The Indo-Pacific, once viewed as a maritime stretch of dispersed islands and emerging economies, is now increasingly regarded as the theatre of great powers’ contestation. Much of this shift is owed to China’s growing military, economic, and diplomatic clout.
Against this backdrop, the idea of a NATO-style alliance in the Indo-Pacific has gained traction. US Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner’s recent proposal for a Pacific Defence Pact, a formal, treaty-bound alliance among the USA, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, has revived the debate over whether the region requires a collective defence architecture akin to what emerged in post-war Europe.
There is no question that the strategic environment in the region has shifted. Bilateral arrangements, such as the US-Japan alliance or the US-Australia partnership, have deepened. Minilateral formats like AUKUS and the Quad have also emerged, signalling a willingness among like-minded states to cooperate more closely on defence and security. Yet, none of these mechanisms offers the kind of mutual defence commitment that NATO’s Article 5 provides.
Even so, a NATO-style alliance in the Indo-Pacific faces several obstacles. One of the most fundamental issues is the diversity of political systems, security outlooks, and threat perceptions across the region. For example, for Tokyo, Beijing’s increased presence around the Senkaku Islands is an immediate concern. For Canberra, the focus is broader, encompassing cyber threats, political interference, and China’s influence in the South Pacific. Manila, after years of policy swings, is only now reasserting its maritime rights. Washington, for its part, sees Taiwan as a central concern. In short, the threat is not universally perceived, and this complicates any effort to establish a collective defence mechanism with clear redlines and binding obligations.
Furthermore, the credibility of any collective defence arrangement would come under immediate scrutiny. It is not at all obvious that all members of a hypothetical alliance would be willing or politically able to respond militarily to a contingency involving Taiwan or other disputed maritime territories. The ambiguity surrounding who would act, when, and under what conditions could ultimately undermine the very deterrent value that such an alliance seeks to establish.
Additionally, NATO itself is showing signs of strategic fatigue. Disagreements over burden-sharing persist, and Europe remains uneasy about the reliability of US support in Ukraine. With the re-emergence of Trump-era scepticism towards alliances, it is difficult to imagine Washington committing to a new security framework of comparable scale in the Indo-Pacific.
The Indo-Pacific does not need a replica of NATO; it needs a security architecture that reflects its unique geopolitical realities. Formal alliances may signal strength, but in this region, they risk entrenching divisions and triggering counterbalancing. Strategic fluidity, not rigid blocs, is what keeps the region stable. Any effort to impose a fixed order must reckon with the costs of undermining the very balance it seeks to preserve.
Moreover, a formal alliance could provoke the very behaviour it seeks to deter. Beijing already views efforts like AUKUS and the Quad as part of a containment strategy. Moving towards a treaty-bound alliance would likely confirm that perception, potentially accelerating China’s military modernisation or prompting it to act pre-emptively before such an alliance is fully operational.
There is also the matter of regional buy-in. Southeast Asian states have consistently resisted bloc politics, preferring instead to hedge, balance, or bandwagon depending on circumstances. For many of them, being forced to choose sides would be unwelcome and possibly destabilising. Therefore, strategic choices in the ASEAN are not divorced from economics. The USA and China remain commercially intertwined, and key US allies, including Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, rely heavily on trade with Beijing, which inevitably tempers robust security alignment.
Furthermore, NATO’s focus on military solutions has often delivered mixed results, as seen in Afghanistan and Libya. Yet that same mindset is now being projected onto the Indo-Pacific, where it risks crowding out political solutions and ignoring urgent regional needs like infrastructure, climate resilience, and digital governance. As the region becomes more securitised, space for inclusive development also shrinks.
Though not a direct actor in the Indo-Pacific alliance web, Pakistan is deeply tied to China and increasingly linked to regional maritime trade and connectivity through CPEC. Any hardening of alliance politics could deepen its strategic alignment with Beijing, while also limiting space for independent diplomacy. Pakistan should maintain a balanced stance, avoiding entanglement in conflicts that could compromise its foreign policy. Therefore, from Pakistan’s standpoint, the securitisation of the Indo-Pacific through the alliance model is both unnecessary and destabilising.
India is another major Indo-Pacific power with growing regional ambitions, and any move towards a formal alliance will bring India’s role under scrutiny, which is already finding it hard to maintain its self-claimed strategic flexibility. No matter on which side of such an alliance India stands, it will have consequences for the region, particularly Pakistan. Following the events of 6–10 May, it is important to critically assess India’s military capability, which has come under scrutiny. Even if they have strategic flexibility, their strategic capability remains limited.
The Indo-Pacific does not need a replica of NATO; it needs a security architecture that reflects its unique geopolitical realities. Formal alliances may signal strength, but in this region, they risk entrenching divisions and triggering counterbalancing. Strategic fluidity, not rigid blocs, is what keeps the region stable. Any effort to impose a fixed order must reckon with the costs of undermining the very balance it seeks to preserve.
