While Russia’s war in Ukraine and NATO’s pledge of continued support for Kyiv dominated the alliance’s high-profile leaders’ summit this week in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, Japan and a handful of other Asian nations quietly made progress on upgrading their partnerships with the grouping.
In a move that will allow for deeper cooperation with the alliance, the summit saw four Indo-Pacific nations — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — take steps toward transitioning from “global partner countries” to NATO’s new Individually Tailored Partnership Program.
The ITPPs will mean different things for each of the Asia-Pacific countries, but these engagement frameworks — based on a partner’s individual capacities, needs and interests — are expected to provide opportunities to develop interoperability with NATO militaries as well as a platform for sharing information about a variety of security issues.