Australia answers NATO call on Russia, China threat

Australia will be asked to back a transformation of the NATO alliance to toughen defences against Russia and confront strategic competition with China at a summit later this month that will expand the 30-member alliance in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is considering whether to attend the summit in Madrid on June 29 and 30 as part of a show of support from Asia Pacific partners including leaders from Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The agenda includes stronger cooperation on cybersecurity in response to heightened activity by Russia and China, an issue raised between NATO and Australian leaders in the past, as well as highly sensitive proposals to send more forces to Eastern Europe to defend the alliance’s eastern flank.

With Australia already sending military and medical supplies to Ukraine on regular RAAF flights into Poland, the Madrid summit will canvass further support from NATO members and partners as well as arranging the entry of Finland and Sweden into an alliance founded in 1949.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to speak online or in person to the gathering, which will also include United States President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders.

A formal invitation to Albanese to attend the summit is expected within days after NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoană confirmed the intention to hear from Asia Pacific leaders as part of what he called the “transformation” of the alliance in the decisions to be made in Madrid.

“The negotiations we have and the adoption by our leaders of the new strategy concept will carve the way forward for the next decade for the transformation of NATO, not only in terms of collective defence but also to adapt and adjust to a much broader definition of security,” Geoană said last Thursday.

“Cyberspace, new technologies, hybrid [warfare], climate change and security – this is the obligation of NATO to be permanently adjusting to a changed environment. We are entering, as we speak, the era of great power competition. For the first time ever, in Madrid, we’ll have, at the highest level, our four Asia Pacific partners – Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand – attending our summit. The world is changing and NATO needs to adjust to this changing world.”

In a fundamental shift ahead of the invasion of Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “no limits” partnership on February 5 that included a declaration that they “oppose further enlargement” of NATO.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has confirmed he will attend the Madrid summit and reports from Tokyo suggest Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may do so as well.

Defence Minister Richard Marles flew to Tokyo on Monday after meeting his US and Chinese counterparts along with other regional ministers at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Marles could attend the NATO summit if Albanese cannot.

The government would not comment on Monday on who would attend the Madrid summit given it had not yet received a formal invitation. Albanese is preparing a visit to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron within weeks after announcing an $830 million compensation agreement on Saturday to settle a dispute over a cancelled submarine contract.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg named cyber as an area where he wanted to see greater cooperation with Australia when he visited Sydney three years ago for talks with then prime minister Scott Morrison.

Australia promised support for a new strategic communications centre in the Latvian capital of Riga in April when former foreign minister Marise Payne visited NATO in Brussels to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull visited NATO in Brussels in 2018 for talks with Stoltenberg but visits by Australian leaders to full NATO summits have been rare in recent years. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd attended a summit in Bucharest in 2008 to discuss Australia’s contributions to the allied force in Afghanistan, while his successor Julia Gillard attended similar summits in Lisbon in 2010 and Chicago in 2012.

The accession of Finland and Sweden is being opposed by Turkey but Stoltenberg and Geoană have argued the objections could be overcome.

Geoană told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Friday that a 1997 agreement between Russia and NATO was now “void” because of the invasion of Ukraine, adding that Finland and Sweden had “formidable” armies that already cooperated with NATO forces.

Asked if this meant NATO forces would be stationed permanently on the eastern borders with Russia, the NATO deputy said there would be forces “on the ground” but said he could not pre-judge the outcome of the summit.

He emphasised the goal was a “fundamental transformation of NATO’s posture, presence and deterrence” in response to the war in Ukraine.