In September 2024, United States President Joe Biden hosted the fourth of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly known as the Quad. The event was hailed as a testament to the Quad’s longevity and sustainability. Comprising Australia, Japan, India and the U.S., the Quad represents a coalition of four democracies in the Indo-Pacific region. Together, they account for nearly 2 billion people and about one-third of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
The Quad can be counted as a successful mini-lateral grouping of Indo-Pacific nations. However, it is far from becoming central in countering China’s growing assertiveness in East and South Asia. Over the past seven years, the four countries have expanded their cooperation, initially starting with humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. This collaboration has expanded to include health security, debt management, regional connectivity and infrastructure, critical and emerging technologies, and sharing information on maritime security. However, the Quad is nowhere near the nucleus of an “Asian NATO” that Japan’s Prime Minister, , considers desirable.
The Quad’s military potential is somewhat hampered by India’s reluctance to join a treaty-based security alliance. The U.S., Australia, and Japan are already part of U.S.-led security alliances, leaving out India, the most populous member of the group and the one expected to keep China at bay in the Indian Ocean.
The Quad’s achievements to date
The Quad was formed in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when Australia, Japan, India and the U.S. joined forces to coordinate humanitarian aid and disaster relief across the Indian Ocean region. Three years later, the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that these four democracies should work together to strengthen regional stability by leveraging their shared values and interests.
However, in 2008, Australian reluctance to upset Beijing led the then Australian government to back out from the Quad, resulting in the group remaining inactive for the next decade. In 2017, during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump came together to revive the Quad. Their decision was spurred by growing worries over China’s expanding economic and military influence in the region. Since then, the Quad has transformed from a dialogue between foreign ministers into a summit at the leaders’ level. Not only has the format and frequency of its annual meetings increased, but the range and depth of the issues discussed have also expanded significantly.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief remain core areas of collaboration. The Quad has adopted a similar approach to health security and climate resilience by offering to build the capabilities of smaller countries and island nations in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad countries converted their Covid-19 cooperation, specifically in vaccine production and distribution, into a broader partnership aimed at strengthening health infrastructure and ensuring preparedness for future pandemics.
Maritime security cooperation is often regarded as the cornerstone of the Quad, as the four countries share a common goal of ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region. Many countries in the area struggle with the ability to monitor illegal fishing, track Chinese vessels, and respond to humanitarian crises.
Over the past two years, there has been a notable increase in maritime cooperation under the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative. This program tracks commercially available data and shares this information through fusion centers in India, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Over the past two years, IPMDA has helped more than two dozen countries access this data.
At the September 2024 Quad summit, a new regional was announced. This initiative would train partner countries on how to use the data collected by IPMDA “to monitor and secure their waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behavior.”
Leaders announced several other initiatives in the maritime sector, including the Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network pilot project, the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership and the Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission. It is, nonetheless, a clear reflection of the Quad’s hesitance to assert hard power that the only examples of this aspect are the IPMDA and coast guard observer missions, rather than comprehensive naval cooperation.
Challenges facing the alliance
Even though the Quad identified infrastructure building and debt management as key areas of concern, none of its members have put enough resources on the table to match China’s funding. Over the past decade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has invested an estimated $1 trillion in 147 countries. For comparison, in 1948, the U.S. allocated $13 billion to reconstruct Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.
The Quad cannot become a viable alternative to China as a source of capital for smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region until it mobilizes significant economic resources to match China’s investment offers. Two lending banks, both heavily influenced by Beijing, each have a market capitalization of $100 billion. These are the New Development Bank (formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank, established by the BRICS nations) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The Quad’s efforts to counter China have relied heavily on funding from the private sector through the Quad Investors Network. However, this investment has proven insufficient in matching China’s public sector largesse. Quad countries lack coordination on this front, failing to link the activities of Japan’s Quality Infrastructure Initiative, the U.S.-led Blue Dot Network, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
India’s reluctance to join a military alliance
New Delhi has long regarded the Indian Ocean region as its historical and geographical sphere of influence, yet it has hesitated to use hard power to secure its interests. India believes it is the first responder in times of humanitarian or natural disasters, a key developmental partner and the preferred security ally for nations in the region. However, to truly secure its sphere of influence, it must also limit the presence of competitors, and India has struggled to keep China completely out of its backyard.
