Tereza Novotna, Youngjun Kim, and Silvia Menegazzi
As NATO commemorated its 75th anniversary at the summit in Washington D.C., the organization found itself at a critical juncture: expanding cooperation with the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) countries, among them South Korea. NATO’s strategic pivot to the Indo-Pacific has become crucial not only for maintaining global stability but also for addressing the interconnected challenges posed by actors like Russia and North Korea on the one hand and China on the other.
In the words of NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, the alliance was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Nowadays, particularly should Donald Trump be re-elected as the U.S. president, the mission has evolved: to keep the Americans (still) engaged, to hold Russia’s aggressive actions in Europe down, and to prevent China’s influence from expanding in the Indo-Pacific region. In other words, NATO has been taking its lessons from the Euro-Atlantic area to prepare for contingencies in the Indo-Pacific.
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