What does the future hold for the Quad?

Patrick Gerard Buchan and Benjamin Rimland of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies have released a briefing looking at the past, present and future of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

As part of this brief, the CSIS Alliances and American Leadership Program performed an informal “temperature taking” survey of policy elites in the Quad nations to gauge possible steps forward. The survey results inform several achievable policy proposals to help continue the momentum of the Quad in the years to come.

Origins

The foundations of the Quad can be found in the response of the four nations, Australia, India, Japan, and the US, to the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. The four nations created the "tsunami core group" to become a new network in the face of an emerging challenge, bringing together the four nations best equipped to swiftly mobilise tsunami aid. Although the aid and recovery effort was eventually wound down, this grouping became the impetus for the nations to collaborate as a whole in addressing regional issues.

It wasn't until 2006 when the template gained a further ideological component, this came when Abe Shinzo proposed an "arc of freedom and prosperity". He envisioned a network of states linked to Japanese diplomatic efforts to promote freedom and the rule of law. Then-foreign minister Aso Taro also paid significant attention to the democratic, free-market nature of the future Quad.

The bounds of the Quad grouping began when Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh announced in a joint statement that both countries were eager to begin a dialogue with other “like-minded countries in the Asia-Pacific region” to address themes of “mutual interest”. This was joined by interest from then US vice president Dick Chaney after consulting prime minister John Howard. Howard and Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee soon travelled to Tokyo to reaffirm the momentum for the dialogue group. Aso and Abe’s respective April visits to India and Washington sealed the deal for the first quadrilateral meeting.

The first meeting was convened parallel to the ASEAN Regional Forum, when the informal grouping met to discuss areas of common interest to the dialogue partners, including disaster relief. Late September saw the only military exercise associated with the first Quad, an enlarged version of the US-India Malabar series. This exercise, the second Malabar of 2007, featured the four navies, together with the Singaporean navy, exercising in the Bay of Bengal.

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Although the grouping was now co-operating further, a lack of a clear objective led to it begging to loose focus.

"Signs of the grouping’s fragility had been clear for months. Outside the dialogue, China had intensified a campaign against the Quad, filing official demarches with each of the four countries. The Republic of Korea, America’s major Pacific ally not affiliated with the Quad, had also expressed its hesitation about the grouping and was unwilling to be forced to choose between the United States, its security ally, and China, its growing economic partner," write Buchan and Rimland in their brief.

"The lack of specificity about the Quad’s purpose and objectives gave critics room to seize on the most radical speculation: that the Quad would soon turn into an Asian NATO or otherwise evolve into a security alliance. Mounting Chinese pressure lead (sic) to reticence among Australia, India, and the United States to formalise the dialogue. Indeed, officials of the four countries soon began to distance the dialogue from any sort of security concerns."

Australia decided that the Quad did not suit its strategic outlook and announced that it would not seek to participate in the Quad dialogue in January 2008 and as such the Quad in its first iteration broke apart due to a lack of consensus of the issues facing the region.

QUAD 2.0

The development of so-called “mini-lateral” networks continued among the Quad nations despite the break up of the Quad's first iteration and provided momentum for the establishment of Quad 2.0. In particular, India and Japan emerged as the critical components of two different trilateral relationships, one involving Japan, India and the US, and another involving Japan, India and Australia.

The interests of the nations also began to become more aligned as Chinese coercion increased within the region around 2015. 

India found itself on the receiving end of direct military coercion by China, India also found itself blocked from membership in the nuclear suppliers group by China.

"Australia witnessed its relationship with China change dramatically from the halcyon days under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd," Buchan and Rimland wrote.

"... Japan also saw a significant uptick in coercive Chinese behavior in the time between Quad 1.0 and 2.0. With the nationalisation of the Senkaku islands in 2012, Japan saw vastly increased 'gray-zone' coercive behavior by China Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels...

"Chinese ships and aircraft began to pass through the Miyako strait on their way to the western Pacific, a fact that underlined that the Chinese military viewed Japan’s south-western islands as a barrier to open ocean access."

With the stage set by increased lateral relationship building and a further strategic alignment, The momentum came to a head in October 2017 with then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson and Japanese Foreign Minister Kono Taro proposing a resumption of the quadrilateral dialogue format.

During the Manila ASEAN Summit representatives from the four countries met to discuss a wide variety of issues, including the denuclearisation of North Korea, support for the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” concept, and the promotion of a rules-based system in the Indo-Pacific region.

In the nearly two years since the initial meeting of the revived Quad in November 2017, the meetings have continued at the “senior official” level on a biennial basis. The most recent meeting as of this writing, in November 2019, marked the resumption of senior official-level meetings after the first ministerial-level meeting in September 2019.

As with Quad 1.0, China has officially protested Quad 2.0 claiming it's a veiled attempt at containment. Editorials in state-run Chinese media have regularly lambasted the grouping as a threat to not simply China’s own ascent to power but also traditional diplomatic touchstones such as ASEAN centrality; further criticism can also be readily found attacking the Quad nations for insufficient care regarding the infrastructure needs of south-east Asian nations.

Mission and purpose ambiguity has diluted many of the criticisms aimed at the Quad, as well as the fact that no official working groups stem from the quad, with other major co-ordination done on the bilateral or trilateral level.

CSIS Survey

With the Quad on considerably firmer ground than before, the question of the group’s trajectory comes into focus. To obtain a better idea of the group’s possible trajectory, the CSIS Alliances and American Leadership Program surveyed a small number of strategic elites in each of the four nations.

