Roving Periscope: As Finland joins NATO, the US ‘engages’ India too
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With Turkiye also ratifying Finland’s entry as the 31st member-nation of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the spotlight may now have shifted to India: Is the South Asian country, currently the world’s fifth largest economy, the next in line?
In any case, the ambit of NATO—confined to the US, Europe, and Turkiye—is shifting east. The new alliance of four democracies—the US, India, Japan, and Australia—under the banner of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) has already been nicknamed the ‘Asian NATO’, aiming to target China.
On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Finland will become the 31st military alliance member on Tuesday. Finland will be a full member, he told reporters in Brussels, the media reported.
He said that Turkiye, the last country to ratify Finland’s membership, will hand its official texts to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday as NATO foreign ministers gather in Brussels.
A flag-raising ceremony to add the Finnish flag to the other members will occur at NATO headquarters on Tuesday afternoon.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US-led NATO has been trying to encircle both Russia and China. Russia’s invasions of Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Ukraine (2022) were meant to re-establish Moscow’s paramountcy in the former Soviet republics to foreclose the possibility of NATO forces eyeing the Russian borders.
Likewise, the US is encircling China via Quad and another alliance, ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and the USA), through the South China Sea, and preventing Beijing from ‘re-annexing’ its former territory, the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
It is against this backdrop that the US is prodding India, which fought a short war against China in 2020, also to “engage” with NATO. Recently, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said the “door is open” for India if New Delhi intends to engage with the military alliance, even as bringing the country onboard as a member is not being considered.
In March, NATO, which is keen on engaging more with New Delhi, held a preliminary meeting with India.
“Membership is not something that we’ve considered with anyone in the Indo-Pacific or Asia-Pacific. The alliance remains a Euro-Atlantic military alliance. Its door is open to this region. But there are no plans by the alliance to expand this to a broader global military alliance,” she was quoted as saying.
“In terms of a future with India, I think NATO’s door is open in terms of engagement should India be interested. But we would not want to, at this stage, invite them to a NATO ministerial until we knew more about their interest in engaging the alliance more broadly.”
On April 4-5, NATO is holding a meeting of foreign ministers of the member countries in Brussels to which US’ Indo-Pacific partners such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea have been invited. This will be followed by the NATO Summit in Lithuania on July 11-12.
These four countries have been invited separately because they have formally established partnerships with NATO and “work closely” with the alliance on “shared security challenges”, Smith said.
She said the meeting between NATO officials and the Indian government representatives was “informal” in nature but it was nevertheless some kind of a “start and opened up conversations”.
“Certainly, the NATO alliance is open to more engagement should India seek that. NATO currently has pretty different partners around the world and each individual partnership is different. Some come through the door seeking different levels of political engagement or sometimes more interested in interoperability or standardization questions,” she said.
“The message sent to India is that the NATO alliance certainly is open to more engagement with India should that country take an interest in pursuing that.”
“India certainly plays a crucial role in ensuring a free and open (Indo-Pacific) region that’s prosperous, secure, and resilient as well, and this of course aligns perfectly with the values that we are here to preserve and protect inside the NATO alliance particularly as we address 21st-century threats whether its climate or pandemic, hybrid tactics, and war, resilience or new domains such as cyberspace or even if its traditional areas like proliferation and maritime security.”
Recently, she said, NATO expanded its outreach with US friends and partners in the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific region while acknowledging that China has become a “systemic challenge” for the alliance.
NATO is also watching closely the growing relationship between China and Russia, and Beijing’s “political support” to Moscow for the ongoing war in Ukraine. “This is being monitored and increasingly becoming part of the conversation (within NATO),” Smith said, adding, “both the countries have the same playbook of hybrid tactics.”
This is the reason why NATO is now increasingly bringing some of America’s key partners in the Indo-Pacific to its headquarters, crucial ministerial meetings, into the North Atlantic Council as well as in Summit meetings.
“President (Joe) Biden is increasingly interested in bringing together America’s allies across the Atlantic and Pacific to bring about a collective opportunity for us to share ways to counter hybrid tactics,” Smith said.
On NATO becoming united, Smith underscored: “Ukraine (Russia-Ukraine war) has brought this alliance together and it has enhanced our partnerships with countries,” as she cited Sweden and Finland joining the alliance.
“Other countries aren’t necessarily joining but are looking to enhance the relationship. I think we will look back at 2022 and 2023 as pivotal moments of this alliance in a renewed sense of purpose and common sense of mission.”
