Why America's East Asian Allies Skipped the NATO Summit

Donald Trump recently netted a victory at the NATO summit in The Hague, pressuring the alliance into hiking its recommended defense spending minimum from 2 percent of GDP to 5 percent. 

Many strategists are now fretting over an alleged fraying of America’s alliances in the Pacific. But this seeming strategic readjustment ongoing in all these allied capitals is being done for rational reasons and may signal welcome recalibration in East Asia and even a victory for those who favor restraint in the region. 

It’s easy to see why some are concerned. The Biden administration claimed that one of its major foreign policy achievements had been to unify the “free world” against authoritarian aggression. This extremely ideological framing clearly identified China as a prospective adversary – a framing that many East Asian states found excessively polarizing and inflexible. 

In striving to strengthen the U.S. “latticework” of alliances across the Pacific, the influence of NATO and its “lean to the east” formed one of Washington’s major strategic goals. Even in 2024, a permanent NATO office in Tokyo was still being discussed. 

A second crucial motivation concerns the evident theme of the NATO summit of elevated defense spending and greater attention to burden-sharing. While each of these key Asia-Pacific allies has steadily increased their defense spending in recent years, none are eager to sign up for the new NATO 5 percent figure, a number that even the U.S. is unlikely to reach any time soon. 

Australia’s Labor government won recent elections by leaning away from Trump’s “America First” agenda. Canberra only recently passed NATO’s old 2 percent spending threshold on defense. While the Australians agreed to the ambitious defense goals outlined in the Biden-era AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership with the U.S. and UK, they are wary of any “shakedown” that could accompany an American review of this agreement, which is now underway at the Pentagon. 

Tokyo has likewise struggled to find a consensus with Washington across a spectrum of issues. It’s found trade negotiations with the Trump administration to be especially perplexing. There is a substantial fear that Washington might try to exert leverage in trade talks by making threats to reduce the scope of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Nor is there a desire in Japan to jump headlong into expansive defense outlays amidst such widespread economic uncertainty. Japanese defense spending remains under 2 percent of GDP. 

By contrast, South Korea has always taken its defense more seriously, consistently spending well over 2 percent of its GDP. Yet given the dramatic events in Seoul last winter when the previous president, Yoon Suk Yeul, attempted a coup and was subsequently removed, the scope for changing South Korean defense and foreign policy is relatively wide. 

Reformist winds blowing through Seoul have many advocates of the status quo in Northeast Asia worried. The previous Yoon administration was a model ally for Washington, leaning into the Ukraine crisis and the broader ideological struggle, as well as patching up ties with Japan in order to bring about a more united front against China. 

Yet these policies had major costs for South Korea too, including damaging lucrative economic ties with both China and Russia. It’s even worth asking whether North Korean troops would be a significant factor in the Ukraine war had South Korea assumed a lower profile in the conflict from the beginning. It’s an interesting counterfactual, but the damage is done, and the North Korean-Russian military relationship has been much-intensified. 

Japan and Australia have also borne costs in both the economic and security domains from spiraling global and regional tensions. The effect of these nations forgoing the NATO meeting is to detach Asia-Pacific security from the complex and delicate security situation in Europe. This makes sense since the two regions are confronting very different challenges. 

The Trump administration has rightly argued that European countries should focus on European defense rather than seeking to project forces into the Asia-Pacific.  Attempts to globalize the North Atlantic alliance have amounted to a distraction, while further alienating Beijing and driving it into a closer alliance with the Kremlin. 

In many respects, these Asia-Pacific allies will be better off if they leave NATO security paradigms behind them. If Australia, Japan, and South Korea seek to mend their ties with China due in part to concerns over Washington’s more aggressive stance towards Beijing, so much the better for regional security. In fact, the Asia-Pacific may flourish in a more multipolar system that emphasizes pragmatic problem-solving and commerce over ideology.

Lyle Goldstein is Director of the Asia Program at Defense Priorities.