India and NATO "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• India has jettisoned many of its foreing policy shibboleths of late, however, avoiding NATO is not one of them. The article suggests engaging NATO to be in sync with the changing geopolitics.

 

About North Atlantic Treaty Organization:

• It is an intergovernmental military alliance.
• Established by Washington treaty.
• Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.
• Headquarters — Brussels, Belgium.

 

Composition:

• Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 30. The most recent member state to be added to NATO was North Macedonia on 27 March 2020.
• NATO membership is open to “any other European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”

 

What is NATO, btw?

• NATO, the planet’s largest — and largest-ever — military alliance, was formed in 1949 by 12 Allied powers to counter the massive Soviet armies stationed in Eastern and Central Europe after Second World War.
• According to Paul-Henri Spaak, the second Secretary-General of NATO, it was, ironically enough, Joseph Stalin who is the true father of NATO.
• It was Stalin’s overreach — especially with the Berlin blockade of 1948-49 and the orchestrated coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 — that convinced a diverse set of war-ravaged European nations to come together under an American security blanket.
• The collective defence principle enshrined in NATO’s Article V states that “an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies”.
• The formation of NATO, and its Soviet counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955, inaugurated the Cold War era.

 

NATO and its relevance now

• NATO was completely successful in its mission of protecting the “Euro-Atlantic area” from Soviet expansion and preventing war between the two superpowers.
• When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, questions were raised about NATO’s relevance and future.
• Since the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) became irrelevant when the Communist bloc disappeared, one cannot justify the continuation of a military alliance formed to protect Europe from Communist expansion.

 

Why India avoided engagement with NATO in the past

• India’s real problem is not with NATO, but with Delhi’s difficulty in thinking strategically about Europe.
• Through the colonial era, Calcutta and Delhi viewed Europe through British eyes.
• After Independence, Delhi tended to see Europe through the Russian lens.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union demanded a fresh approach to Europe.
• But Delhi could not devote the kind of strategic attention that Europe demanded.
• The bureaucratisation of the engagement between Delhi and Brussels and the lack of high-level political interest prevented India from taking full advantage of a re-emerging Europe.

• In the last few years, Delhi has begun to develop an independent European framework, but has some distance to go in consolidating it.

 

Why India should engage NATO

• During the Cold War, India’s refusal was premised on its non-alignment.
• That argument had little justification once the Cold War ended during 1989-91.
• An India-NATO dialogue would simply mean having regular contact with a military alliance, most of whose members are well-established partners of India.
• If Delhi is eager to draw a reluctant Russia into discussions on the Indo-Pacific, it makes little sense in avoiding engagement with NATO.
• If Delhi does military exercises with China and Pakistan — under the rubric of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), why should talking to NATO be anathema?
• To play any role in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and NATO need partners like India, Australia and Japan.
• Delhi, in turn, knows that no single power can produce stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
• India’s enthusiasm for the Quad is a recognition of the need to build coalitions.
• A sustained dialogue between India and NATO could facilitate productive exchanges in a range of areas, including terrorism, changing geopolitics; the evolving nature of military conflict, the role of emerging military technologies, and new military doctrines.
• More broadly, an institutionalised engagement with NATO should make it easier for Delhi to deal with the military establishments of its 30 member states.
• On a bilateral front, each of the members has much to offer in strengthening India’s national capabilities.