Research Summaries

Back Exploring NATO - China Military Collaboration

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Christman, Walter L.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary Objectives:
- Transatlantic outreach to China through NATO could serve a number of important goals in international relations, but perhaps most importantly, it would offer a vast new array of both human and material resources to counter the new century's endemic problems. China's re-emergence as an influential actor on the global stage is a welcome opportunity for improved global governance.
- My research will identify how an evolving partnership between NATO and China, as a practical step in addressing the 21st Century's most pressing security concerns, simultaneously aligns with the various converging and overlapping interests of both actors, while remaining compatible with their differing institutional and ideological perspectives. In doing so, it will draw heavily upon Chinese concepts of relationality and partnership to frame an engagement strategy.
- Although NATO adheres to traditional notions of defense for the protection of Europe, such as deterrence, the growing importance of partnership may precipitate an important paradigm shift that recognizes it as a universal strategic aim. Modem challenges invite reflection on ways in which the global security climate may be permanently improved by a better understanding of how a doctrine of partnership might inform policy.
- Despite on-going Chinese concerns about the future role of NATO, the advantages of cooperation in pursuit of mutual benefits must not be overlooked. The importance of China's rise now constitutes a major feature of political discourse on the emerging century.
- However, the most compelling reasons for NATO and China to pursue a deeper partnership today may not be the direct products of cooperation, not the number of terrorists or pirates or nuclear components apprehended, but rather the strategic cost of pursuing no partnership at all.
- As the research will make clear, both NATO and China are at a critical point in their development, and how China and the West choose to engage or not to engage now may have long-lasting consequences.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal