How the war in Ukraine is reshaping America’s global alliances

AMERICA, IT IS sometimes said, has allies; China and Russia have only clients. Most countries hover uncomfortably between the two camps. For President Joe Biden, the unrivalled network of alliances and partnerships is America’s “most important strategic asset” in a growing contest with big rivals. That is a big change from his predecessor, Donald Trump, who regarded most allies as freeloaders.

In Europe, allies have joined America in sending help to Ukraine to halt Russia’s invasion. Finland and Sweden are rushing to join NATO. In Asia, meanwhile, America’s effort to constrain China relies heavily on its network of formal alliances and budding partnerships. In 2023 America wants to strengthen the “connective tissue” between its allies to the east and west. Mr Biden sees this as part of a global contest between democracies and autocracies. Another way to think of it is as a revival of old geopolitical notions of containing the Eurasian heartland by controlling the “rimland”, in this case with a cordon of allies stretching from Japan to Britain.

But linking the pieces together is not easy. NATO is based on mutual defence: an attack on one is an attack on all. America’s alliances in Asia, by contrast, are a “hub-and-spokes” system of bilateral defence treaties, with little common planning and training. America has tried to overlay its alliances in the Indo-Pacific with ad hoc partnerships: trilateral missile-defence exercises with Japan and South Korea; naval exercises with Japan and Australia; and multifaceted Quad collaboration with Japan, Australia and India on everything from vaccines to maritime piracy.

Some new tendons are linking European and Asian allies. Under the AUKUS deal, America and Britain will provide Australia with nuclear-propelled (but not nuclear-armed) submarines, and will collaborate in other fields such as cyber-security and hypersonic missiles. Relations with France, strained because AUKUS tore up an earlier French submarine contract, are being repaired. Allies in the Indo-Pacific have joined Western sanctions against Russia and attended NATO’s summit in Madrid in June 2022. European countries have sent warships to operate in the Pacific.

Some prominent Americans would like to expand the G7 group of industrialised democracies into a “G12” by adding the likes of South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, as well as institutions such as NATO and the EU. There is also talk of more co-operation on joint military procurement, given the demand for weapons to help Ukraine, restock Western arsenals and build up allied forces.

Some prominent Americans would like to expand the G7 into a G12

Emerging groups include “I2U2”—linking Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States—to develop technology for food security and clean energy. This is, in turn, an offshoot of the American-sponsored Abraham accords between Israel and several Arab states spurred by the fear of Iran.

There are weaknesses, however. One is Taiwan, perhaps the place most at risk of invasion and yet least integrated into America’s network of official alliances. Another gap is India. It has moved closer to America but still clings to a long-established tradition of non-alignment and strong military ties with Russia. Expect America’s long courtship to continue. One hope is that witnessing the underperformance of Russian weapons in Ukraine will speed up India’s transition to Western arms supplies. The most serious weakness is the lack of an overall trade strategy to bind America’s friends closer together and encourage “friendshoring”, the shifting of sensitive supply chains from China to friendlier countries.

Farther afield, Asian countries are holding the door open for America to return to a trade deal known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Don’t hold your breath: the legacy of Donald Trump’s trade wars, and Mr Biden’s own protectionism, is still potent.

China and Russia are building up their own clubs. Membership of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a Eurasian group, is growing. So is that of the BRICs, a group of large emerging economies. At a time of energy shortages, Arab oil producers in the Gulf have made common cause with Russia in the OPEC+ group to keep oil prices high, angering America.

Mr Biden has softened his division of the world into democracies and autocracies, in part to rebuild ties with the global South. There is much work to do, to judge by voting at the UN in October 2022. In New York the UN General Assembly voted by 143 votes to 5 to denounce Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian land. A few days earlier in Geneva, however, members of the UN Human Rights Council had voted to block debate on a UN report on China’s human-rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

America says it does not seek a world of rival power blocs. But many countries fear that the rivalry between big powers is leading to a new cold war.■

Anton La Guardia: Diplomatic editor, The Economist, Washington, DC

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2023 under the headline “Of friends and foes”