Editorial: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and India
The world order can never remain static and undergoes continuous changes. New organizations and institutions are formed that work towards achievement of a common goal. The last decade has seen rise of one such institution known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) comprising of India, Australia, Japan and the United States. The mechanism of Quad propounds for Free, Open and Rules based Indo-Pacific. Quad formation had its beginnings in joint efforts by navies of Japan, Australia, India and the United States arising out of international tragedy of tsunami of 2004.Quad’s origins can be traced to “Arc of Freedom and Prosperity” envisaged by Shinzo Abe former Prime Minister of Japan.Read More
Members of ‘QUAD Group’ should formalise their understanding into a Treaty AND as a consequence, India needs to have a fresh look at Foreign Policy?
QUAD, a brainchild of Japan’s Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe, initiated in 2007, was a non-starter for first 12 years, largely due to ‘meant no offence to any other country especially China, Russia’ in the Indian Ocean & Indo-Pacific Region. This goodwill gesture was partly out of the ground reality of over dependence on China for getting most of the products manufactured at lower cost, to which even US was not an exception. China’s export overdrive policies with red carpet treatment to many countries who made investments in China by setting up of world class factories, led to Current Account Surplus with China and accompanied by high FDI inflows, could help China build massive reserves which in turn were invested in other countries financial markets and infrastructure projects. The resultant situation created fertile ground for China to nurture her ambitious program, termed as “Grand Strategy”. Next logical step was to invest its resources in the economic development of other countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Africa in the combination of capital and high-cost loan. Over a period of time, China could wield increasing clout in the local policy making of many countries, which was a perfect step in its Grand Strategy Policies of becoming super power at least in Indian Ocean Region (IOR) & Indo-Pacific Region.Read More
QUAD: A Vital Framework for India’s Rise as a Global Power
The first summit (virtual) of the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and US on 12th March, 2021with the ‘Joint Statement’ titled as “The Spirit of the QUAD” has brought the QUAD to geopolitical limelight. It underscores their “commitment to quadrilateral cooperation” and “shared vision for the free and open Indo-pacific”. The leaders of the QUAD has shown a new enthusiasm in strengthening their cooperation in defining their shared challenges to promote a rule-based order based on rule of law, freedom of navigation, democratic values and territorial integrity. Besides, it also underlined the imperative of cooperation in such shared challenges like cyberspace, critical technology, counterterrorism, infrastructure investment and maritime security for a rule- based maritime order in the region. Read More
Quad and Information Highway: Securing India’s Interest
The quadrilateral security dialogue or quad first initiated in 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe comprising four maritime dependent democratic nations India, Japan, Australia and USA, all having common interest in the Indo-Pacific. The alliance which was more a strategic partnership went to dormant state for 10 years after Australia left the group till it expressed wish to rejoin in 2017 owing to shift in threat dimensions after technology showed its potential in shaping the geopolitics and social media in particular was able to fuel violence (Elsaesser, 2021)1, thereby becoming a factor in internal politics, economic development and also national security of a nation. Read More
Revenge of Geography and Asia: Understanding why China or any Asian Country Cannot Become a Superpower
It is well-recognized by the scholars, strategists, academicians, political leaders, and other stakeholders of global politics and international relations that geographical factors majorly impact the policies of the countries and in the comprehensive development of those regions as well. The key terms such as political geography, strategic geography, geo-strategy, geo-politics, and geoeconomics, etc. are signifying the major role of geographical factors in international strategic issues or international affairs. The geography of the regions and terrains have been thoroughly studied by military strategists to conduct a successful military operation in that region. In the same way, the geographic location of a country provides an utmost advantage to that country inorder to achieve national objectives in the international world order. On the other hand, some countries could not achieve those desired goals due to geographical disadvantage. In a simpler word, it can be named as the ‘revenge of geography'. The credit of the term ‘revenge of geography’ goes to ‘Robert B Kaplan’, he has used this word for the title of his book ‘The revenge of geography: what the maps tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate.’ Read More
QUAD: From Geo-Strategic Construct to Elastic Regional Architecture in Indo– Pacific
