At NATO headquarters and in European chancelleries, a new consensus has emerged: the security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific is indivisible. The logic is compelling. Russia’s war machine in Ukraine is sustained by microchips produced in China and artillery shells from North Korea. In return, Moscow provides technological know-how that could accelerate Pyongyang’s missile programs. The theatres are no longer distinct. They are bleeding into one another.

Yet Europe’s major powers are responding to this reality in strikingly different ways. This divergence is not a weakness to be papered over. It is an asset that should be organised. A functional division of labour, whereby states contribute according to their strengths and constraints, will prove more durable than forced uniformity.

Some will object that fragmented approaches risk incoherence, with allies pulling in different directions – especially during a crisis. That concern is valid, but it misidentifies the true risk. The real danger is not divergence but unmanaged divergence. When allies lack pre-agreed roles and responsibilities, they end up debating about burden-sharing precisely when they should be acting.

The solution is not to pretend Europe can speak with one voice on the Indo-Pacific – it is to ensure that different voices are harmonised through shared planning, joint exercises, and crisis coordination mechanisms.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland are following distinct national approaches determined by geography, nuclear status, and economic exposure. Understanding these differences is the foundation for building effective NATO partnerships with Indo-Pacific nations including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

The UK and France approach the Indo-Pacific as nuclear powers with global reach. As NATO’s only European nuclear-armed states with blue-water navies, they view themselves as contributors to international stability beyond Europe’s borders. They do not just consume security; they feel a responsibility to help provide it.

The UK has anchored its strategy in high-end technological integration with the United States and key regional allies. Its Integrated Review Refresh 2023 reinforced the Atlantic-Pacific link, with AUKUS – the trilateral security partnership between the UK, Australia, and the US – serving as a prime example. By committing to building nuclear-powered submarines with Australia and developing next-generation fighter jets with Japan and Italy through the Global Combat Air Programme, London is betting that its relevance lies in being the most capable and interoperable ally of Washington in both theatres. Britain’s latest strategy warns that a conflict in the Indo-Pacific could have consequences even greater than those of the war in Ukraine.

France is taking a different path toward similar ends. As a resident power with nearly 1.6 million citizens in its territories in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and over 90 percent of its exclusive economic zone located in Indo-Pacific waters, France views the region through the lens of sovereignty. Its updated Indo-Pacific Strategy promotes a third way, an alternative to binary great power competition. While the UK aligns closely with US structures, France emphasises its autonomy. Paris opposed the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo in June 2023, arguing that the Indo-Pacific is not the North Atlantic. Yet its commitment is nonetheless real. The deployment of the Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group for Mission Clemenceau 25 demonstrated a capacity for independent power projection that no other EU state can match.

When we look elsewhere on the European continent, however, the picture changes. For Germany and Poland, security is land-centric. Both states rely on the US nuclear umbrella rather than holding their own warheads, and their Indo-Pacific engagement is fundamentally geared toward securing the resources and partnerships needed to strengthen Europe.

Germany faces the challenge of balancing economic ties with strategic concerns. Its 2023 China Strategy talks about de-risking and systemic rivalry, but data from the first three quarters of 2025 indicate that China has reclaimed its spot as Germany’s top trading partner. Berlin’s military contributions to the Indo-Pacific have been modest – its comparative advantage lies not in naval projection but in economic might, regulatory influence, and the capacity to lead European efforts on supply chain resilience.

Poland offers the most distinctive case. Warsaw has no naval ambitions in the Pacific; its eyes are fixed firmly on the Russian border. Yet Poland has forged the most significant material link with the Indo-Pacific of any European state. Through massive arms deals with South Korea, including plans to procure up to 1,000 K2 tanks, K9 howitzers, and K239 rocket launchers, Poland has built a defence-industrial bridge to Seoul. The logic is pragmatic. European industry was unable to quickly rearm Poland against Russia, so Warsaw turned to other partners. This created a direct link between Poland’s security and stability in East Asia. Notably, Poland spent 4.7 percent of its GDP on defence in 2025, the highest rate in NATO, yet it has not published an Indo-Pacific strategy, likely because its bandwidth is consumed by the Russian threat.

What does this mean for NATO cooperation with its Indo-Pacific partners? It suggests that expecting a single European stance on the Indo-Pacific is unrealistic. Instead, policymakers should adopt a functional division of labour that leverages each nation’s strengths. Making this division of labour operational will require concrete mechanisms.

First, Europe should institutionalise cross-theatre stress-testing to identify where a shock in East Asia would affect Europe’s ability to sustain deterrence against Russia. This should cover munitions, spare parts, maintenance pipelines, cyber disruptions to logistics, and exposure at maritime chokepoints. Such exercises would demonstrate how European states might actually operate under simultaneous pressure across theatres, exposing coordination gaps that need to be closed before a crisis arrives. NATO’s Indo-Pacific partnerships already emphasise practical cooperation. As such, this is the natural platform to embed crisis coordination work.

Second, Europe should treat defence industrial cooperation with trusted Indo-Pacific partners as a core security policy rather than a procurement afterthought. Poland’s experience shows what can be achieved when production capacity outside Europe is brought into European rearmament timelines. The European Union and European governments should facilitate the financing of licensed production, joint supply chains, and repair arrangements with trusted partners, while safeguarding sensitive technology.

Third, Europe should allocate the visibility burden to those best placed to carry it. The UK and France should lead on predictable maritime presence and high-end exercises with partners when it serves deterrence and can be repeated without degrading Euro-Atlantic readiness. Germany should lead on economic security and resilience policy, leveraging its influence to make de-risking credible through effective implementation. Poland should continue to harden its eastern flank while expanding its industrial capacity.

These differentiated roles only work if they are underpinned by shared planning tools that allow allies to see how their contributions fit together. Joint exercises that simulate simultaneous crises in Europe and Asia would test whether the division of labour holds under stress. Crisis management protocols, agreed upon in advance, would ensure that European states can coordinate rapidly when two theatres demand attention at once.

The security of our two regions is indeed indivisible – but the strategies employed to protect it need not be identical. The test ahead is not whether Europe can agree on a single approach, but whether it can make different approaches work together under pressure.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

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