The North Atlantic Council (NAC) meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers held on 4-5 April 2023 at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Headquarters in Brussels has ended on the expected lines. The focus was on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg vehemently called upon the Allies to “give Ukraine all it needs on the battlefield to prevail as a sovereign and independent nation”.

Meanwhile, national parliaments of the 30 Allies have ratified Finland’s Accession Protocol paving way for Helsinki to formally join the Alliance as its 31st member. Secretary General Stoltenberg expressed satisfaction and proclaimed “From today, we stand together as Allies” and noted: “Joining NATO is good for Finland, it is good for Nordic security and it is good for NATO as a whole” given that Finland shares 1340 kilometers of land border with Russia. It is hoped that Sweden too would soon be part of the Alliance and “is not left alone. [it] is as close as it can come as a full-fledged member,” before a July NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, said Stoltenberg.

The Secretary General also flagged China's increasing alignment with Russia in the Ukraine war and did not hesitate to accuse it of providing “lethal aid” to Russia. He warned that it would have “profound implications” wherein the NATO would “step up cooperation with four Indo-Pacific countries to deal with the China challenge” ostensibly referring to Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea. Surely Beijing was quick to retort and called Stoltenberg remarks as “smears and accusations”. It advised NATO to “reflect on itself first and count how many bombs it has dropped on the soil of foreign countries?”

The predominance of Indo-Pacific in global strategic affairs has encouraged the NATO to expand its horizon to include new non-Atlantic countries in its structure. The first-ever NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting with “select partners” i.e. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea, was held in December 2020 and discussed the rise of China and resultant shift in the global balance of power. This was followed by the meeting of the NATO Military Committee of Chiefs of Defence in May 2022 held at NATO Headquarters. These politico-diplomatic-military dialogues serve as an important platform at two different levels i.e. at the collective level, they discuss security developments in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions and identify common security challenges including cyber defence and climate change. At the bilateral level, NATO and “select partners” have instituted Individual Partnership Cooperation Programmes concerning issues of mutual interest including cyber defence, non-proliferation, civil preparedness and Women, Peace and Security.

Earlier this year, NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme announced ''Futures in the Indo-Pacific'' under which experts from Belgium, Australia, France and Japan will hold series of discussions to “examine relevant developments in the Indo-Pacific and their potential implications for security in the Euro-Atlantic area” to identify areas where NATO can cooperate with its “global partners” (Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan) in the Indo-Pacific.

India is conspicuously absent from the list of NATO “global partners” in the Indo-Pacific region. NATO has made overtures to India and more recently in a virtual press briefing, Julianne Smith, US NATO Ambassador said “doors are open” for New Delhi to join the Organisation. Furthermore, the Alliance is “certainly open to more engagement with India, should that country take interest in pursuing that”. Also, the Alliance is not keen to invite India to its ministerial until “we knew more about their interest in engaging the alliance more broadly”. It was also made known that that there are “no plans by the Alliance to expand this to a broader global military alliance,"  

Although these is no official response from New Delhi to the US’ NATO Ambassador’s statement, it is fair to assume that India has put the offer in the back burner. A similar offer appears to have been made in 2021 by a former US diplomat who revealed that as the co-Chair of a group of NATO experts had recommended extending a “formal offer of partnership to India.” Similarly, in his remarks at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi in 2021, NATO Secretary General stated that “There is a huge potential for NATO to work with India in different ways.....which doesn’t directly involve, I will say, military operations and missions.”

Be that as it may, New Delhi is not keen to exhibit a direct “tilt” towards the western powers notwithstanding its strategic partnerships with the US, European Union, UK, many EU Member states (at bilateral level), or Asian powers such as NATO’s “select partners” in the India-Pacific region. Any “tilt” towards the West could also undermine the decades of India-Russia relationship. In fact New Delhi has, in the current turbulent state of international politics, preferred ingenious choices of “multi-alignment” underlined by “national interest”. It is quite satisfied with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the QSD which is already seen by China as an “Asian NATO”!

Dr Vijay Sakhuja is Associated with Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.