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Seong Hyeon Choi

Nato’s 32 member states will convene in the Turkish capital this week for an annual summit expected to be dominated by efforts to secure a fragile peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, with Indo-Pacific issues taking a back seat.
Analysts said the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, as well as Washington’s push for European allies to raise defence spending, could diminish discussion about the security alliance’s cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners, despite the Nato chief’s warnings about China’s ties with Russia.
The July 7-8 gathering in Ankara will be the first hosted by Turkey since the 2004 summit in Istanbul.
The coming summit is expected to test the transatlantic alliance’s unity amid the US war on Iran, now under ceasefire after the signing of a memorandum of understanding last month.
US President Donald Trump has often criticised Nato as a “paper tiger” in recent months, most notably in March after member states refused to support Washington’s war efforts in the Middle East or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Weeks later, in May, the Trump administration announced the withdrawal of around 5,000 US troops from Germany.
In Ankara, Nato leaders will be under pressure to show progress on the spending target agreed to last year at The Hague. Under the agreement, pushed by Trump to encourage burden-sharing, members pledged to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2035.


During his visit to Washington late last month, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said the summit would underscore that allies were on a “trajectory” to reach the target spending threshold after years of underinvestment. He added that tens of billions of dollars in new defence-related contracts would be ⁠announced at the Ankara meeting.
“The result is not only improved security. We are in the early stages of a defence industrial revolution that will help grow our economies,” he said, while also sending a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance was ready to respond to any “silly move against us”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose war effort has been heavily backed by Nato, is expected to attend the summit.
The leaders of Nato’s Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) partner countries – Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – were also invited to the meeting. However, as they did last year, Tokyo and Canberra will instead send ministerial-level representatives.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is the only IP4 state leader expected to attend, highlighting the defence industry partnership between Seoul and Nato.
In an interview with Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency last week, Rutte warned that Nato’s security challenges extended beyond Russia, citing growing strategic cooperation between Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran as one of the alliance’s main long-term security concerns.
“China is having a massive build-up of its own military [and] will have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030. So let’s not be naive about China,” Rutte said.
“This foursome … is the main long-term threat we face.”


China and Russia have deepened their defence ties in recent years.
While Beijing maintains it is neutral on the war in Ukraine, it has been accused of supporting Russia with dual-use technology and equipment, such as microelectronics, advanced machine tools, drone components and raw materials.
The two countries also regularly carry out joint military exercises. On June 27, more than 10 Chinese and Russian warplanes staged a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, as well as the East China Sea and the Western Pacific. The manoeuvres prompted both South Korea and Japan to scramble their fighter jets.
In an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper last year, Rutte warned that if Beijing took military action against Taiwan, it would pressure its “junior partner” Russia to keep Europe “busy”.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve reunification. Most countries, including Nato members, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but are opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force.
Stephen Nagy, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University, said that while Rutte had been explicit that China’s support to Russia was being closely watched, immediate pressures such as Ukraine, Iran and spending targets would “dominate floor time” at the summit.
“The Indo-Pacific won’t disappear, but it may be folded into the China-Russia conversation rather than treated separately,” Nagy said.
“President Trump’s presence in Ankara comes amid renewed pressure on allies over spending and troops,” he added.
“For Indo-Pacific partners, the message is mixed: greater allied capability is welcome, but uncertainty about US commitments in Europe inevitably raises quiet questions about long-term reliability in Asia.”
Marc Lanteigne, a professor at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromso, said that the summit would be dominated by questions about Washington’s long-term commitment to the alliance and anxiety over how durable the ceasefire with Tehran would be.


He said that Iran would be competing with Ukraine for attention, and it remained to be seen how prominently the Indo-Pacific would feature on the agenda.
“Along with European Nato members, the Indo-Pacific Four are also facing American pressure to raise their defence budgets, and compared with previous years the push for greater Asia-Nato defence cooperation appears to have cooled,” Lanteigne said.
“Washington still sends mixed signals about its Asia-Pacific security policies,” he added.
“The US government has been pushing European allies to spend more on their militaries, but also [to] assume more leadership and concentrate on continental defence – and less on out-of-area operations.
“This turn could also mean less of a role [for] Asia-Pacific countries in Nato deliberations, and less scope for official-level Asia-Europe cooperation via Nato.”
Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute, noted that the US had been “sceptical” of Nato-IP4 cooperation, reflecting broader burden-sharing debates.
She added that friction was more likely to arise from military spending issues and Washington’s role, rather than over the Indo-Pacific region.
According to Odgaard, China-Russia cooperation could have an “indirect but real impact” on the alliance, which explicitly linked the growing cooperation to its deterrence posture and “broader narrative of theatres being interconnected” in the Euro-Atlantic, Indo-Pacific, and the Arctic region.


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Immediate pressures over Ukraine, Iran and spending mean alliance’s concerns about China could be sidelined at Ankara gathering


Immediate pressures over Ukraine, Iran and spending mean alliance’s concerns about China could be sidelined at Ankara gathering.


Why the Indo-Pacific might be on the back burner at the Nato summit

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Immediate pressures over Ukraine, Iran and spending mean alliance’s concerns about China could be sidelined at Ankara gathering

Immediate pressures over Ukraine, Iran and spending mean alliance’s concerns about China could be sidelined at Ankara gathering