Contrary to the statement in the following paragraph of the article:

"Such views have also pleased former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, whose waspish ire has also been trained on the NATO Secretary-General. In his latest statement, Stoltenberg was condemnedas "the supreme fool" of "the international stage". "Stoltenberg by instinct and policy, is simply an accident on its way to happen". In thinking that "China should be superintended by the West and strategically circumscribed", the NATO official had overlooked the obvious point that the country "represents twenty percent of humanity and now possesses the largest economy in the world … and has no record for attacking other states, unlike the United States, whose bidding Stoltenberg is happy to do"."

China does have a record for attacking other states. A list of communist Chinese wars may be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

In some of those wars, China was the aggressor. China attacked and annexed Tibet. China attacked India and Vietnam. In some of those wars, China was allied with the US. In the game of war, there are few innocents.

NATO in Asia? Well, a good thing and a desirable outcome. And sure to give the rogue nations, cause to pause and reflect the wisdom of aggression!

It's united we stand, divided we fall.

The Author's take is at best ill-informed and at worst, that of an anti-west fifth columnist?
Alan B.

Meanwhile, in the Workers Paradise also known as Russia, eternal peace and goodwill to all continues........

NATO is bad news for its members as well as for the Asia Pacific. Albanese needs to be reminded that Australian society is friendly and rejects the militarism, propaganda and censorship that is an integral part of the NATO disaster.

The Roman Empire will do as it wishes.

NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: Emphasis on North Atlantic. Euro centric.

Drawing Asia into its sphere is an anathema to its original intention of securing National boundaries and individual sovereignty of nation States applicable to Europe.

US would be better advised to hide behind their lies of a UN smoke screen, as it currently does, and continue its own plunder of Sovereign States Globally with honesty.

What is wrong with calling a spade a spade.

These enablers for war mongers won't rest until we have WW3 !

Sure that renowned geo-political expert Keating would agree, but....

'the Kosovo affair continues to be an explosion in the making...'

In a need to blame NATO, helpfully disappears key actors including Vucic-Serbia (Russia), Dodik-Bosnian Serbs and of late Hungary's Orban interfering in Kosovo.

On NATO, like Keating et al. and many self appointed Anglo faux geo-political experts, maybe learn something about NATO first rather than regurgitate talking points that the Kremlin &/or Beijing would agree with e.g. always claiming NATO is an expanding aggressor.

NATO members have been in Asia or the Indo-Pacific for generations including UK, US and France; French have always had a testy relationship with NATO, many members have long standing and/or new defence procurement cooperation e.g. Poland - South Korea (tanks & howitzers $7 billion), shared interest in supply chains and cyber security etc.

No one is compelled to join NATO but all NATO members applied to join voluntarily based on national defence interests, includes new members Sweden and Finland, along with the newer members, Baltic states and Central Eastern Europe.

The real and related question is, why do Anglo faux anti-imperialist left agree with Anglo right wing 'libertarians' (inc. former FoxNews' Carlson) on criticising NATO (& often EU) and averting their gaze from Putin's aggression?