NATO's strategy: Engaging civil society for Indo-Pacific dominance
In the first of a two-part series, a declassified document shows NATO engaging civil society groups while pushing its China 'threat' narratives, in a Pacific battle for hearts and minds.
This story was first published by Declassified Australia
PART 1 OF A TWO-PART SERIES
A declassified document points to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) partnering with civil society groups in the Pacific region to push its messaging as preparations continue for war with China.
A heavily-redacted summary statement from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and obtained by In Context, shows nine NATO permanent representatives had roundtable talks with several civil society groups and individuals while on a visit to the country at the end of October.
The trans-Atlantic political-military alliance, alongside Western intelligence agencies, have warned of hybrid warfare being waged by China, Iran and Russia, including the use of disinformation to undermine Western democratic systems of government. NATO has been busy enlisting and funding civil society groups across member nations and partner countries to counter the supposed threat.
Critics warn such counter-disinformation campaigns are about closing down counter narratives and conditioning Western populations for possible conflicts to protect waning US hegemony and vested interests of Western elites.
The document, titled “Formal Message: NATO Permanent Representatives’ Visit to Wellington, Dated 29 November 2024” was obtained under the Official Information Act. It shows the visiting NATO representatives had “public diplomacy engagements” with the hawkish defence research hub, the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) and the Asia New Zealand Foundation, which describes itself as the nation’s leading authority on Asia.
The Asia New Zealand Foundation commissions opinion surveys used to underpin its establishment narratives, engages in informal diplomacy initiatives, and provides free travel grants to journalists, as well as internships and residencies to New Zealanders in Asian countries.
The engagements raise questions over what potential roles these organisations may have in helping NATO identify and fight supposed disinformation, while pushing the NATO alliance’s narratives.
Newsroom, New Zealand’s pre-eminent longform media outlet, was listed as having their own public diplomacy engagement (aka a meeting) with the NATO ambassadors during their visit.
At the time of NATO’s October meeting, Newsroom reported comments from the representatives, which uncritically repeated the NATO alliance’s justification for increased Western militarisation in the Indo-Pacific region – that the security of Europe and defeat of Russia in Ukraine was indivisible from the security of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ and that confronting China and North Korea was therefore essential.
Such language is being increasingly used by the right-wing New Zealand coalition government to articulate its foreign policy positions, as well as commentators and politicians in Australia.
Like other major news outlets in New Zealand, Newsroom has run with security state narratives, while offering nominal balancing views.
The document describing the NATO visit, states a roundtable discussion was led by Asia New Zealand Foundation CEO Suzannah Jessop, its director of research and engagement Dr Julia McDonald, CSS director David Capie, CSS member Professor Roberto Rabel, former Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) CEO Chris Seed, and Victoria University Professor Manjeet S Pardesi.
The content of their discussions is completely redacted for unexplained ‘national security’ reasons.
A regular column in Newsroom, by the Asia New Zealand Foundation CEO, argues that New Zealand must diversify its trade in Asia away from China, New Zealand’s main export market, while also flagging up issues such as cyber-attacks and foreign interference.
NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division offers co-sponsorship grants to civil society groups in member states and partner countries to “promote understanding of the Alliance’s missions, as well as trust in its actions and values”.
It is not known whether any of the groups involved in the public diplomacy engagements are recipients of funding to help to build what NATO calls ‘societal resilience’ to disinformation and hybrid warfare,.
The grants’ target audiences are those “in locations where NATO’s role is not well known or who may be sceptical about NATO”, as well as audiences “in challenging information environments, in particular on topics related to the Alliance”, according to its website.
In Context asked the Public Diplomacy Division, which says its public diplomacy activities are transparent, for a list of civil society groups in Australia and New Zealand that NATO partners with. After repeated requests it had failed to reply by the time of publication.
NATO targeting ‘information threats’
NATO says it uses what it calls an Information Environment Assessment (IEA) to direct its communications with the public, by employing “a combination of skilled people, repeatable processes and technology” in response to information threats.
Its Rapid Response Group (NRRG) flags up “emerging information threats, giving NATO and Allies greater situational awareness and rapid response capability,” according to its website. The group monitors media and is linked with thinktanks across the globe and to other unnamed external “relevant stakeholders”.
The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE), based in Riga, Lativia, says that it “contributes to the strategic communications capabilities of NATO, NATO allies and NATO partners”. Its website says the 16-member group’s performance strength is driven by “multinational and cross-sector participants from the civilian and military, private and academic sectors and usage of modern technologies, virtual tools for analyses, research and decision making”.
Australia has applied to join the group.
NATO assesses security architecture
NATO officials were also briefed by New Zealand’s two main spy agencies and by defence figures on geopolitical competition and “key actors that threaten the rules-based international order” while in New Zealand.
The released document noted the NATO ambassadors were “interested in better understanding how New Zealand fits into the Indo-Pacific’s security architecture”. The visit followed a similar engagement in Australia the week before.
Leading NATO member states are increasing their military presence in the region, with expanding military cooperation and deployment of UK, Italian, French, and Norwegian naval assets, as the US loses its position as a regional hegemon.
