In recent years, Washington has urged its NATO allies to play a more direct role in Indo-Pacific security in order to counter China’s influence and power projection. Meanwhile, NATO is struggling in its core mission to ensure European security as the Ukraine-Russia war drags on.
What would greater NATO engagement in the Indo-Pacific mean for U.S. interests there and in Europe? And what would a concerted NATO focus on Asia mean for Europe’s dependency on the United States?
In this Q&A, Defense Priorities non-resident fellow Thomas Cavanna, the author of a recent DEFP explainer on NATO’s Indo-Pacific ambitions, unpacks why the United States is pushing NATO to play a larger role in countering China, how such a move would weaken the alliance, and what Washington should do instead.
How did the United States come to promote the expansion of NATO’s prerogatives to the Indo-Pacific?
During the Trump I and Biden presidencies, U.S. leaders increasingly pressed NATO to shift its attention to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite President Trump’s skepticism of the Western alliance, his administration urged NATO to align with the hardening of America’s China strategy after January 2017. Although those efforts were initially designed to blunt Beijing’s economic influence in Europe, they laid the groundwork for deepening ties between NATO and Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies and partners.
President Biden endorsed his predecessor’s stance and quickly sought to expand NATO’s turn against Beijing. This momentum accelerated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
First, Washington leveraged the historic joint statement that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had co-signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin a few weeks earlier, which condemned NATO’s enlargement (a first for the PRC) and proclaimed a friendship without “forbidden areas.” Second, the Biden administration used its pivotal role in the West’s campaign in support of Ukraine to press European leaders to further harden their policies against China.
READ THE EXPLAINERThis U.S. push led European leaders to support the development of linkages between NATO and the Indo-Pacific. For instance, the new Strategic Concept adopted by the Western alliance in June 2022 recognized how “developments” in the Indo-Pacific could “directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.”
The return of Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025 has revived uncertainties about NATO’s future. But there is no guarantee that Washington will cease its efforts to push the Western alliance against China in both Europe and Asia.
Why are some U.S. policymakers pushing NATO to become more involved in countering China and why would Europe be interested in doing so?
Many in Washington worry that the United States won’t be able to mitigate China’s rise without leveraging its allies’ full support. Those concerns are particularly acute in the Indo-Pacific—the world’s most valuable geostrategic theater—where the PRC’s growing power is most pronounced.
In that context, American leaders assumed that NATO and its European member-states could help address the China challenge by developing deeper linkages with America’s Indo-Pacific allies and partners, such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India (some of whom have supported NATO’s mobilization against Russia in Ukraine). Those contributions have included more naval patrols and greater participation in local military exercises to signal support for the so-called “rules-based international order,” as well as growing arms sales, intelligence sharing, and cybersecurity cooperation.
Western strategists also began to discuss how advanced European forces (i.e., French and British nuclear submarines) could support U.S. operations in case of war against Beijing, including the defense of logistical lines or participation in a blockade. In parallel, NATO took steps toward greater industrial-military capacity, planning, and doctrinal integration with America’s Indo-Pacific allies and partners. It is also worth noting that Washington expected those military dynamics to facilitate cooperation against China in other domains, including economic security, disruptive technologies, and the promotion of liberal values.
European states have often accommodated those demands. In part, this is because they worry about Beijing’s assertiveness, have deep economic interests (and, for some, local territories) in the Indo-Pacific, and understand that a U.S.-China war would have global repercussions. But European leaders also view cooperation with the United States in Asia as a price to pay to retain the U.S. security umbrella in Europe. Finally, the NATO administration has lobbied for this Indo-Pacific reorientation to demonstrate the organization’s enduring relevance.
What are the risks of expanding NATO’s mission into the Indo-Pacific?
A NATO buildup in Europe could create more tensions within the alliance. Despite their concerns about Beijing and their desire to accommodate the United States to some extent, European leaders have often resisted the alarmism, assertiveness, and military-centric nature of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This is due to their geographic distance from East Asia, their deeper economic dependence on China, and their lesser concerns about the idea of relative decline.
Given the inherent limitations of Europe’s power projection potential, a NATO buildup in the Indo-Pacific would be unlikely to deter the PRC. Still, it would compromise Europe’s ability to stabilize its eastern, southern, and northern neighborhoods, whether against Russia, terrorism, or other threats. Moreover, it would further limit the EU’s ability to invest in its own security (and do so collectively) and increase European leaders’ desire to keep Washington as heavily involved as possible, thereby perpetuating the U.S. entanglement in Europe.
A NATO buildup in the Indo-Pacific would exacerbate tensions with China, whose leaders tend to perceive the Western alliance as designed to further America’s encirclement of the PRC. This could increase the risk of military conflagration but also trigger devastating, punitive economic measures. The expansion of NATO’s prerogatives in Asia could also deepen the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, leading Moscow to further harden its European policies or provide greater support to Beijing in the Indo-Pacific.
Finally, a growing NATO push in the Indo-Pacific could degrade the West’s image in the Global South, thereby giving China new opportunities to consolidate its influence on a global scale (e.g., port ownership, access to critical minerals, and adoption of Chinese technological standards) and to gain ground in many of the developing Indo-Pacific nations where the U.S. has tried to raise its security and economic profile to hold the line against Beijing in recent years.
What should the United States do instead of pushing NATO against China? How does a more restrained NATO enhance U.S. strategy and effectiveness?
Washington’s push to increase NATO’s profile in the Indo-Pacific is flawed and dangerous. The United States should refrain from transforming NATO into a full-fledged anti-China instrument and from extending the alliance’s strategic perimeter into the Indo-Pacific.
Instead, it should scale down its involvement in European security. This would force the Europeans to finally address their dependency on Washington. As they make this necessary adjustment, transatlantic consultations and technical support would enable the United States to assist its allies in addressing the logistical, political, and financial bottlenecks that hinder the development of meaningful European combat capabilities. This lesser involvement in European security would enable the United States to reorient its focus toward the Indo-Pacific.
Washington could also encourage NATO to strengthen its communication channels and create new confidence-building mechanisms with the PRC.
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