Since federation in 1901, Australia’s foreign and defence policies have been perennially couched within an alliance framework. Initially with Great Britain, Australia followed Britain into World War 1, fighting on the beaches of Gallipoli and in the Belgian fields of Flanders. With the fall of British Singapore in 1942, a paradigm shift occurred as the United States took over this role. Ever since the end of World War 2, Australia has sought to maintain a close security relationship with the United States, premised on the belief that Australia would secure long-lasting strategic dividends from hitching its wagon to Washington’s cart. This has led Australia to fight in the Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, and in various coalition operations in the Middle East since 2001.
With this tradition of strategic engagement and forward defence posture with the hemispheric powers of Europe and the Americas in mind, Australia’s partnership with NATO, organized around an ‘individually tailored partnership program’ (ITPP) created in 2023, fits within this strategic narrative. Like the other NATO Indo-Pacific 4 partners (IP-4) (South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand), Australia has been deepening its cooperation with NATO on matters including cyber-defence, hybrid threats, resilience, Women, Peace, and Security, and emerging technologies. Australia has provided continued defence assistance to Ukraine in its resistance against Russia’s illegal war, including a commitment to deploy forces to a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ following a peace agreement or ceasefire in the conflict.
What is salient about the Australia-NATO partnership is that it has historically been unidirectional, with Australian forces joining NATO initiatives in Europe and the Middle East, without Australia having had to call on NATO states to intervene on its behalf. This has worked for both parties. For Australia, political and operational engagement with NATO has, as stated in the Australian government’s 2016 Defence White Paper, enabled Canberra to demonstrate its commitment to global, multilateral initiatives in regions peripheral to Australia’s core coastal defence interests. For NATO, Australian participation in multinational operations such as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan helped, in the organization’s own words, ‘lay the foundations for improvements in governance and socio-economic development for sustainable stability’, during the ISAF’s 2001-2014 mission.
The directional mode of engagement is now, however, shifting towards greater NATO engagement in the Indo-Pacific. The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept explicitly names China as a challenge to the alliance’s interests, security, and values. The final joint communique produced by NATO members at the 2025 Washington summit went further, saying that China “has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine”. In June 2025, the United Kingdom, acting in its own national capacity, conducted a freedom-of-navigation exercise with an Australian naval destroyer around the Spratly Islands, the first solo exercise between the two nations.
For Australia, deepening engagement with NATO fits into the historic strategic paradigm of engagement with the continent. There may also be added enthusiasm fuelled by anxieties over the reliability of U.S alliance commitments to Australia under the current administration. Whilst NATO doesn’t command the same dual-hemispheric projection power formerly enjoyed by colonial Britain and the United States, an increased presence could be welcomed by some in Canberra. Some analysts within the Australian commentariat have suggested bringing in NATO and other IP-4 partners into AUKUS Pillar II. Distinct from AUKUS Pillar 1, which focuses on Australia procuring nuclear-powered submarines, Pillar II is about advanced technology cooperation and development across various workstreams, including quantum computing, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic missile capabilities, and electromagnetic warfare.
Despite its potential to strengthen deterrence and overall defence preparedness in the region, Australian engagement with Indo-Pacific allies through AUKUS Pillar II has brought renewed tensions between Canberra and Beijing. China is already critical of NATO’s existing engagement pattern, accusing the alliance of seeking to foment “chaos” in the region by criticizing China’s support for Russia during its invasion of Ukraine. If NATO, or even members such as Canada, which have previously signalled but now shelved interest, were to formally join AUKUS Pillar II and conduct work on, for example, hypersonic missile capability development, then Beijing may interpret this as a highly offensive action aimed at containing its military power, sparking retaliation and reactive military build-up.
For Australia, deepening military and strategic engagement with NATO may also prove unpopular with its regional partners in Southeast Asia. Australia has been criticized for seeking economic benefits from Asia whilst simultaneously prioritizing historic defence and strategic ties with the European and American anglosphere. Involving NATO in AUKUS Pillar II, for example, would do little to improve Australia’s standing in the region by welcoming various former colonial powers that comprise NATO.
There are still opportunities to grow the transregional relationship between Australia and NATO to the benefit of both parties. The current nature of the Australia-NATO ITPP lends itself towards more discrete technical cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity, disinformation, and the management of emerging technologies, areas which don’t carry particularly heavy escalatory baggage. Moreover, Australia’s continued support for Ukraine signals Canberra’s willingness to remain involved in European affairs, which will no doubt be welcome for NATO as it seeks to retain some semblance of unity amidst President Trump’s continued attacks on the alliance.
The Australia-NATO partnership is one grounded in shared strategic histories. Yet, for the partnership to retain utility moving forward, it must be wary of not instigating the very security dilemma it seeks to avoid in the Indo-Pacific.
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed in articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the NATO Association of Canada.
Photo credit: Floris de Bijl. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
