To securocrats the world over NATO has a formidable reputation. Having faced down the Soviet menace in the Cold War, for a time it became a powerful instrument of U.S. and Western foreign policy objectives. Though the organization speaks of values and maintains a defensive posture, the reason East European countries rushed to join it was because NATO put the ‘hard’ into ‘hard power’. It is no wonder, therefore, that when people speak of new defensive arrangements in Asia to manage China’s rise, NATO is the exemplar they all reach for, or the crafting of a so-called Asian NATO.
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