Publication of Policy Papers for the SPF Project “Cooperation Between European and Indo-Pacific Powers in the U.S. Alliance System”
IINA (International Information Network Analysis) hosts a series of policy papers featuring analyses and insights from U.S., Japanese, South Korean, Australian and European experts, which discuss constructive cooperation among U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The series aims to provide readers with valuable perspectives on the future of NATO-IP4 (Indo-Pacific 4) cooperation for regional and global security.
Cross-Theater Interlinkages: the stakes for NATO
The NATO alliance is adapting to operate effectively in a complex, contested and unpredictable security environment characterized by strategic competition, persistent contestation across the peace-crisis-conflict continuum and pervasive instability. To ensure the security and defense of Allies, NATO needs to be able to credibly tackle multiple, global and interconnected threats and challenges and to account for the impact that conflict, crises and instability in other regions of the world could have on the Euro-Atlantic, its area of responsibility.
As the epicenter of geopolitical competition and one of one of the fastest growing regions in the world, the Indo-Pacific is deeply relevant, both to international and to Euro-Atlantic peace and security. The security and prosperity of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions are intertwined and any significant crisis in one of these two theaters would have a direct political, economic and security impact on the other. The security interlinkages between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific theatres have been further amplified since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022—driven by the growing strategic alignment and concerted actions between Russia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iran. By supporting Russian aggression, these actors are de facto contributing to instability and insecurity in the European theater.
Against a background of rising strategic competition and growing adversarial alignment, there is a clear case to enhance political engagement and practical cooperation between likeminded countries in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.
In the NATO context, political dialogue and practical cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific region—Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea—have grown substantially in recent years. Indo-Pacific partners are geographically distant from NATO’s area of responsibility, but geopolitically close to the Alliance in terms of values, sharing a common interest in upholding the rules-based international order. Furthermore, both NATO Allies and its Indo-Pacific partners face a number of cross-theater challenges—from hostile cyber operations, to economic coercion and from the erosion of non-proliferation norms and regimes to increasingly sophisticated hybrid threats. Countries in both regions can enhance their respective security by working together to tackle these shared challenges.
At the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, NATO Allies and its partners in the Indo-Pacific region launched flagship projects to boost cooperation on issues such as support to Ukraine, cyber defense, countering disinformation and adaption and adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence. NATO Allies also adopted a NATO Industrial Capacity Expansion pledge that highlights the need to enhance defense industrial cooperation with engaged partners, including those in the Indo-Pacific region. This double focus on cross-theater challenges and defense industrial cooperation could lay the ground for a robust and ambition cooperation agenda.
Building a stronger and more resilient defense industrial eco-system---a cross-theater effort?
Reenergizing the transatlantic defense and technological industrial base is rightly seen as a critical enabler of NATO’s military adaptation and essential to maintaining a credible deterrence and defense posture. In a context of growing strategic competition, these efforts should be focused on both maintaining/regaining the Alliance’s technological edge and ensuring that potential adversaries and competitors cannot out-pace and out-produce the alliance in times of crisis or conflict.
After decades of under-investing in defense and letting defense industrial capacity decline, NATO Allies are now sharply focused on continuing to increase defense spending. They are also committed to working with industry to expand production capacity to ensure the ability to sustain and, if needed, surge production to meet defense requirements. These efforts are necessary both to ensure Allies are able to support Ukraine as it exercises its right to self-defense against Russian aggression as well as to have the capabilities required to deter and defend in a more contested security environment.
NATO is an important platform for consultations between Allies and with industry on these issues. The alliance plays a key role in setting military operational standards, helping to foster interoperability. It is also an effective vehicle for aggregating demand, generating economies of scale and fostering multinational cooperation. As NATO continues to invest in supporting the expansion and strengthening of Allied defense industrial and manufacturing capabilities, there is scope to work more with Indo-Pacific partners and seek to include them in relevant consultations and activities. The same potential exists when it comes to maintaining the Alliance’s technological edge by seeking to more closely cooperate and leverage innovation ecosystems across both regions.
There is also value in facilitating strategic engagements and exchanges between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Allies and partners, including with relevant industry stakeholders, on how to build industrial resilience and future-proof the defense and technological industrial base. Common challenges here include: significantly increasing and speeding up production to deliver capabilities at scale; managing costs; ensuring more agile procurement and funding mechanisms; retaining interoperability and more rapidly adapting and adopting emerging and disruptive technologies.
Beyond strategic engagements, practical cooperation, including co-financing, co-development and co-production, can play a positive role in leveraging different Allies’ and partners’ assets and developing and manufacturing capabilities needed in both theaters, in the process building interoperability by design. More broadly, industrial cooperation could be an engine for fostering strategic convergence across theaters. Relevant examples here include AUKUS (including Pillar II), the Global Combat Air Programme between Italy, Japan and the UK or Australia’s recent decision to co-invest in the establishment of a Norwegian Kongsberg’s strike missile factory in Australia. To accelerate efforts to strengthen practical cooperation, it will be important to continue focusing on lowering existing barriers to tech- and data-sharing between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific partners and Allies.
In addition, ensuring sustainable and secure supply chains for our defense industries is another cross-theater challenge where engagement and cooperation between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Allies and partners can help identify and mitigate strategic dependencies and vulnerabilities for defense-critical supply chains.
Ensuring fit-for-purpose Capabilities for the Maritime Domain: a test case for cooperation?
The maritime threat landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation, with technology and tactics employed by state and non-state actors changing the character of naval warfare.
NATO needs to maintain a high level of situational awareness of how shifting geopolitical dynamics and integration of emerging and disrupting technologies affect the Alliance’s ability to deter and defend at sea, uphold freedom of navigation, secure maritime trade routes and protect key lines of communication[1].
Retaining dominance at sea in a more complex, contested and fast-changing environment may also require rethinking assumptions about future capability requirements and there could be merit in engaging with Indo-Pacific partners on this issue. For example: what lessons are naval planners in both theatres drawing from China’s work on carrier-killer missiles, Ukraine’s efficacy in defending against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with coastal cruise missiles and artillery, as well as surface and undersea autonomous vehicles and Houthi attacks against commercial and military vessels with one-way attack UAVs and anti-ship missiles?
These engagements could highlight shared challenges, such as the need to develop more cost-effective weapons to counter cheap explosively equipped UAVs in the land and sea domains but also the potential to accelerate the integration of UAVs into carriers to perform a wider range of missions. Increasing exchanges, cooperation and exercises on undersea capabilities, including unmanned underwater vehicles, is rightly identified as a priority for AUKUS pillar II and a topic of high interest to both Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Allies and partners. Additionally, engagement and cooperation on how to better leverage technological innovation when it comes to the protection of critical underwater infrastructure, including undersea cables, represents another promising area to boost maritime security in both theaters. On all these issues there is potential to increase strategic dialogue, information exchange, practical cooperation and joint training, exercising and capacity building between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific partners and Allies.
Growing strategic competition and exponential technological change are having a concrete impact on the security of both the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions and altering the nature of warfare across domains and theaters. In this context, NATO Allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific have a shared interest in enhancing dialogue and cooperation to boost resilience against cross-theater challenges. These countries can also enhance their respective operational effectiveness and foster interoperability by accelerating defense cooperation to develop the capabilities they need to tackle their distinct, but increasingly interlinked, security challenges.
(2025/03/28)
Notes
- 1 NATO 2022 Strategic Concept, paragraph 23.