Their methodology states:

"The chief motivation for this research project was to take an informal survey of the opinions of 'strategic elites' on the present status and possible future direction of the Quad. The research team identified 20 strategic elites from each of the four Quad nations who would serve as respondents. We emphasise that the small size of the survey, and the relative informality of its design, means that the project does not represent broad-based popular opinion but rather 'takes the temperature' of select policymakers and thinkers in each nation.

"In undertaking this project, the research team created a Google survey with eight total questions. Respondents were asked to answer four questions by selecting from one (strongly oppose) to five (strongly support); the other four questions asked respondents to briefly enter a qualitative response describing their reaction to the question asked."

Below are the findings for each question:

• Question 1: To what extent would you support a standing annual meeting of the heads of government of the four Quad partners (including regular ministerial level sessions)?

"Respondents were generally in favor of a standing annual meeting of the heads of government of the four Quad partners with regular ministerial-level sessions to supplement the head of government meetings. Nearly 80 per cent of the Indian and Japanese strategic elites, 100 per cent of the US strategic elites, and 100 per cent of the Australian strategic elites surveyed responded positively to the idea of an annual heads of government meeting.

"While the logistics of organising a standalone summit among the heads of government of the four nations may be difficult, the result demonstrates a willingness among some strategic elites of the four nations to accept a more vocal Chinese criticism for the sake of tighter policy co-ordination."

• Question 2: To what extent would you support the creation of a permanent Quad secretariat, with chairmanship rotating every three years among the members?

"Unsurprisingly, reactions to the notional institutionalisation of the Quad were more mixed. Responses from strategic elites from all four nations were far more mixed than for Question 1. Given the significant diplomatic lift involved in establishing a new secretariat, some respondents were particularly skeptical. As one respondent wrote: 'I don’t see this as a worthy effort, absent a significant shift in regional security perceptions (like a limited armed clash).'

"The mixed results on Quad institutionalisation dovetail with the fears noted in Huong Le Thu’s survey of south-east Asian attitudes toward the Quad, which reports a fear of dilution of already-existing institutions such as ASEAN and the EAS".

• Question 3: To what extent would you support the creation of a standing military task force comprised of the four members under the direction of a joint command?

"There was a disparity between Indian and American strategic elites on this question. Given India’s continued reliance on non-US equipment for major weapons systems, as well as the continued influence of the non-aligned strategy in Indian strategic thinking, negative results from Indian respondents were predictable. As the most militarily integrated of the Quad nations, Australia, the United States, and Japan would undoubtedly serve as the backbone of any such task force – three powerful navies standing astride China’s important sea lanes. Skeptical strategic elites in our survey expressed concern that any such effort could 'provoke China into more aggression,' as one respondent put it."

• Question 4: To what extent would you support the Quad undertaking a coordinating role in regional economic and developmental assistance, including loans, technical development, and human rights promotion throughout the Indo-Pacific?

"As a 'softer' initiative compared to the creation of a standing military task force or the standing up of a Quad secretariat, the research team was unsurprised to see greater support for a Quad role in co-ordinating economic development and human rights promotion policies in the Indo-Pacific. Just as with the military domain, Quad members already co-operate on joint infrastructure development projects in the Indo-Pacific region, such as a recently announced initiative among Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United States to build out the electrical grid on Papua New Guinea."

Buchan and Rimlands recommendations

 Buchan and Rimland present Four recommendations from the survey findings:

• Establish working groups on defence and infrastructure - Fleshing out the Quad from a biennial meeting at the senior official-level will require an agenda and contacts among lower-level officials. The establishment of working group meetings will go far toward laying the groundwork of the recommendations that follow below. 

• Develop an Indo-Pacific Infrastructure and Development Coordination working group - A working group on infrastructure stands out as the opportunity most ripe for Quad cooperation. Per the informal survey, strategic elites across the four nations noted that the Quad should play a role in “co-ordinating regional economic and developmental assistance”. 

• Establish an Annual Head of Government meeting - The 2+2 working group format will be useful in laying the groundwork for an annual or biennial head of government meeting among the Quad nations. Given the already packed schedule of all of the heads of government, scheduling a further, separate summit meeting purely for the Quad would likely be impossible. Instead, adding a summit meeting on the margins of an annual summit like the East Asia Summit or the G-20 would be a more realistic means of accomplishing this goal. 

• Pursue an annual meeting of joint operational commands and encouragement of exchanges - any Quad project involving the military will prompt concern in some members that the initiative is taking too sharp of an anti-China focus. But there is no need for a meeting of operational commands to concern itself simply with high-end warfighting. As the Quad’s origins in the Tsunami Core Group indicate, the provision of public goods is written into the group’s DNA. Strategic elites across the Quad nations have demonstrated interest in pursuing a Quad role in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR). Other contemporary work on a possible future role for the Quad further indicates that HA/DR could be a useful starting point to build out a military dialogue.

Moving forward and your thoughts

Despite the stuttering start of the initial rendering of the Quad group, it appears that Quad 2.0 after a decade of increased ties and the ongoing building of relationships as well as the context of Chinese coercion is tighter than ever. With the aid of further in-depth discussion and the implementations of the recommendations in the brief cited could ensure that a more cohesive focus moving forward may be achieved and and even tighter bond between the participating countries.

The brief from the CSIS concludes: "The true test will come when the parties in each nation that oversaw the restoration of the Quad fall out of power. Just as the Australian Labor party sank the first Quad, so too could a change in power from one government to another sink Quad 2.0. Developing the Quad further to maintain a joint message, with real-world outcomes that are clear to ally and adversary alike, will be crucial to maintaining the Quad as a pillar of stability in the Indo-Pacific region."

Let us know your thoughts on the Quadrilateral Security dialogue and the way forward below in the comments section or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.