THE Quad Summit hosted by outgoing President Biden in Delaware on September 21 remains a cornerstone and symbol of the Quad’s resilience and strength.
Amidst new waves of security and defence overtures in the Indo Pacific region ranging from the newly formed the Squad (Tokyo-Manila-Washington), to Aukus and potential Asian Nato, Quad has been deemed by some to be increasingly obsolete.
However, the geopolitical and security reality and practicality make less sense for Washington to ditch the Quad in favour of the Squad or direct security alliances.
While Quad has always been seen as the softer power version of Washington’s quest for China containment in the Indo Pacific, further validated by the focus on rules based order and extended maritime domain awareness, there has never been a shift of predominant focus on containing China’s regional ambition.
The Quad was established to be a global force for good, benefiting partner countries across the Indo-Pacific—including in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean Region. With the synergy and joint partnership of Tokyo, New Delhi, Canberra and Washington the core priorities remain upholding the rules based order and in ensuring normative global peace and security are preserved.
Apart from the primary combined role and force in preserving stability and the status quo of an international order based on the rule of law in the sphere of hard power security, the Quad is leading ambitious projects on areas of low politics and non conventional threats too.
The four powers address pandemics and disease; respond to natural disasters; mobilize and build high-standard physical and digital infrastructure; invest in and benefit from critical and emerging technologies; confront the threat of climate change; bolster cyber security; and cultivate the next generation of technology leaders.
This Summit in Delaware is crucial in several areas. First, it was the last one to be attended by Biden, who was instrumental in the grouping’s institutionalisation capacity, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who played a pivotal role in adding political heft to the forum.
Second, this year marks two decades since the formation of the grouping.
With the eyes of Russia and China and the growing threats posed by Pyongyang, and other non-traditional security challenges in the region, the Quad faces a multi-faceted threat setting.
The Wilmington Declaration, the joint statement of the Quad leaders in this Summit, seeks to address these challenges in a united framework as a message to both foes and allies.
The Wilmington Statement exhibits continuity in responding to the war in Ukraine, and expressed concerns over ballistic missile launches conducted by North Korea and the need to prevent the proliferation of nuclear missiles and technologies. The Declaration also focused on the ongoing conflict in Gaza as well.
On the China dilemma, Quad’s response this year has been sharper. seems sharper. Beijing was called out for disregarding international law and acting unilaterally in the East and South China Sea, condemning the use of coastguards and maritime militia vessels, which serve as China’s tactics for coercive and intimidating manoeuvres.
Quad’s efforts to bolster Maritime Domain Awareness through the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) received a new boost with a new Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific (MAITRI).
The Quad also seeks to complement ASEAN, the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
These trails of complementing measures in shoring up regional trust and confidence through disaster responses and providing security bulwarks through deterrence and focus on new threat settings such as cyber security and climate impact, are intended to extend the sustainability and acceptance rate of Quad in the region. This differs from Aukus or the Squad in their orientations of direct hard power deterrence and security alliance formation with operational and interoperability mode of functions.
The four Quad members are united not only by common threats, but by common intent of getting the economic and trade returns among themselves and in extending their version of the Indo Pacific stability and security in halting Beijing’s narration and coercion of regional players.
Having a diverse security and non security domains to leverage on, the Quad presents a more credible and trusted essence of actionable deterrence and second strike capacities, with more resilient substance ranging from undersea cable security to disaster response and humanitarian relief and upholding common political ideologies of democracy and freedom.
One of the flagship cooperation, the extended maritime domain awareness, differs from other normal conventional maritime interoperability capabilities, in a way which the Squad is not able or not geographically viable to do so.
The Indian Ocean remains the central geosecurity domain for Quad, with the Indian Navy using this as both a joint capacity enhancer and an extended maritime support from the US as the status quo maritime presence and the growing scales of Japan and Australia.
As India’s Foreign Minister Jaishankar put it, the overall strength is built on the overarching common binding string of democratic polities, pluralistic societies and market economies, providing a stabilising factor in a volatile world.
The Quad’s varied agendas might be seen as unclear to some, but the internal variety of members’ offerings and capabilities in different domains provide a resonance and alignment of interests and assurances which will provide a credible and resilient partner of choice to the region as compared to China or the package offered by any one individual single power in the Quad.
Binded by a single entity of cooperation, it can either present itself as a softener of Washington’s at times direct anti China rhetoric or it can also be seen as an amplifier of combined hard power lethality and deterrence in an added weight of power impact in both deterring conflicts or in winning one.
The Quad presents a distinct offering from the Squad
What the Squad lacks other than traditional hard power projection, the Quad makes up with its agility and flexibility in moulding responses, both in narratives and extended power projections.
For the Squad, an overt focus on traditional security suits them as each member has an existing mutual defence treaty with the US, and the mechanism is as such that it is to specifically counter Beijing’s threats in the East and South China Seas.
The Quad, meanwhile, is not a traditional military alliance, and contributes to the wider regional order. The level of support and interaction also holds volume, as the Quad includes both leaders’ and foreign ministers’ tracks, while the Squad so far is confined at the minister of defense-level.
As compared to the Squad which is primarily direct hard power and deterrence drive, the Quad has added layers of trust building and economic friendshoring efforts to complement its ultimate objective of consolidating both their own guardrails and extending new ones to non members.
The Quad is not only primarily driven by Washington’s sole quest for China containment alone, as widely seen or perceived. Japan, Australia and India each has its own wariness and insecurity with China, with equal if not more intent to check Beijing’s deepening encroachment to their economic and security survival.
Although New Delhi is distinct in its foreign policy approach as compared to other Quad members, it will want to remain ingrained in this platform in upholding regional rules based order and keeping China in check, while maintaining its own individual policy affiliation and personal leadership camaraderie with Moscow. The Quad serves to complete India’s security and economic interests.
India is concerned about the security interests of its immediate neighbourhood, including the Indian Ocean and the Malacca Strait and its land border with China. The Quad is seen primarily as supporting this gap and need of New Delhi.
However, it does create a long term overarching arc of stability for the region, and thus diminishing the expansion capacity of Beijing which will in turn boost India’s regional ambition that is mutually aligned with the Quad’s objective of a rules based and stable region.
The Quad can escape the scare and fear mongering tactics employed by others of terming it as another US led bloc warfare mentality, by enlarging the membership that will be based on both values and ideological adherence and foreign and economic policy responsibility and outlook.
Engaging with ASEAN seems to be a lost cause in the first place, as the latter will not want to diverge from its roots of centrality and non affiliation.
However, the Quad can continue to expand its soft power narrative by enhancing its soft approach through the promotion of democracy and freedom, which will add both credence and geopolitical weight to an expanded Quad both in its essence of principles and total security returns.
Collins Chong Yew KeatForeign Affairs, Strategy and Security Analyst, Universiti Malaya
