Navigating the Way Forward for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in the Indo-Pacific Theatre

Historically transpiring as an ad hoc coordinating mechanism of ‘Tsunami Core Group’ in the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami of December 2004, the informal cluster of U.S.A., Australia, Japan and India acquired a quadrilateral template of strategic grouping by being a novel type of diplomacy, intended to swiftly mobilize disaster aid through a proper network. Eventually, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the ‘Quad’ was formalized as a platform to address maritime security cooperation and regional issues of geostrategic significance. Envisioned under the erstwhile Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “arc of freedom and prosperity”, the Quad was seen as a network of nations stretching across the Eurasian continent, connected by plurilateral efforts to promote democratic values like freedom of navigation and overflight, rule of law and peaceful resolution of disputes among others.

Quad asserted itself as the harbinger of democracy, free-market economy, and a regional consultative forum in the Indian Ocean Region to tackle maritime emergencies and security threats like piracy. However, it lacked a military dimension. As the Quad witnessed the waxing and waning of regional commitments by its member nations, other challenges followed such as- divergent Indo-Pacific perceptions, misalignment of strategic interests and protean leadership preferences. While meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Manila, the Philippines, a resuscitated Quad 2.0 emerged as an efficacious framework on 12th November, 2017.

Quad commits to a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific which is predicated on a rules-based maritime order, international law and ASEAN-centrality. However, the Quad has been confronted with security and strategic concerns vis-à-vis China’s irredentist territorial expansionist behaviour along the Nine-dash line in the South China Sea and China’s assertiveness in the Korean Peninsula, East China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Emerging as a counter-hegemonic democratic deterrent to the Chinese belligerence in the Indo-Pacific, the renewed diplomatic momentum of the Quad can be attributed to geopolitical shockwaves, altering global leadership footprints, accentuated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, thereby elevating the importance of the Indo-Pacific as the growth underbelly and nucleus of international politics. Following the joint naval exercise, viz. the Malabar Exercise of November 2020 in the Bay of Bengal and north of the Arabian Sea, along with the inaugural formal summit-level meeting of the Quad nations in March 2021, cooperation has been extended to a plethora of issue areas, ranging from vaccine collaboration, health diplomacy, counterterrorism, quality infrastructure investment, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, climate change, to cyberspace, critical and emerging technologies.

Despite the positive growth trajectory, Quad has been facing a vast array of challenges in the Indo-Pacific. These include, major technological and policy issues like India-Japan disagreement over cross-border data transfers and data localization restrictions, divergent constitutional imperatives and strategic priorities, power differentials and huge differences in terms of military capability in the possession of nuclear arsenals and conventional weapons between U.S.A. and India. Further, the Quad is plagued with concerns regarding outreach to vital third party nations in an effort to counteract strategic competition and diplomatic tussle in major domains.

Additionally, contemporary challenges like the political conundrum in Afghanistan following the Taliban military offensive and the threat of a potential re-surfacing of terrorism as a global menace needs a re-calibration of the U.S. policy from its phase of post-9/11 “war on terror” to “over-the-horizon” counter-terrorism designs. This would, embolden the importance of direct counter-terrorism cooperation with the Quad member nation-states. Additionally, the recent September 2021 AUKUS trilateral security partnership involving Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.A. on technology and security matters, has led to diplomatic fallout with France, as France got infuriated over the issue of nuclear-powered submarines, thereby having repercussions in the Indo-Pacific, as there are speculations that the AUKUS would dilute the geostrategic dimension of the Quad, limiting its functions to few global social issues like climate change and vaccine diplomacy, diminishing its security imperatives.

Nonetheless, Quad’s advantages cannot be overseen. Its blueprint of supply chain resilience initiative would be important for re-engineering global supply chains, especially in an era of segmented globalization. This is a welcome development especially in the face of heightened US-China geopolitical contestation with the decoupling of synergies between trade and technology and the regional balance of power shifts in the Indo-Pacific. Notwithstanding China’s denial of the Indo-Pacific and its condemnation of Quad as “Asian NATO” or Russia’s concerns over the Quad’s impact on its close defence partnership with India, the Quad still manages to express itself as a robust mechanism of policy coordination. It is a platform for convergence of interests over a commonly-shared normative vision, constituting the pillar of maritime security and cooperation, while promoting regional stability, mitigating traditional and non-traditional security challenges and holding the potential of financing development projects in the burgeoning blue economy of the Indo-Pacific.

While the in-person meeting of the Quad held on 24th September 2021 in the Washington D.C. constituted a watershed moment in the future of world politics, the Quad nations will advance practical cooperation in multiple issue areas, ranging from critical and emerging technologies, to trade and investment,. One is likely to see a diversification in collaboration in the form of adherence to supply chain resilience agenda, joint climate action, global vaccine equity, maritime diplomacy, all in conformity with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030.

Abhigyan Guha is a Postgraduate Student of Political Science with International Relations in the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The IAIS neither endorses nor is responsible for them.