China is one of several claimants to disputed territories in the South China Sea, which take in important shipping channels. It has grown increasingly alarmed by US support given to the independence movement in Taiwan, the self-governing island seen as an integral part of China under the One China principle, recognised by the United Nations, and most member states.
As these tensions are stoked, the country is being portrayed as a danger to a “peaceful and free Indo-Pacific”, as well as an authoritarian state undermining the rules-based international order. NATO’s Strategic Concept document views China as a long-term “strategic adversary”.
The nuclear submarine alliance between the UK, the US and Australia, AUKUS, is but one strand of countering its supposed threat. The possible extension of AUKUS to include New Zealand and Japan, in AUKUS Pillar Two, is being considered to give access to new autonomous weapons platforms, electronic warfare systems, and hypersonic missiles.
The region’s Western security architecture is expanding into a complex web of defence groups and agreements layered over existing bilateral and multilateral relationships.
Last August In Context revealed plans are being developed to link the region’s top consensus body, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), to Western-dominated defence body, South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM).
Recent militarisation arrangements instigated by Washington include US-Japan-Philippines Trilateral Agreement, the Australia-Japan-Philippines-US Defense Ministers’ Meeting, and the signing of the US-South Korea-Japan Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework.
Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles hosted Japanese Minister of Defense, HE Nakatani Gen, and US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, for the 14th Trilateral Defence Ministers’ Meeting on 17 November, where they discussed co-operation, including deployments of Japan’s Rapid Deployment Brigade to northern Australia.
The Albanese Government in October announced a $7 billion agreement with the United States to acquire Standard Missile 2 Block IIIC (SM-2 IIIC) and Standard Missile‑6 (SM-6) to bolster the long-range capability of the Australian Navy’s surface combatant fleet.
Creating a Pacific NATO presence
NATO’s Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) partners, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, all have Individually-Tailored Partnership Programs (ITPPs) with NATO, sharing information and intelligence, as well as enhancing military interoperability.
The four countries are also committed to selling NATO narratives to their populations, particularly New Zealand and Australia, both members of the Western Five Eyes intelligence network, another transnational instrument of Washington’s security state and foreign policy.
The IP4 in July last year announced a collaboration with NATO on tackling disinformation, as well as on Ukraine, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. That month the NATO’s Washington Summit was attended by Australia’s hawkish Defence Minister Richard Marles and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, in what over the past two years have become regular attendences.
The issue was also high on the agenda at a meeting of NATO defence ministers on October 18 last year, also attended by IP4 defence ministers. A NATO Approach to Counter Information Threats was endorsed by the ministers:
“NATO will intensify collaboration with Ukraine, and aim to improve cooperation with NATO partners, particularly those in the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region, NATO’s Southern Neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific.”
The October NATO grouping agreed to target “civil society and independent media” as it moves to counter threats to its hegemonic narrative:
“NATO, Allies and NATO partners will aim to increase support to innovative initiatives from civil society and independent media, including engaging with academia, key opinion formers, think tanks, youth organisations and other non-governmental organisations, to counter information threats.”
Increasing funding for narrative control
The campaign to drive Western security state narratives is not only funded through NATO initiatives. A multiplicity of Western state funding avenues exists.
A funding document obtained by In Context, shows the US State Department’s Public Diplomacy Section (PDS) in its Embassy in New Zealand running a program launched last year called ‘Strengthening Pacific Media Capacity to Identify and Counter Disinformation’.
The program involves “projects that will strengthen media capacity, provide media training, and/or provide substantive benefit to media networks in New Zealand and the Pacific”, the document says.
It warns that, “without access to fair and balanced media coverage, which starts with a resilient and informed media with the capacity to identify and counter disinformation, the democratic values that we share with our neighbours in the Pacific region will be at risk”.
US government spending records also show a “public diplomacy funding” annual allocation of $20,000 made to University of Auckland over several years. A request for information under the Official Information Act on how the funding is being spent was ignored by the university.
There are similar examples of US reach into the information space in the Pacific region.
US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding allocation documents were leaked in April last year before the 2024 Solomon Islands election.
They showed several US organisations, as well as Australian and New Zealand foreign affairs officials, coalescing around democracy-promoting activities involving civil society groups hostile to then Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who had brought his nation closer to China.
In September, the US Congress passed HR 1157, the ‘Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund’, authorising the allocation of US$1.6 billion to the State Department and USAID over the next five years.
The aim of the Fund is to subsidise media and civil society sources around the world that counter Chinese ‘malign influence’ globally. USAID has stopped publicly listing which organisations it has funded and is presently supporting.
It should be noted that USAID is presently the subject of aggressive funding cuts by the new US administration of Donald Trump, citing corruption and diversion of USAID funds for regime change operations and subverting democracy in countries around the world.
Despite this, given the drive by the US, NATO, and its allies to entangle Pacific nations in its latticework of military pacts and groupings, it seems certain that a significant portion of ‘counter-influence’ and ‘narrative creation’ funding is being assigned to the Asia-Pacific region, whether it comes from within the US State Department or from a body like USAID.