Does the world need an Asian NATO?
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Welcome to the World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Laura Cook, and

and Tom Noonan. It's no secret that Donald Trump thinks China is the US's main adversary on the global stage. Whether it's tariffs or changing the focus of US troops stationed in Asia or appointing China hawks to key roles in his government, countering Beijing is the main strategic aim. But

That is a view that's been widely shared by senior Democrats and Republicans since Barack Obama's presidency. So, is it time for a NATO-style alliance in the Indo-Pacific? One person who thinks so is our guest today, Eli Ratner, who was Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs under Joe Biden. Eli, lay out for us why you think the US should form a new security alliance in East and Southeast Asia.

Well, I guess the place to start is what is the challenge that we need to address? And that is the growing potential for aggression from the People's Republic of China. We've seen the PLA undergoing a very rapid military modernization. And the dominant question, frankly, in U.S. foreign policy, but I think should be for folks around the world, is how do we prevent PLA aggression from destabilizing the region and destabilizing the world? Now, traditionally,

The United States has done that through a set of bilateral alliances. However, that remains at this point, in my view, too informal and incomplete. And a more formal defense pact is required to do the kind of planning and exercising that's necessary to reinforce deterrence and frankly, maintain the peace that we all benefit from.

As you say, Eli, so far the US has managed its security in the region through bilateral relationships. So what does a security pact get you that those bilateral alliances do not?

Well, it's worth remembering when and why those bilateral alliances were formed in the first place, which was in the wake of World War II. And the role of those alliances was largely for the United States, who had predominant military power, to act as a protectorate in the region. And it was at a time when our allies did not have a lot of capability of their own to contribute to the alliances beyond their own very narrow defense, and at a time when the threat

from China in particular, was much more minimal. Now we have, again, a China that is threatening countries around the world. It's threatening the United States. And our allies are much more capable than they used to be. And they have much more to contribute now. And frankly, they're working together much more than they were before. So the United States already has

security pacts with Australia and Japan, South Korea in the Philippines, one of the things that's really changed is that, for instance, Japan and Australia have relationships that experts describe as alliance-like. And the same between Japan and the Philippines, the Philippines and Australia. And there are really great opportunities for these countries to be working together in a way that makes the whole much more than the sum of the parts than just the United States with in

individual relationships in a system that has been described historically as a hub and spoke system with the United States at the middle. And we ought to be leveraging the collective capabilities and geography and power of all of these countries to maintain the peace. So a big part of the advantage of a broader pact is the way those countries interact with each other and are more closely linked?

Yes, it's the collective power, the linkages between them and these countries themselves playing a larger role in contributing to regional defense. Now, one thing I will say is that you use the term Asian NATO. That is not one that I use. One reason why is because NATO obviously...

has the connotation of a pan-regional organization that almost all of Europe participates in. I think that is not viable in the Indo-Pacific. You could not have a collective defense pact that included India and Australia and all of Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. The geographies are too wide. The interests are too wide. What I have proposed is something that is more

more limited to the set of countries that are quite closely aligned on the China challenge, in particular, the United States, Japan, Philippines, and Australia. Of course, the door should remain open to others. But part of the reason why this hasn't happened historically, I think, is because people have conceived of the difficulty of harnessing such a disparate set of

national interest within a single construct or mechanism. And I think that time is now viable today among this more limited set of countries than it has been in the past. But that limited set of countries are precisely the ones that could provide the most deterrent power and help us prevent PLA aggression.

It's interesting, Eli, that you pick out the way this is different to NATO because NATO officials would probably say, well, NATO strength comes from strength in numbers. Whereas your argument here is that an Asian defence pact would be stronger or at least more effective with fewer members. Just explain why that is.

Well, it's a question of viability. Look, if India and South Korea were as aligned on the China challenge as are Japan in Australia, and maybe one day they will be, then absolutely they should be part of a construct like this. But the viability of the proposal that I'm putting forward in a way that I think, again, is different than before, is that you do have a core set of countries that

that now do see the world in the same way in terms of viewing China as their primary, dominant and shared military threat. And the cooperation is very much underway between these countries already. So what I'm describing is not, hey, we have a blank sheet here and we should start from scratch. It's building upon a number of initiatives that are already underway. And at the same time, what I'm proposing is that, hey, we ought to be working together now

to build the foundations for military cooperation should we need it in the event of crisis and conflict. Of course, at the time, if we had a conflict, national leaders would have decisions to make about whether they wanted to participate or not. Nothing I'm proposing locks in a leader to have to respond in a certain instance. But if we don't get to work now on building the cooperation, we're not going to have that kind of option. Outside of the bilateral relationships, we

We have generated a lot of activity, but again, it remains too ad hoc and too informal to bring the kind of long-term deterrent effect that I think that we're going to need.

Eli, another big difference with NATO would be the geography of this pact. Whereas NATO is essentially focused on defending two large landmasses from Russia, the North American continent and Europe, the pact you propose would span North America and the vast landmass of Australia and then also the island nations of Japan and the Philippines. How would the military capabilities of this pact be different from NATO's?

Yeah, it's a really good question. And the theaters militarily obviously are quite different. And the vast distances in the Indo-Pacific are an important variable to be managed. In some ways, that speaks even more to the need to develop these kinds of arrangements because the sorts of logistics and maintenance and a lot of the technical aspects of projecting military power in a much broader theater report.

require that kind of coordination. Part of the advantage of developing a pact like this is it would allow the main countries and participants to operate much more seamlessly between and among themselves. You could have forces operating from those four countries through those geographies in a way that would be much more seamless than today if they're viewed individually. So I think that's an important point. Obviously, it would be more of a naval and air theater than

some of the ground combat orientation of the European theatre. But I think that just speaks even more to the need for greater command and control and coordination between the powers. And just finally, Eli, a key part of NATO has always been the nuclear umbrella, which is provided mainly by the US, of course. What do you think is needed in terms of US nuclear deployments in Southeast Asia? And do you think that one of China's threats is a nuclear one?

Well, I think it's a really important question. And I think the question of how the United States extended nuclear umbrella in the Indo-Pacific would relate in a mechanism like this, we currently have extended deterrence relationships with Australia, with Japan, and with South Korea. I don't think there are serious proposals on the table right now for basing U.S. nuclear weapons in the Western Pacific. The goal there would be to

to try to strengthen conventional force cooperation and to have the U.S. nuclear umbrella in the background, not to be integrating U.S. nuclear weapons or somehow proliferating U.S. nuclear weapons out in the region. China, as you know, is in the midst of an expansion of its nuclear forces, the largest in peacetime history. And so they are putting pressure on

the non-proliferation regime. But for now, I think nuclear deterrence holds. And that would be an important issue to talk about, about the ways in which conventional and U.S. nuclear forces might operate together. But certainly no proposal here to expand or introduce nuclear weapons into the region.

OK, Eli, thank you. That is Eli Ratner, former US Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs. Now, that question of China's nuclear power, which we touched on at the end, is one we examined last week in Wednesday's episode called A New Nuclear Age – The Differences from the Cold War. Nuclear power is a new technology

Nuclear deterrence specialist Matthew Kroenig highlighted China's build-up of its nuclear arsenal as the main new threat to the world in nuclear terms. To hear what he thinks needs to be done to make sure deterrence holds, go back and listen. That's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

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