By Ryan Curtis
DOI: 10.57912/25475458
The international world is changing. The unipolar moment is over, and a new era of geopolitics is beginning. This new era is defined by a shift back to a bipolar system, with one center of power in Washington, and the other in Beijing. It is increasingly clear that the future of international relations for the next few decades will be dominated by the latent competition between the United States and China. American leaders have made this clear through the 2018 trade war, increased aid to Taiwan, and the now commonplace rhetoric describing the world as a clash between democracies and autocracies. China has also made this clear in its own way; Chinese-led groups like BRICS and projects like the Belt and Road Initiative are rapidly expanding across the globe with the intention of challenging American monetary, economic, and political hegemony.
China and its allies have shown that challenging America is not a peaceful exercise. Russia, Iran, and North Korea–some of China’s closest allies–all pose significant security threats to the sovereignty and freedom of the states bordering them. Russia is violating the sovereignty of Ukraine in an illegal invasion, Iran sponsors brutal terrorist groups across the Middle East, and North Korea illegally maintains a nuclear weapons program which it uses to harass its neighbors. China itself threatens security in the Indo-Pacific through denial of Taiwan’s sovereignty, frequent violations of Taiwanese airspace, and the pressing of illegal claims over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. China's rise to power is both a threat to US interests as well as being actively dangerous to all other countries in the region.
In 1949, the United States and its European allies signed the North Atlantic Treaty, founding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO was at its core a simple pact that bound its members into a treaty of mutual defense against the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the US also spearheaded the development of two other treaty organizations similar to NATO. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was founded in 1954, pulling together America’s Asian and European allies in the region. In 1955 the United States also helped to create the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), coordinating American Middle Eastern allies. All three of these treaty organizations were mutual defense pacts, meant to contain the expansive threat of the Soviet Union. SEATO and CENTO both dissolved in the late 70s, due to disputes among members, and general disinterest in what seemed like a distant and irrelevant conflict.
The US and NATO currently find themselves in a similar–although also critically distinct–position to that of the 1970s US and SEATO and CENTO. NATO is an organization that was developed for the containment of Russia and the mutual defense of Europe. NATO’s expansion and revitalization following the War in Ukraine has made it clear that such an organization is still necessary. However, as the US transitions its attention towards China and the Indo-Pacific, the nation has struggled to pull its NATO allies with them. Knowing that the next few decades will be defined by competition with China, current American security infrastructure is insufficient for this task. The US needs a new treaty organization in the Indo-Pacific.
This imagined Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization (or IPTO) would be a mutual defense pact–just like prior Cold War pacts–but with a more centralized bureaucracy: a unified command structure, a permanent secretariat, and frequent joint military exercises. IPTO should be an alliance that mirrors NATO, not SEATO. To accomplish this mission, the founding members of IPTO must be ready to be strategically and militarily involved in America’s struggle against China. Not all American partners in the Indo-Pacific are capable of this. When imagining founding members, a good starting list would be the existing US designation of “major non-NATO ally.” These countries have proven their military capability, and their devotion to close partnership with America. The US participates in military exercises with these nations already, and has permanent bases across many of them. Military and strategic integration amongst these nations would be a continuation of past trends.
Thus, a list of IPTO founders would start with our major non-NATO allies in the Indo-Pacific: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. Due to the close relationship of Pakistan with China, and then the geographic distance of the Gulf States from China, they both should be removed from any founding members list. Vietnam has close economic and security relations with the US, and a significant border dispute with China, making them a strong addition to the alliance. The one other country that would be essential to include in the alliance would be India. India represents a massive source of economic and military power in the region and is no friend of China. India and China maintain a long border in the Himalayas, punctuated by several border disputes. Every few years, these disputes flare up and result in minor non-lethal skirmishes between the two countries. India's inclusion in the alliance would be essential in establishing the power, permanence, and legitimacy of IPTO.
IPTO would be able to avoid the pitfalls that SEATO and CENTO fell into because these states face a significant security threat from China. The US already has deep bilateral relations with all proposed IPTO founding states, including explicit defense pacts with the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Some of the largest joint military exercises in the world–Exercise Malabar–take place every year between India, Japan, Australia, and the US. These exercises now accompany a permanent security dialogue between the four nations. Vietnam buys and operates Indian naval vessels, and both nations have been deepening their security ties. These founding states recognize the common threat of China and are interested in interstate cooperation, not just bilateral relations with the US. The landscape in the region is changing rapidly too. Just ten years ago, a NATO-like alliance would have been unthinkable, but since then, Chinese hostility and arrogance have driven the region towards the US. This alliance will only grow stronger, as the threat of China only becomes more and more realized.
China is not going away as a threat any time soon, and the standing system of bilateral alliances is insufficient. Under IPTO, regional cooperation would be much more common, and Chinese aggression would be met with a unified front, rather than many separate nations. This shared alliance would put an end to China’s constant bullying of their neighbors and send a clear message that wanton aggression will be met with force. Just as NATO prevented Soviet expansion into Turkey via the deterrent threat of collective defense, IPTO would do the same. IPTO would have the upper hand in any open conflict with China and would deter China from war in Taiwan, Korea, the Himalayas, or the South China Sea. IPTO and NATO could become the two pillars of American security policy; two large multilateral alliances, bringing together the democracies and democratic-aligned states of the world, against the revanchist threat of autocracy.
Comments