NATO’s Asian Involvement And The Limit Of Support From Allies And Partners

NATO’s history shows that various behaviors of its member countries in related to the Alliance is not the reaction of power, threats or interests that advocated by the mainstream alliance theory, but to obtain security. Member countries will make a compare between the costs and benefits before action, which is herein referred to as benefit estimation. Whether NATO will take action and how the other member countries interact with the U.S. depends on the mutual interactions of both benefit estimations. By extension, whether NATO will cooperate with other countries and how will they interact also depends on the interaction of benefit estimations. This interaction of benefit estimations will impel these countries to take hard balance, soft balance, regional balance, bandwagon and coordination five kinds of behavior patterns.The existing research about NATO’s involvement in Asian affairs has focused on NATO’s strategy in Afghanistan and partnership in individual partnership mechanism or in Asian individual region. This paper attempts to discuss the motives, processes and future of NATO’s involvement in Asia as a whole in the background of NATO’s operation globalization, in order to assess the influence on NATO’s transformation by NATO’s involvement in Asia, and to predict NATO’s globalization future. This paper suggests that NATO’s involvement in Asia is in fact a double limited bandwagon behavior in the alliance theoretical context. On the one hand, European countries (including Canada) and the United States face a common threat from Asia, European countries are willing to follow the United States to participate in Asian affairs on behalf of NATO, but there are disagreements between Europe and the US on the threats from Asia and the responses, the bandwagon to the US has certain limits; on the other hand, NATO’s partner countries in Asia need to use NATO to enhance its defense capability or balance regional powers, but European countries want to control the cooperation with Asian partner countries within non-traditional security field on the whole, which hinders the Asian partners’ regional counterweight intent so that there is also a certain limit for their bandwagon to the alliance. Therefore, NATO’s involvement in Asia has a double limited bandwagon inside and outside the alliance.NATO’s involvement in Asia is the inevitable result of NATO’s transformation after the Cold War, especially "9.11 " incident accelerated the process of NATO’s involvement in Asian affairs. In the era of security globalization, NATO will inevitably face security threats from all global corners; NATO’s proactive intervention can effectively reduce the security challenges and risks to the alliance. Introducing security and enhancing defense capability are required in many Asian countries; meanwhile the introduction of safe behavior actor from outside region will help balance the security influence from regional powers. "9.11" make the past the Western envisioned security threats become reality, the alliance accelerated the pace towards Asia. After "9.11" incident, NATO began its large-scale systematic involvement in Asian security affairs.U.S. wants NATO’s strategy in Asia to serve its global strategy needs, while the European countries believe NATO’s primary mission is Europe-Atlantic regional collective defense. NATO’s experience in Afghanistan shows that NATO come up with many short boards in its capability to carry out a mission in a complicated crisis area. There is a huge difference within NATO for mass extraterritorial operations outside Europe. The establishment of NATO’s partnership network in Asia enhances the defense capability of Asian partner countries and the security cooperation level of both sides. Asian partner countries also provide facilities and assistance for NATO’s involvement in Asian affairs; help NATO share the risks and costs in operations in Afghanistan. However, due to the disputes within NATO about partnership and different specific circumstances of Asian partner countries, the bilateral cooperation will be kept at a certain limit for a long time.NATO’s engagement in Asia offers both opportunities and challenges for China. China faces the possibility of cooperation in Afghanistan, crisis management, non-traditional security area of maritime security. Cooperation with NATO will help promote China’s defense modernization and associated capability. Meanwhile, NATO’s engagement in Asia makes China to face the risks in the aspects of Afghanistan problem, international security influence and defense information and technology confidentiality etc.. Nevertheless, as long as China can reasonably deal with, China and NATO will be able to achieve mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.NATO’s Asian strategy has a significant indicator for NATO’s globalization strategy. In the era of security globalization, NATO is bound to reach its functional globalization. NATO becomes a global strategic actor does not mean that NATO’s non-selective intervention in the crisis outside NATO, and does not mean NATO will recruit member countries in the world. The so-called NATO’s globalization is more likely selectively limited intervention in crisis regions, and focusing on non-traditional security cooperation when develop partnerships, meanwhile taking the development of new partnerships into account.