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also referred to as Quad, is a strategic consultation framework between the US, Australia, Japan and India. The Quad began nearly seventeen years ago with joint response to tangible and urgent crisis, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. For nine days in December 2004 and January 2005, the navies of United States, Japan, Australia and India provided rapid and effective relief to injured and displaced people all around Indian Ocean littoral (Grossman, 2005; Envall, 2015).Read More
India’s Role in the Turbulent South - China Sea
As China continues to recover from COVID- 19, the city where this deadly global pandemic originated is stepping up Ship production for military and commercial purposes. In Wuhan, a company called Wuchang Ship Ltd. was established 10 years ago on 3.3 sq. kms. Area. This factory in the central Chinese industrial hub has started turning out submarines, for Pakistan for military purposes. Thailand, incidentally, has postponed the order for two S-26 T submarines, barely having come out of the COVID-19 threat, China has again started posing serious security challenges, and being aggressive in South and East China Sea. In March itself, US and China Military aircrafts were spotted flying near Taiwan’s Airspace. US RC-135U combat was flown to combat the Chinese Posturing. Taiwan says, several Chinese J-11 Jet fighters, KJ-500 early warning aircrafts and H-6 bombers were monitored flying over waters south-west of Taiwan and then entering Bashi Channel near Taiwan and Philippines. Chinese aggression did not stop there, by mid- April, Chinese independently developed AG-600 large amphibious aircrafts, conducted test flights over SouthChina Sea, code named- Kunlong AG-600 is world’s largest amphibian Aircraft. PLA-N has also joined this exercise. Read More
India’s Space Engagement Within the Quad: An Assessment
Space, the Final Frontier, has become a key area for developmental cooperation within India’s international engagement. The benefits of space-based assets, in terms of services and as an attribute to the national power, have the potential to revolutionize nearly every facet of the society, from agriculture to resource extraction and from telecommunication to banking. Most of the states which fall under the category of great powers and emerging powers have acquired most of the space capabilities- from satellite manufacturing to the launch capabilities. They have been harnessing this potential and have benefitted greatly. Governments have acknowledged these benefits and enacted policies that facilitate access to space and a continued utilization of space-based services which provide national benefit. Given all four Indo-pacific powers i.e., the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, being space-faring nations and having mutual interest in ensuring the security and stability of the global commons, there’s wide scope for the Quad to explore opportunities in Space sector for taking forward the Spirit of Quad. This paper provides an assessment of existing space cooperation, from an Indian perspective and attempts to identify the prospects for space engagement within the Quad.Read More
The Quad and it’sTransmute: Coordinated-Cooperation, Convergent-Coalition, Capacitive-Compact
The constellation of liberal democracies situated across extended coordinates straddling the Indo-Pacific expanse, have convened in a manner that constitutes a mechanism, in fascinating organic evolution. Emanating from the inadvertence of adversity, steeped in cooperative functioning of respective navies, dispensing ameliorative succor and sustenance to marooned populaces lacerated by the 2004 tsunami; to the more recent diplomatically cultivated coalition, emphasizing and prioritizing ‘good order at sea’ in normative militating statecraft; through to the most recent echelon political commitment for synergised partnership at strategic capacitation; it’s the salutary and seminal progression of a construct, in pluralised beneficence. Security and growth are universalised strategic considerations; impulses, secularly at work, across preponderantly-ensconced, ascendant-rising, and glacially-emerging sovereign trajectories, alike. Yet, the environ of searing US-China geostrategic competition, forged amidst intensified strategic-enmeshing, within complexly-interdependent regional orders and the overarching global milieu, is mandating the crafting of axes of aggregation, viz., the contrived conjoin of Indian and Pacific ocean vectors into a composite, and disaggregation, i.e., the specific subset collectivisation of the quartet of sovereigns, in pursuance of navigating the angularities that stem from inevitable juxtaposition and twining, in same vein. It behoves sobering assessment that, the Quad concert of resident and extra-territorial Indo-Pacific states are grappling with the geopolitical quandaries and geo-economic dilemmas procreated by China’s formidable hegemonic rise and predatory dimensions of its burgeoning comprehensive national power. However, the dint of the Middle Kingdom’s initial hubristic derision of the Quad, as “sea-foam” destined for swift dissipation, mutating to whining refrain, that it represents a “small circle of group politics promoting selective multilateralism”, speaks as much to the potential traction of the quadrangular-setting’s elicit and exude, as to the rich ironies of Beijing’s averment. Read More
