NATO’s Expansion Into Asia Is the Mother of Bad Ideas
US lawmakers say the alliance’s movement into Asia is “inevitable.” It’s actually a completely avoidable, completely bad idea.
Government leaders are seen at the G7 Declaration of Joint Support for Ukraine on the second day of the 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12, 2023. (Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A little over a century ago, rising interimperial tensions coupled with a complicated, evidence board–like set of alliances pulled Europe into the most disastrous, pointless war the world had ever seen up to then, World War I. Today, a ’roided-up version of that scenario is looming, as US-China relations deteriorate and the NATO alliance begins to dip several toes in Asia, nearly six thousand miles away from its headquarters in Brussels.
This isn’t an exaggeration. Asked recently at a joint appearance on Meet the Press whether NATO’s expansion into Asia was “inevitable,” Senators Tammy Duckworth (an Illinois Democrat) and Dan Sullivan (an Alaska Republican) answered yes.
“Oh, I think it is,” said Sullivan.
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