NATO's Indo-Pacific Tilt Widens Dialogue with India

By Dhruva Jaishankar and Ammar Nainar

The following article originally appeared in The Hindustan Times on July 10, 2023 under the headline “NATO Can Help Delhi Anchor Indo-Pacific.”

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will hold its annual summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11-12. A mutual defence alliance of North American and European countries since 1949, NATO was until recently perceived by many as a relic of the Cold War. (French President Emmanuel Macron famously declared its brain death in a 2019 interview.) But Russia’s war in Ukraine has injected the alliance with fresh purpose. In the last year, Finland has been included and Sweden is expected to join, subject to ratification by all members, swelling NATO’s membership to 32 countries.

In addition, NATO has official partnerships with 39 countries, of which three (Russia, Belarus, and Afghanistan) are currently suspended. These partnerships – including with countries as diverse as Mongolia and Pakistan – encompass different degrees of formality and involvement, from parliamentary engagement to technical cooperation. Some NATO partners – Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand – have been more closely aligned in coordinating against Russia, and are expected to participate in the Vilnius Summit.

Beyond the refocus on Russia and expanded membership, NATO’s 2022 strategic concept gives some prominence to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), declaring that Beijing’s “stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values.” The document also pledges to “address the systemic challenges posed by PRC to Euro-Atlantic security.”

The inclusion of China among NATO’s concerns offers greater scope for conversations with India. Reports that NATO may consider opening an office in Japan to engage with Indo-Pacific countries suggest that its strategic priorities are coming to terms with shifting global realities.

India has traditionally been wary about engagement with NATO. This reticence is somewhat understandable, given the alliance’s historical mission and its focus on Russia, a close military partner of India’s. Yet, despite these apparent reservations, India has had a surprising degree of formal interaction with NATO over the past two decades.

The earliest engagements between India and NATO were driven by questions of arms control and counterterrorism, with their first official dialogue held in 2005. In the subsequent two years, Pranab Mukherjee met with NATO’s secretary general in 2006 and 2007, as both defence and external affairs minister; NATO’s deputy secretary general visited India in 2007. In 2019, a NATO-India political dialogue covered issues such as China, terrorism, and Pakistan. Two years later, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg addressed the Raisina Dialogue.

Practical cooperation between India and NATO was most apparent on the shared challenge of Indian Ocean piracy. Between 2009 and 2011, Indian and NATO officials were involved in coordinating counter-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, including in meetings hosted by China’s ministry of defence in Beijing and by NATO in Brussels. The Indian Navy also established contacts with the NATO rapid deployable corps in Valencia. These steps produced some concrete results. For example, in May 2011, the Indian Navy coordinated with NATO patrolling vessels to thwart an attack by pirates in the Arabian Sea. Two years later, NATO naval assets helped rescue 14 Indian sailors in the Gulf of Aden.

Periodic official engagement between NATO and India also concerned Afghanistan, military education, peacekeeping operations, and cybersecurity, among other areas. Prior to the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul, Indian officials shared perspectives with NATO officials and military commanders involved in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) there.

In 2007, India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) cooperated with Finland and NATO following a significant series of cyber-attacks on Estonia. Indian officials were invited as observers to NATO exercises in the North Sea in 2008. More recently, a delegation from India’s National Defence College, led by the commandant, visited NATO’s Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre.

Afghanistan may now have receded from view in Brussels, even though it remains a high priority for New Delhi. Nevertheless, the contours of their overlapping agendas are more readily apparent today. These include maritime security, cybersecurity, political developments in the Indo-Pacific, professional military education, climate change, and possibly arms control and nuclear escalatory dynamics. Obviously, India and NATO will continue to have very different approaches to engaging with Russia, including different stakes and interests, and often divergent geopolitical priorities and calculations.

An important consideration is that NATO not only engages several close partners of Russia, such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Serbia, but that until recently it enjoyed more extensive contacts with Beijing and Moscow than it did with New Delhi. Officers from China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) have taken part in NATO education and training activities. Until November 2021, NATO even had an office in Moscow. Despite – and perhaps because of – their different vantage points, NATO’s acknowledgement of growing strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific opens the door for broader and deeper dialogue with India.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Executive Director and Ammar Nainar is Junior Fellow at ORF America. The views expressed are personal