AXIS OF GOOD FILES:

NAATO: Blueprint for Asian security (Jayanthi Iyengar, 3/09/04, Asia Times)

One of the most intriguing and controversial ideas - critics call it a non-starter and supporters are subdued while praising some aspects - has been put forward by M D Nalapat, professor of geopolitics and the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Peace Chair at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Karnataka state. The academy is India's elite private university, independent of government or government-sponsored agencies.

This formula broadly deals with the creation of a US-led North America Asia Treaty Organization (NAATO) to counter the non-democratic forces in Asia, including China, Pakistan and the fundamentalist Arab world. What is significant about this formula is that unlike many other academic concepts, this one has generated some interest and small steps. [...]

Unlike NATO, which was set up to help contain the former Soviet Union, NAATO would not have any country as its target, unless that state attacked one of the NAATO members. Central to this theme is the linking of democracies in North America and Asia in a security relationship.

This definition automatically includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar in the Middle East; Australia, India, the Philippines, Singapore in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific; Japan and South Korea in East Asia; and the US and Canada in North America. It excludes China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Nalapat argues that those three countries could be included when they become democracies. "I have included Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, as they are on the road to democracy. Iraq too will probably be in this list soon. There has to be a common world view, and this is possible only if all the members of Asian NAATO are either full democracies or getting there," he said.

He added that in Kuwait, for example, the emir has decreed that women should be given the vote, thus putting that country far ahead of Saudi Arabia in terms of personal freedom. "As for Pakistan, the army needs to get prised loose from civilian institutions if that country is to qualify. As for the PRC, that will take a while," he said.

Nalapat believes that this alliance would dampen rather that heighten tensions in an already volatile Asia. Taiwan, for instance, figures on his list of Asian NAATO members, since it is a democracy. An attack on Taiwan would be met by action against the aggressor by the whole of Asian NAATO.

It's obviously directed at China--so long as it remains totalitarian--and the Islamicized Middle East, but an excellent idea for that very reason.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2004 9:10 PM