2023: The future of the QUAD in the Indo-Pacific
2023: THE FUTURE OF THE QUAD IN THE
INDO-PACIFIC
11 January 2023
As a reinvigorated Quad steps up its engagement, some observers have called for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to establish a permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific via a standing maritime force. But how viable is this idea?
9DASHLINE asks a select group of experts to assess the Quad’s regional engagement so far, and whether such a force would be desirable.
A SEDUCTIVE BUT UNLIKELY IDEA
BLAKE HERZINGER — NON-RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INISTITUTE.
The United States has been de-emphasising the military role of the Quad, instead choosing to focus on its purported achievements in vaccination, infrastructure, supply chains, technology, and climate. But its origins are in maritime security and it still has much to offer in that domain.
With that said, the Quad’s observable achievements and outputs are limited. Its recently-announced Maritime Domain Awareness initiative is promising and does meet a critical regional need, but it is too early to judge its effectiveness. Other efforts at regional engagement, such as the Quad vaccine partnership, have underperformed. All four Quad partners agree that a region dominated by Beijing is sub-optimal, but it remains difficult to coordinate national-level policies among the four to generate significant policy outcomes or effective results at the ground level.
Building a Quad standing maritime force is a compelling idea — on the surface. The success of other combined maritime task forces in European waters and around the Horn of Africa is seductive and has been mentioned in previous calls for a standing combined naval force in Asia. But the Quad is not a military alliance, which significantly complicates the question of naval forces operating together to counter China as its maritime forces engage in revisionist behaviour at sea. Even more critically, the four Quad countries lack a unified view of the Chinese threat. For India — the most significant outlier — the Chinese threat is most acute on its northeast land borders and in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi has little interest in operating against Beijing in the South or East China Seas.
Additionally, much of China’s revisionist activity is carried out by its coast guard or maritime militia vessels, which creates an undesirable asymmetry if the Quad attempts to counter their activities with grey-hulled naval vessels. This asymmetry would immediately be seized upon by Beijing and its proxies as ‘evidence’ that the Quad is militarising disputes in the region.
And finally, nobody has asked for such a task force. The successes of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 in the waters of the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa are often cited as a reason for creating such a task force in Asia. However, the waters plied by CTF 151 were generally either high seas and international waters or waters surrounding failed states unable to police their own water space. That is not the situation in Asia, where high seas are comparatively scarce and states are reasonably capable of enforcing good order at sea in their exclusive economic zones. While it might be emotionally satisfying to imagine the four states of the Quad facing down Chinese maritime forces in Asia, those states in whose waters the confrontation would take place are unlikely to be so sanguine about a Quad standing force’s attractiveness.
A COSTLY BUT VALUABLE PROPOSAL FOR AUSTRALIA
DR COREY LEE BELL — PROJECT AND RESEARCH OFFICER, AUSTRALIA-CHINA RELATIONS INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY
Australia is a remote island nation whose prosperity and economic security are heavily reliant on maritime trade. In line with these geographical and geoeconomic realities, it has a regional defence strategy which emphasises security, stability, and non-interference in the Pacific islands and archipelagos to its north, and, increasingly, the maritime routes which traverse them and also extend beyond them.
The problem for Australia is the vast mismatch between what history tells us Canberra needs to project power in the Pacific arc and secure its lines of maritime trade on the one hand, and its actual naval and air power capacities on the other. For a long time, Australia’s security has been underwritten by the unquestioned global supremacy of the US Navy. With the US now stretched by its global security role, and facing a rising China eyeing hegemony in the western Pacific and making massive investments in expanding its fleet, Canberra's ability to rely on this to serve Australia’s strategic needs may not be sustainable without some form of reciprocal contribution.
