Why Not a Pacific NATO?

By Scott Howard

Sunday, June 11, 2023

 

In this pact, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression — a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens.

 

On April 4, 1949, President Harry Truman addressed a crowd of foreign dignitaries in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. The subject of his speech was momentous: the founding of NATO in the face of the USSR. The nations of a region wracked with conflict and the long shadow of the communist threat banded together (under the American security umbrella) to stave off the possibility of yet another continent-wide war. Seventy-four years later, the Soviet threat is gone, but the preeminence of NATO has not subsided. As Russia attempts to actualize its imperial fantasies in eastern Ukraine, the NATO bulwark continues to guarantee the safety of 29 European countries. Truman’s bold vision and resolve to forge an alliance between states that had historically been adversaries guaranteed peace in a region of the world that had only ever known war.

 

Today, a similar threat faces a region with a history just as rich in conflict. Despite the pronouncements of the current administration, a vision just as bold and far-reaching as Truman’s is needed to stave off the threat.

 

Last Friday, Defense secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to the media in Singapore as part of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a yearly intergovernmental security summit. Responding to a question from one of the reporters regarding European involvement in the region, he opined that the United States is “not trying to create a NATO in the Indo-Pacific.” In response to the next question, regarding tension between ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Nations) and the Quad (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) about regional defenses, he stated once again that a Pacific NATO was not in the cards for the current administration. At the Shangri-La Dialogue conference last year he made the same claim, declaring that the U.S. does not seek an “Asian NATO.” The latest statements come as Chinese officials warn against the formation of such an organization. The thought process of the current administration seems to be that forming a NATO-like alliance in the Indo-Pacific would affront the People’s Republic of China and so should be taken off the table.

 

If that sounds similar to the Vladimir Putin argument that “NATO made me do it,” it should. The argument that Chinese warnings should deter the United States from forging a regional military alliance in the Pacific underestimates the Chinese threat and places American security second to our adversary’s desires. The question that policy-makers in Washington should ask is not what the Chinese would think but what the benefits of such an alliance would be. The answer is the same today as it was in Europe post–World War II. So why not a Pacific NATO?

 

Though it has been lost to the average history book, such an organization once existed. Founded in 1954, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (colloquially called SEATO) was constructed on the same premises as was its Atlantic counterpart. The lack of a clear regional threat and internal conflict related to the Vietnam War tore the organization apart, and in 1977 it dissolved. Circumstances have changed since then. China represents a greater threat than it once did, and the internal conflicts that once plagued its member states have subsided. The existence of ASEAN shows that a framework for cooperation between the smaller states of the southeast Pacific is possible. The United States already maintains a number of bilateral and trilateral treaty alliances in the region. The foundations for a region-encompassing defense treaty exist; what is missing is the initiative to craft one with the express purpose of hedging against Chinese aggression.

 

Recent events in Europe also suggest that the United States should look toward a broader alliance for defending the Indo-Pacific. The war in Ukraine has been discussed and covered in great detail elsewhere in National Review. So, too, have the attitudes of Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders when it comes to the Chinese question. A recent survey suggests that the average European may be more inclined to follow Macron’s lead on China than not. If that is the case, the United States will by necessity need to look elsewhere for support.

 

And we will need to look for support. A flurry of reports over the past two years indicates that U.S. military capabilities may not be up to the challenge of confronting China alone. Private analysis of arsenal reserves indicates serious problems with American munition-replacement capabilities. An article in December in the magazine National Defense had this to say:

 

According to the Defense Department, in the six months from March to September, the United States supplied Ukraine with more than 800,000 155mm artillery rounds. From Sept. 28 to Oct. 28, it donated another 100,000 rounds. The September production capacity, meanwhile, was only 14,400 rounds per month. While the exact number of 155mm artillery rounds the United States possesses is unknown, this gap between utilization and production will significantly deplete its reserves over time.

 

This is just one example of the problem. In March, Foreign Affairs wrote in great detail about a potential munitions crisis in a conflict with China. An essay published by the Naval Institute last August suggests similar issues. In its 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength, the Heritage Foundation predicted that the United States military “would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous MRCs,” or major regional contingencies, such as the war in Ukraine alongside a potential conflict in Taiwan. The same report makes note of our lack of a unified defense organization in the Indo-Pacific region: “The complicated nature of intra-Asian relations and the lack of an integrated, regional security architecture along the lines of NATO make defense of U.S. security interests more challenging than many Americans appreciate.”

 

All of this comes before mentioning that, without changes, the recent budget agreement would amount to slight defense-spending cuts in real dollars due to inflationary pressures. As the United States sorts out its domestic position, it will need cover, and resurrecting some version of SEATO could provide it. If the United States wishes to maintain its position as leader and defender of the free world over the coming decades, it will need to act decisively in the face of current threats. Like the Soviet Union in 1949, China today is an existential threat to peace, both in the Indo-Pacific region and across the globe. The enemy has changed, but the circumstances are very similar.