The US is building an "Asian NATO" — and that should terrify everyone

The US is using the same gaslighting tactics used to justify the post-90s NATO expansion towards Russia to justify the deepening of anti-China military alliances in the Asia-Pacific

I’ve written for UnHerd about the expansion of NATO into the Asia-Pacific, through AUKUS, and the worrying parallels with NATO’s post-Nineties expansion towards Russia’s border. Just like the latter led to conflict, AUKUS — if allowed to go forward — will lead to conflict with China:

The Western narrative is that the military build-up in the Asia-Pacific is merely a response to China’s increasingly assertive posture in the region — and is therefore about deterrence, not escalation, and shouldn’t be perceived by China as a threat. But should we expect China to take our word for it? Indeed, Beijing has made it very clear that it views AUKUS, and the growing US military presence in the Asia-Pacific, as a threat — especially in light of the new US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s admission that “AUKUS submarines are intended for a potential war with China over Taiwan”.

In this context, Campbell’s argument that AUKUS will “strengthen peace and stability more generally” in the region appear naïve at best, and deceiving at worst. Indeed, it’s hard to see how pouring military machinery into an already volatile region won’t lead to the escalatory spiral that AUKUS’s strengthening and expansion is ostensibly aimed at preventing: an all-out US-China war.

If all this feels familiar, that’s because it is. In many respects, what is happening with AUKUS in the Asia-Pacific is reminiscent of NATO’s post-Nineties expansion towards Russia’s border.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope 

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