► The Vilnius Summit’s focus was simple, but its rationales and consequences reach a wide range of global security dimensions, issues, and regions, changing the fundamental security landscape at every level of analysis.

►  For the first time, the Summit Communiqué confirmed this strategic trend; “The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security."

► The restoration of defense industries takes at least a decade or so, resulting in their reaching out to non-NATO like-minded countries from other parts of the world. In fact, they already try hard to fill up their storage from outside including the AP4 countries—Korea and Australia.

► China and AP4 countries have been changing the nature of the two regions’ strategic interaction more two-way rather than one-way.

The Vilnius Summit 2023 (7.11-12) created many critical consequences, as the 90 clause-long Vilnius Communiqué clearly states. This NATO’s most important annual event happened right behind the Ukraine-Russian War frontline, where Lithuania and Poland are anxiously building up their military capacity to avoid becoming the next territorial target of the Russian aggression. The 31 Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance along with their partner states’ counterparts including Asia-Pacific 4 (Australia, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand) have gathered as the war continues at a critical time for European and global security, peace and stability. Their focus is mostly how to build up their collective security capacity against Russia—the primary enemy—and not to escalate the situation beyond the Ukrainian territory. This short piece tries to assess the following five fundamental dimensions among many others and their derivatives.

First, Finland became the 31st member state and Sweden will be the 32nd after the endorsement of Türkiye with heavy concessions during the Summit. These two Northern flank countries significantly enforce the NATO’s maritime defense in the Baltic Sea and more likely contain the Russian aggression up North. Technologically advanced and militarily capable Sweden is more capable of defending the Nordic and Baltic frontlines from the air and across the sea than the other Nordic states. Finland can be a strong military presence right next to Russia’s Northwestern border. Both can cover the relatively weak Baltic countries’ defense capability, which will significantly compromise Russia’s air force and naval power in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is now a NATO’s inland sea. 

The NATO’s 32 strong completes their coverage of the entire Euro-Atlantic region and agitate Russia further. There are no significant neutral countries between NATO and Russia left after these two long-time neutral countries’ joining the Treaty. It means that Russia is isolated from its West and North and more alienated from the South due to Türkiye’s aforementioned strategic move to gain its own security interests through the United States, NATO, and European Union, which could result in its further integration into the West. Note that the Russian Black Sea fleet will be also further constrained in addition to its Baltic fleet. As a result, such a drastic change of naval power politics will put more pressure on Russia’s Northern fleet, its primary naval power. 

Second, the member states reconfirmed their hasty military rearmament drive with a higher than 2% GDP expenditure principle and troops reinforcement. Most member states already announced their military spending increase, if not already executed, and some openly discuss about 3% GDP expenditure goal. They placed particular emphasis on combat capable, predominantly heavy, high-end forces and new emerging and disruptive technology (EDT)-oriented hybrid weapons. At the same time, they emphasized a robust and resilient defense industry for collective defense with an endorsement of Defense Production Action Plan. It means that any capable member states will invest heavily in a series of immediate military procurement as well as medium-/long-term weapons production. To be sure, however, the level of execution is to be seen among the 32 member states. 

The member states are aware of their lack of immediate production capacity to fill up the member states and Ukraine’s weapons storage, even though France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, and a few more advanced countries have both technologies and manufacturers. Owing to a long peace during the post-Cold War period and ensuing weapon redundancy trend, NATO—particularly, European member states—lack speedy mass production capacity, which was reassured during the Summit one more time. The restoration of defense industries takes at least a decade or so, resulting in their reaching out to non-NATO like-minded countries from other parts of the world. In fact, they already try hard to fill up their storage from outside including the AP4 countries—Korea and Australia.

Third, more weapons supply for Ukraine were promised in multiple routes from NATO, individual NATO countries, and non-NATO organizations such as G7. The member states remained steadfast in their commitment to further step up political and practical support to Ukraine and encouraged all Allies and partners to provide more support to Ukraine in all manners. Even though there was no break-through commitment during the Summit, most member states, led by the US, pledged the continuous weapons and other resources supply to Ukraine, which is a clear buffer zone between NATO and Russia. Poland and Baltic countries were especially vocal in this regard, certainly because they are the next frontline right behind Ukraine. 

The Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself against and deterring future aggression of Russia. Combined with (or complement to) the NATO’s support, they pledged security assistance and modern military equipment, across land, air, and sea domains—by prioritizing air defense, artillery and long-range fires, armored vehicles, and other key capabilities, such as combat air force, as well as by promoting increased interoperability with Euro-Atlantic partners. Note that G7 includes Japan, too. Such an unprecedented G7 action, however, demonstrates the limit of NATO’s countermeasure against the Russian aggression, not to mention, the United Nations Security Council’s inability to deal with this war due to the obvious division between P3 (the US, UK, and France) and P2 (Russia and China) in a majority of key security agendas across the globe. The bloc formation is more evident.

