The NATO alliance members are scheduled to hold their annual Summit in Washington DC on 9-11 July 2024. This year’s Summit is significant from the point that the grouping will celebrate its 75th anniversary. Dubbed as the “most successful and enduring alliance in history”, the membership of this transatlantic security alliance has increased from 12 to 32 countries through 10 rounds of enlargement since 1949. Sweden joined the alliance in 2024, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine are the other three aspirants waiting to join.

The Summit is expected to deliberate on several issues including support for Ukraine; strengthening deterrence and defense posture; enhancing the Alliance’s partnerships; and budgets for collective defense.

The discussions during the Summit will be carefully followed in many capitals particularly in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang, to name a few. China is worried about an “Asian NATO”; Russia is concerned about NATO’s eastward expansion; and Tehran and Pyongyang have been accused of supporting Russia with military hardware. At another level, the nexus between Russia and China also worries the NATO.

First, the Asian NATO. At the recently concluded Shangri-La Dialogue, a Chinese Colonel participating in the event pointedly asked US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin if the US was engendering an Asian version of NATO and “What implications do you think the strengthening of the U.S. alliance system in the Asia-Pacific will have on this region’s security and stability?” He also stated that NATO’s “eastern expansion” had triggered the Ukraine crisis,” and provoked President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. Secretary Austin rejected Chinese Colonel’s assertions and assured him that the US is cooperating with “like-minded countries with similar values”.

It is true that China sees the QUAD (Australia, India, Japan and the US) as an “Asian NATO” which is mutating into new formats based on geographic needs such as the SQUAD (Australia, Japan, Philippines and the US). Also, non-Asian counties such as France are also joining the QUAD as “QUAD minus one” or “Quad plus one”. Furthermore, the AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom United States) initiative for building nuclear submarines has added new complexities for the Indo Pacific security or the Asia Pacific, a terms which the Chinese and Russian prefer to label the region. The new formats and engagements have rattled China. This is notwithstanding the fact that a few years ago Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had dismissed the QUAD as “a headline-grabbing idea,” and likened it as “sea foam in the Pacific or Indian Ocean: they get some attention but will soon dissipate”.

Second, Russia has accused the NATO of enlargement as also expanding boundaries eastwards. In his conversation with Zhang Youxia, the vice chair of China’s Central Military Commission, President Putin was unequivocal to state that “We see attempts by some countries to expand their zone of influence, and the North Atlantic Alliance, oddly enough, in violation of its own doctrinal documents, is making attempts to go beyond the geographical boundaries of its activities,” However President Putin has assured that Russia would not launch an attack on “NATO, despite tensions with its member states”.

NATO on its part has attempted to clarify that the grouping does not want a war with Russia. It only supports Ukraine’s “right to self-defence, as enshrined in the UN Charter” and clarified that it “did not hunt for new members or want to “expand eastward.” Be that as it may, NATO, even if it visualizes to enlarge or geographically expand towards the Caucuses-Caspian region, it will only add to insecurity in the region and heighten tensions with Russia and Iran and the reverberations could even reach China.

Third, NATO has to contend with “Russia's friends in Asia” i.e. Iran and Pyongyang. The Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins warned of the “triangle” involving Russia, Iran and North Korea wherein Iran and North Korea were supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia. Likewise, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is concerned over the continuous supplies of Iranian military hardware mainly UAVs/drones, and fears that Iran could even transfer ballistic missiles to Russia. Earlier this year, in February 2024, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Netherlands, the Baltic States, Czech Republic, Denmark and Romania had urged the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to consider new EU-wide sanctions against “Iranian individuals and companies that arm, finance and train proxies in the Middle East as well as possible sanctions on the groups themselves”.

Fourth, China is accused of supporting Russia’s war fighting capability. In an interview the U.S. Ambassador to NATO unequivocally stated that China is not a neutral party in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and has been supplying to Russia “machine tools, microelectronics, UAV technologies and nitrocellulose”; the latter is a key ingredient for making gunpowder. Furthermore, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, China is also supplying Russia with advanced satellite imagery.

It is evident that the ongoing enlargement and geographic expansion of the NATO is receiving close attention of Russia, China and “Russia's friends in Asia”. The latter have chosen overt-covert push back against the NATO. In fact none of the actors is willing to step back and this approach would have adverse consequences for both Asia and Europe.

Dr. Vijay Sakhuja is Professor and Head, Center of Excellence for Geopolitics and International Studies (CEGIS), REVA University, Bengaluru, and is associated with Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.