As NATO eyes Indo-Pacific, India offers strategic depth without alignment

The NATO summit held in The Hague on June 24-25 may be remembered less for its urgent reaffirmations -- support for Ukraine, increased defence spending, and condemnation of Iranian strikes -- than for a more disciplined, forward-looking pivot: the Indo-Pacific now occupies a central place in NATO's strategic imagination as the Indo-Mediterranean plunges into conflict.

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This is no small shift. For much of its post-Cold War history, NATO's gaze remained firmly Atlantic. Even when it extended out-ward toward Afghanistan or Libya — it did so from the assumption that security threats radiated outward from Europe.

The idea that Asia could shape Euro-Atlantic stability was once considered speculative. That assumption has now collapsed.

NATO's engagement with the Indo-Pacific pre-dates the Ukraine war. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, the alliance began quietly deepening ties with democratic Indo-Pacific partners -- Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand -- eventually institutionalising these relationships through the "IP4" format. Yet it was Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and China's subsequent strategic alignment with Moscow that sharpened the view from Brussels.