Over the past three decades, China’s ingress into India’s neighborhood has deepened. China is not only the largest trading partner of every one of India’s South Asian neighbors but has close economic and military cooperation with almost each one of them, except for Bhutan. In addition, over the past 20 years, China has expanded its presence in the Indian Ocean region with dual-use ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as in the western Indian Ocean. For Indian analysts, this is seen as a reflection of China’s attempt to strategically encircle India through what they call a ‘string of pearls’ strategy.
New Delhi’s reluctance to join others in a military alliance has significantly slowed the evolution of the Quad. Indian leaders argue it will take the country about two decades to enhance its economic and military capabilities to compete with China effectively. India is still far behind China in both economic size and military capabilities, continuing to prioritize protectionism and self-sufficiency. Pragmatism demands India purchase critical defense platforms from partner countries while simultaneously building its industrial base.
If China’s military aggression is truly a concern for all four countries, then ramping up activities under the Quad rubric is essential. Three of the four countries are security allies, boasting strong ties in the economic, technological and defense realms. India is not only a critical economic and technological partner of the U.S. but also of Australia and Japan. Since 2016, the U.S. has recognized India as a Major Defense Partner. In June 2023, the two countries signed a defense industrial roadmap for codevelopment and coproduction initiatives.
India still lags in its defense production, and its acquisition process is slower than most countries. For instance, it took New Delhi to approve the construction of two nuclear-powered attack submarines in 2024, even though the original decision was made in 2015. While India seeks to gain access to the U.S. advanced civilian and defense industries, it often hesitates to meet certain American demands and preconditions. Moreover, India’s continued defense relationship with Russia and its connections to countries like Iran – considered a threat by the U.S. – hinders the transfer of defense technology.
China allocates more funding to its defense than three of the four Quad nations. If India demonstrates its commitment to addressing its partners’ concerns about China, a more robust economic and defense alliance within the Quad could take shape. This would bolster India’s capabilities and send the necessary hard-power signal to China.
India participates in bilateral and multilateral military exercises with the other Quad countries. The annual exercise, limited to these four countries, can at any date be officially designated as a Quad exercise. Both the Americans and the Japanese find it perplexing that New Delhi has not yet openly opposed Beijing, especially given China’s dual-use ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, logistics sharing, and IPMDA are useful in building bonhomie and camaraderie, but real synchronization of militaries occurs with close integration that is combat-oriented and ensures interoperability.
The Quad’s dilemma
Since the end of World War II, the American grand strategy has centered around building a network of alliances worldwide, particularly in maritime Asia, now known as the Indo-Pacific. China’s economic and military rise poses a challenge to this alliance structure. Integrating India, the world’s most populous democracy, with economic and military capabilities that could rival China’s, was a key aim behind the Quad. However, to address New Delhi’s concerns and incorporate its interests, the Quad has focused on public goods rather than hard power.
The Quad’s dilemma is tied to its very foundation: a grouping that brings together three security allies with a country – India – that has historically abhorred alliances. The Quad’s framework for non-security collaborations limits the capability to project the hard power needed to ensure it does not remain merely what Beijing referred to mockingly in 2018 as “sea foam.”
The September 2024 Quad leaders’ summit discussed strategic alignment among the four partners. However, such alignment calls for more than joint statements listing each member’s security concerns. It requires a demonstration of shared concerns about China. Further, references in Quad statements to the South China Sea, the war in Ukraine, North Korea’s missiles and nuclear weapons, the Middle East, Myanmar’s crisis and condemnation of cross-border terrorism are not backed by a shared commitment to dealing with these issues together.
Scenarios
Most likely: The Quad will continue on its present path
India’s unwillingness to commit to a military alliance was recently highlighted by its Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s rejection of an Asian NATO. Given this stance, it appears that the Quad is most likely to maintain its current trajectory. It will focus on cooperation in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, climate change management, health security, and limited maritime security cooperation.
Less likely: India acknowledges its security dimension
A less likely scenario is that India allows the Quad to signal and demonstrate its effectiveness to China and the region by fully embracing its security dimension. This would result in increased military exercises under the name of the Quad – not Malabar – and naval, not simply maritime, cooperation.
Least likely: The Quad becomes a military alliance
The least likely scenario is that the Quad becomes a full-fledged military alliance in response to heightened Chinese military aggression in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, along with deeper security and economic ties with Russia. However, this will be contingent upon the degree to which New Delhi is willing to deviate from its historical tradition of strategic autonomy and aversion to military alliances and the degree to which geographical separation would facilitate or hinder mutual support in peace and conflict.
Enjoyed this article? Subscribe to 91’s newsletters to stay up to date with our latest content.