Fourth, they declined Ukraine’s NATO membership bid amid the dissensus between Central-Eastern European states and the other European and North American states, which revolves around the application of Treaty Article 5, “It commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in the areas defined by Article 6, to be an armed attack against them all” to a new member state. It is obvious that Ukraine’s entry in NATO now would trigger Article 5, which most likely entrap the NATO member states in this war, which might cause the all-out war across European continent and beyond, so-called World War III. Ukraine desperately demanded the membership, even though the President Zelenski might be aware that it would be a long shot. Nevertheless, he needed to be firm and aggressive on this agenda for not only for putting more pressure on Russia but also for sustaining domestic morale and ensuing support for his wartime leadership.

The Summit Communiqué clearly states that all the member states fully support Ukraine’s future in NATO and reconfirmed the 2008 Bucharest Summit’s decision that Ukraine would become a member of NATO and a legitimate Euro-Atlantic country with growing interoperability, political integration with the Allied states, and substantial domestic reform. Nevertheless, Ukraine and its immediate neighboring NATO states were disappointed, but Russia felt less pressure to extend the frontline beyond Ukraine and resort to more destructive weapons such as nuclear and other mass destructive natures. In a similar vein, both NATO and G7 did not forget to emphasize “within its internationally recognized borders (between Ukraine and Russia)”, whenever they state their commitment to support Ukraine against Russia. In other words, the war should be contained within Ukraine, unless Ukraine invades any Russian territory and Russia invades nearby member states such as Poland in their view. 

Fifth, NATO asserts its grave concern on the deepening strategic partnership between China and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order, which compromise their liberal democratic values and ensuing core interests. As the NATO 2022 Strategic Concepts and other documents clearly state, NATO gives more attention to the China’s rapidly growing power projection and hybrid security tactics across the globe, which alarm the US allies not just in Indo-Pacific but also Euro-Atlantic regions. NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg has been repeatedly arguing the global security integration and more specifically, the convergence between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions as the American President Joseph Biden along with the Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol and the Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio echoed in the multiple occasions. During separate meetings on the sidelines of the summit, Korea and Japan adopted the Individually Tailored Partnership Program (ITPP), elevating their bilateral relationship with NATO from the Individual Partnership Cooperation Program (IPCP). Additionally, Australia and New Zealand are expected to follow through in a near future. 

China and AP4 countries have been changing the nature of the two regions’ strategic interaction more two-way rather than one-way. A la NATO in Indo-Pacific and China/AP4 in Euro-Atlantic. For the first time, the Summit Communiqué confirmed this strategic trend; “The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security. We welcome the contribution of our partners in the Asia-Pacific region–Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea–to security in the Euro-Atlantic, including their commitment to supporting Ukraine.” (Clause 85)

This Summit took China not just as an independent solitary challenge for NATO and more generally the western bloc but also as a pseudo ally of Russia. Even though China has been cautious not to be framed as such, Russia’s growing asymmetric dependence on China and China’s growing alignment with Russia against the US-led NATO and its AP4 partners convinced the NATO leadership to send more serious warning signals to China. Such a push factor for the bloc formation ironically enforces the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regional security convergence. China is the most fundamental reason for this unprecedented level of security convergence across Eurasia. Against this backdrop, the feared Russo-Sino alignment along with Iran and North Korea, which were pointed out by the Secretary General and other top leaders during the Summit and before, put the AP4 countries on the radar of NATO. Note that this China-AP4 frontline and ensuing regional security convergence created another political cleavage within NATO. France, the most vocal advocate of ‘European strategic autonomy’ and its intertwined geographical Euro-Atlantic limit principle of the Washington Treaty, openly opposes this strategic landscape formation, which would enforce the US-led ‘integrated deterrence’ strategic drive across the regions. And another wrinkle for such complex changes in global security structure came from multi-aligned India right after the Summit, when the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the French Bastille Day (7.14) military parade as an honored guest and his Rafal jet fighters and elite troops led the parade. France and India seem to search for a different solution in turmoil. 

The Vilnius Summit’s focus was simple, but its rationales and consequences reach a wide range of global security dimensions, issues, and regions, changing the fundamental security landscape at every level of analysis. The next Summit will be in July 2024 in Washington D.C., where the Washington Treaty was born 75 years ago