NATO PLUS

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Context

• The US Congressional Committee on the Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party has recommended including India in Nato Plus.

What is Nato Plus?

• While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or Nato, is a 31-member alliance, with 29 European nations, and two American, the Nato Plus, currently Nato Plus 5, is a security arrangement that brings together Nato and five aligned nations — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and South Korea — to boost global defence cooperation

Significance

For the US

• Winning the strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party and ensuring the security of Taiwan demands the United States strengthen ties with India.

For India

• Bringing India on board would facilitate seamless intelligence sharing between these countries and India would access the latest military technology without much of a time lag.

About US Congressional Committee on the Strategic Competition

• The panel, formed in January, has no authority to draft or amend laws.
• It is tasked with making recommendations to legislative committees before the end of the year.
• Its members – 13 Republican and 11 Democratic representatives – sit on various House committees with jurisdiction over the recommendations, including armed services and foreign affairs.

Concluding remarks

• India is already a key member of the Quad grouping and the thinking within the American establishment clearly seems to be in favour of taking New Delhi aboard the wider Nato-Plus platform given the increasing clout that the South Asian giant wields in a multipolar world beset with geopolitical tensions that have come to a boil with the Russia-Ukraine war.

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https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/nato-32

PRACTICE QUESTION Q) The United States has recently proposed to strengthen the Nato Plus arrangement by including India. This portrays the increasing clout that the South Asian giant wields in a multipolar world beset with geopolitical tensions. Discuss. (250 words)

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/us-congressional-committee-recommends-strengthening-nato-plus-with-india-to-counter-chinese-communist-party-s-strategic-competition-101685210608532.html