual engagement with the Indo-Pacific.
Looking at the course of events, the foundations of the transatlantic approach within NATO were laid not, as is often stated, at the 2022 Madrid Summit, but in fact at the 2008 Bucharest Summit. With the Bucharest Summit, the impact of security developments outside Europe on the Alliance became more apparent, whilst global partnerships became an integral part of NATO’s long-term strategic vision. This approach was taken to a new level at the Madrid Summit, where China was defined for the first time as a ‘systemic challenge’ in the NATO Strategic Concept; whilst the leaders of the Indo-Pacific Quartet (IP4), comprising Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, were invited to a NATO summit for the first time.
Alongside this highly significant development, the approach that European-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security cannot be assessed in isolation from one another has gained institutional visibility not only at the rhetorical level but also in summit diplomacy. The 2023 Vilnius Summit holds particular significance as it represents the first stage in the attempt to institutionalize this initiative. Although the initiative to establish a NATO liaison office in Japan had the potential to become the Alliance’s first institutional presence in Asia and to demonstrate that NATO was supporting the US strategy of containing China, it could not be implemented due to objections led by France and supported by Germany.
At the 2024 Washington Summit, however, against the backdrop of US-China tensions and the emphasis on the ‘China Threat’, the rhetoric towards China hardened further, and Beijing was labelled as an actor providing indirect support to Russia by acting as a ‘decisive factor’ in the war in Ukraine. However, this hardening of rhetoric in Washington has not been reflected to the same extent in institutional expansion; and, partly due to the EU’s call for ‘strategic autonomy’, even the issue of the liaison office in Tokyo has not been brought back onto the agenda.
The fundamental shift in NATO’s Indo-Pacific strategy became apparent at the summits in The Hague and Ankara. Declarations from previous summits, which contained detailed assessments of China and the Indo-Pacific, have been replaced by shorter texts focused on strengthening Europe’s defense capabilities. In this regard, issues such as increasing defense spending, developing the defense industry’s production capacity, burden-sharing and collective deterrence, issues centered on alliance-internal development, have gained a more pronounced priority compared to previous summits.
At the same time, it is a well-known fact that the participation of IP4 countries at leadership level has gradually declined during this period, and that, for the most part, the leaders of these countries sent their defense or foreign ministers to the summits up until the Ankara Summit. Similarly, the process that began with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s decision not to attend the summit in 2024 has been mirrored by other countries in subsequent years; by the time of the Ankara Summit, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung stood out as the only IP4 head of state to attend the two-day summit.
Although this pattern, stretching from 2008 to the present day, might at first glance be interpreted as indicating a decline in NATO’s interest in the Indo-Pacific, it is important to recognize the existence of a different trend during the same period. Whilst institutional visibility has relatively diminished, functional cooperation between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners has shifted towards more concrete areas. At the IP4 meetings held in Ankara, alongside common security issues such as the war in Ukraine, China, North Korea and Iran, defense industry, critical technologies, cyber security, strategic communication and industrial cooperation were brought to the fore. Similarly, Japan’s initiative to join NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator (DIANA) program demonstrates that technology-based cooperation with non-allied countries is being taken to a new level.
The signing of a memorandum of understanding between the US, Japan and South Korea during the summit, aimed at the deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs) in third countries, also demonstrates that security cooperation is not limited to the military sphere; it has expanded to encompass areas such as energy technologies, critical infrastructure and strategic production capacity. Consequently, the chronological progression and the developments that have stood out at the last two summits indicate a shift in the nature of engagement rather than a retreat in NATO’s Indo-Pacific policy. The political symbols, leaders’ photographs and initiatives to establish a NATO liaison office in Tokyo that characterized the Madrid and Vilnius periods are giving way to a partnership model that is increasingly less visible but more functional.
In other words, NATO’s relations with the Indo-Pacific are now deepening largely through defense industry, technological innovation, critical infrastructure, supply chains, cyber resilience and joint production capacity. The relative decline in institutional visibility does not imply a weakening of functional integration; on the contrary, the two processes are moving in opposite directions.
Of course, attributing this transformation solely to Washington’s shifting strategic priorities and the challenges within NATO would result in a flawed analysis. Undoubtedly, the US has, particularly in recent times, been demanding that its European allies assume greater defense responsibilities and views the strengthening of Europe’s defense capabilities as one of the prerequisites for redirecting its strategic focus and resources more effectively towards the Indo-Pacific. However, this is not the sole factor explaining the transformation in NATO’s Indo-Pacific policy. Differing threat perceptions within the Alliance and the nature of economic relations with China also significantly shape this process.
The fact that 23 of NATO’s 32 members are also members of the European Union necessitates striking a delicate balance between the security narrative regarding China and economic interests. For many European countries, whilst China is an actor with whom strategic competition is becoming increasingly pronounced, it remains a partner that is difficult to do without in terms of trade, investment, critical technologies and supply chains.
Consequently, whilst shared security concerns regarding China are reflected in NATO documents, it appears difficult to speak of full consensus amongst allies regarding the extent to which this rhetoric will be translated into institutional and operational policies. At the Vilnius Summit, the blocking of the initiative to establish a NATO liaison office in Japan, led by France, can be regarded as one of the most concrete examples of this divergence.
Similarly, the diplomatic contacts that Western leaders have recently maintained with Beijing also indicate that a more pragmatic approach has been adopted, one in which competition and engagement are pursued simultaneously. The messages conveyed by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during his visit to Beijing regarding the transformation of the global order, alongside US President Donald Trump’s pursuit of direct diplomatic contact with China and the messages he delivered during his visit to Beijing, demonstrate that competition in the security sphere does not imply a complete severing of economic and diplomatic ties.
This situation also partly explains the shift in tone observed in NATO’s rhetoric towards China. Consequently, the fact that China featured to a more limited extent at the Ankara Summit compared to previous years can be interpreted not as a weakening of the perception of threat, but rather as a reflection of the strategic balance being sought within NATO between security priorities and economic interdependence. It is precisely for this reason that the Ankara Summit represents a turning point, not signifying that NATO is distancing itself from the Indo-Pacific, but rather that it is redefining its engagement with the region by adapting to the strategic and economic realities brought about by the changing international system.
In the coming period, the key factor determining the direction of this transformation will be not so much the communiqués to be issued, but rather the concrete collaborations to be developed between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners in critical defense sectors. For this reason, the Ankara Summit appears worthy of being remembered not as a summit at which NATO distanced itself from the Indo-Pacific, but as a threshold at which the Alliance reformatted its strategic engagement with the region in line with new geopolitical realities.
(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)
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