When, for example, on Feb 16, 2023, Quinn Marschik, a contributing fellow at the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities, reviewed Stoltenberg’s “gallivanting” in Nikkei Asia, he pointed out that, instead of trying to de-escalate the Ukraine conflict, he “appeared ready to tie the alliance (NATO) into potential future conflicts in Asia, risking war with nuclear-armed China.” He explained that “NATO has no business in the Indo-Pacific region”, and should “stick to its North Atlantic mandate and avoid stoking powder kegs on the other side of the world”. Not only had Stoltenberg exceeded NATO’s geographic mandate, but he had also sought “to drag South Korea and Japan into the West’s inflammatory ‘democracies versus autocracies’ paradigm”.
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