Retired US Admiral Gary Roughead’s proposal for the Quad to establish a standing maritime force based in the Indo-Pacific offers a way forward to close this capability gap and — to the extent that it echoes what the Pentagon and Washington are thinking — should be given serious consideration by Australian defence planners. While Australia’s current focus is on strengthening deterrence capabilities, history tells us that sea control is vital for securing an expansive maritime environment. On this front, such a force could potentially help Australia bridge its capability gap while making a more immediate US presence more sustainable. Shifting operational command into the region would also mean that Australia could gain some measure of control or at least input into the operations of such a force. Australia’s security concerns could find a more prominent place in the architecture of US defence planning. The downside is, of course, cost. With so many other pressing priorities, Australia would hope that it would not be required to invest in too many new platforms to get such an initiative off the ground.
INDIA WILL RESIST
DR SHARINEE L JAGTIANI — VISITING POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW, GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL AND AREA STUDIES, AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Representatives of India, Japan, the United States, and Australia are set to meet in New Delhi in early 2023 for the next Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. Leaders are expected to reinforce their commitment to a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’. Recent years have seen a steady and consistent institutionalisation of the Quad and we can expect this to continue (within limits) in 2023. The Quad now holds regular meetings and issues frequent joint statements. This is a marked transformation from five years ago when even informal meetings were treated with caution.
The Quad is an evident reaction to the rise of China, and the more Beijing asserts itself in the Indo-Pacific, the more likely the group will strengthen its consolidation. An interesting turn was the Quad's March 2022 meeting following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here, India stood out by resisting to directly condemn Russia, given its historical relations and dependencies. Despite differences, the joint statement emphasised the rule of law, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; peaceful settlement of disputes without threat or use of force; and, freedom of navigation and overflight. The leaders also noted that a situation like Ukraine should not be made possible in the Indo-Pacific, indirectly signalling New Delhi’s dissatisfaction with the war.
While many are hoping for the Quad to establish a permanent presence in the region in the form of a secretariat or maritime force, this is likely to intensify the security dilemma and raise the temperature in the region. India would certainly show signs of resistance given its long-standing concerns of provoking China. Arguably, while the deterioration of India-China relations has pushed New Delhi closer to the Quad, it manages a delicate and complicated act of challenging yet balancing China. Advances in security aside, the Quad will continue to have a non-traditional security focus, such as the Quad Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief meeting inaugurated in New Delhi in December 2022. This makes for a long-term and sustainable partnership but also serves the function of softening the tone of the grouping, which has often been regarded by China as an ‘Asian NATO’.
A BENEFICIAL OPTION FOR JAPAN
DR RYO HINATA-YAMAGUCHI — PROJECT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, RESEARCHER CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO, AND ADJUNCT FELLOW, PACIFIC FORUM
Last October, retired US Admiral Gary Roughead, a former US chief of naval operations, called for the Quad to “establish a standing Quad maritime force” in the Indo-Pacific. Certainly, such efforts would enhance the Quad’s ability to more effectively and efficiently coordinate its readiness to deter and counter China’s anti-status quo moves in the region. That said, establishing an effective and sustainable “Quad maritime force” would require aligning strategies and readiness which poses a myriad of challenges.
The reality is that despite much progress over the years, the Quad remains loosely structured and falls short of being an alliance, making it vulnerable to divergences in strategies and priorities. Rather, in the context of maritime security, the Quad is developing in the area of cooperation and coordination in non-traditional security as well as military operations other than war that focus on safety. Significant progress was seen at the Quad Leaders’ Meeting held in May 2022, where the four states agreed to the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness that would not only benefit the free and open Indo-Pacific but also smaller states and their operators in the region.
For Japan, a Quad standing force with greater reach would be of great benefit as a concerted effort against threats and vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific and by filling member states’ readiness gaps. Moreover, a Quad standing force could become an avenue for Japan to expand and deepen its security relations with like-minded states in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Going forward, if the Quad is to enhance its role in defence and for regional stability, the member states will need to bolster their strategic and operational frameworks and zoom in on questions regarding how to deal with the key hotspots such as the Taiwan Strait, Korean Peninsula, and the East and South China Seas. Moreover, the Quad should also expand to include other like-minded states such as selected ASEAN states, Canada, South Korea, as well as potentially Taiwan to become a more comprehensive security body that will be able to take substantive action for sustainable security in the Indo-Pacific.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/首相官邸.