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The ongoing push by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to expand its presence into Indo-Pacific should be viewed as a “serious threat to global governance and global peace”, an Indian Air Force (IAF) veteran has told Sputnik.
Air Marshal M. Matheswaran, the president of Chennai-based think-tank The Peninsula Foundation (TPF), expressed concern that the NATO mechanism “bypasses” the UN Security Council, tasked with maintaining global peace and security as per the UN Charter.
“The Asian nations like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand are courting serious trouble by welcoming NATO’s expansion into Indo-Pacific,” the expert warned.
The NATO has invited leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea to the summit in Vilnius on 11-12 July. Last year, the NATO ‘Strategic Concept’, a document spelling out the strategy for the upcoming decade, described Beijing as a “systemic challenge” for the first time in the trans-Atlantic grouping’s history.
The leaders of the four Asian nations were also invited to the NATO Summit in Madrid last year.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has justified NATO’s expansionist agenda by claiming that “what happens in the Indo-Pacific matters for Europe, and what happens in Europe matters for the Indo-Pacific.”
Stoltenberg has been increasingly critical of China, arguing in the lead-up the Lithuania summit that Beijing’s “coercive behavior abroad and repressive policies at home challenge NATO's security, values, and interests,” which was an apparent reference to Taiwan.
On Tuesday, Stoltenberg and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stepped up their engagement by unveiling the ‘Tailored Partnership Programme’ to enhance cooperation in areas such as cybersecurity, maritime security and new technologies.
Japanese media has also reported that NATO would also unveil its first liaison office in Tokyo at the Lithuania summit, which would be its first outpost in Indo-Pacific.
The proposal has also already drawn criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron, who has reportedly reminded Stoltenberg that the alliance’s “geographical scope” is confined to North Atlantic.
‘Taiwan is Just a Pawn for US, NATO’
Matheswaran expressed concern that NATO had become a “convenient tool for the US to intervene in different areas of the world”.
“Beijing is not under any sort of threat from the Chinese. The US and the western allies are overhyping the Taiwan issue… The US, and NATO, need an enemy in order for its global strategy to work,” Matheswaran said.
He said that Taiwan was just a “pawn” in the American strategy to maintain its global hegemony, expressing serious doubts that China would launch a “war to re-unify Taiwan with the mainland”.
In fact, China is Taiwan’s biggest trading partner, accounting for over a fourth of Taiwanese exports, and is “integral” to Beijing’s semi-conductor supply chains as it ranked as the biggest exporter of chips globally.
"Why would Beijing commit hara-kiri by launching a military operation over Taiwan? Beijing gains extensively from Taiwan’s expertise in areas such as semiconductors,” Matheswaran pointed out.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that Beijing would never “renounce the use of force” to reunify Taiwan but it will continue to strive for a “peaceful resolution” of the issue.
“Beijing will wait for any amount of time to let things fall on their own,” Matheswaran reckoned.
US Using NATO to Maintain ‘Hegemony’ in Europe
Matheswaran reckoned that NATO should have been “dissolved” the same way the Warsaw Pact (a Moscow-led grouping during the Cold War) had been abolished at the end of the Cold War.
“NATO has become a problem since the end of Cold War since the US has been using it to cement and further its global hegemony. The NATO mechanism is now a part of Washington’s global grand strategy,” he stated.
He said that the US has been using NATO to maintain its “control” over Europe.
According to NATO, the US accounted for over 70 percent of the grouping’s overall expenditure between 2014 and 2022.
The think-tanker noted that the “genesis” of the Ukraine conflict lied in NATO not adhering to its commitments made at the end of Cold War, which was to not expand the military bloc eastwards near the Russian borders.
Kremlin has said that NATO’s failure to adhere to the “security guarantees” made by Washington and the potential membership of Kiev were among the primary reasons which necessitated the need to undertake a special military operation in Ukraine.
The NATO comprised 17 nations at the end of Cold War, as compared to its current strength of 31. Finland became the most recent European nation to accede to the military bloc this year.
‘India Never Going to Give in to NATO’
The Indian veteran said that New Delhi, which is part of US-led Quad arrangement (also comprising Australia and Japan), was never going to “back down on its longstanding commitment to strategic autonomy”.
Significantly, New Delhi is the only Quad member which isn’t a US treaty ally. South Korea and New Zealand, the other Indo-Pacific states invited to the NATO summit, are also part of US-led security arrangements.
Matheswaran said that New Delhi would never be part of any formal military alliance whatsoever.
Amid hectic efforts by the Western countries to enlist New Delhi into a ‘NATO Plus’ arrangement, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said that the “NATO template doesn’t apply to India”.
The geopolitical expert underlined that even the Quad grouping wasn’t a formal political or military grouping.
Matheswaran also cautioned that India’s growing “strategic partnership” with the US, including the signing of the four “foundational pacts”—General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA); Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA); Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA); Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)—won’t change New Delhi’s commitment to strategic autonomy.
“India is never going to allow the basing of American naval assets, even though it has signed the LEMOA. Any activity which is considered an impetus to war-mongering would also never be allowed by India,” Matheswaran said.
He said that New Delhi would pursue “certain limited engagements” under its overall policy to strengthen the strategic partnership with Washington.
The Indian expert said that these engagements would be confined to areas such as logistics and refuelling among others.