Grand Strategy | The Quad four and their four dilemmas
Quad is a unique and promising initiative but is beset with several fundamental dilemmas. Its members must address them to maintain better unity of purpose
Quad is a unique minilateral initiative in one of the world’s strategically most consequential regions, the Indo-Pacific. Among other things, its uniqueness is a product of two specific factors. For one, without any pre-designed grand vision, the four-nation grouping - consisting of India, Japan, the United States and Australia - appears to evolve its objectives organically with remarkable agility and creativity. Two, while it refuses to openly acknowledge its primary target, China, it seeks to create conditions to dissuade Beijing’s aggressive behaviour. Quad, unlike traditional military strategies such as deterrence and defence, works on the logic of non-military dissuasion. It works to create conditions that shape Beijing’s perception of the non-military costs and consequences of its aggression towards Quad members. Unlike deterrence, there is no assured retaliation; and unlike defence, Quad makes no promise to defend its members.
The recently concluded Quad foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo too exhibited these tendencies. But what stands out about the Quad, including in the Tokyo meeting, are the four fundamental dilemmas that the Quad faces.
Dilemma regarding agenda
One of the striking things about the Quad is that its work plan is crowded with far too many items. Consider the following statement from the Tokyo joint statement: “Through the Quad, we are supporting the region through practical cooperation on challenges such as maritime security, critical and emerging technologies, cyber security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, health security, climate change, counterterrorism, infrastructure and connectivity, and addressing the debt crisis through sustainable, transparent and fair lending and financing practices.”
It is not impossible to understand the rationale behind this expansive agenda: the region needs public goods more than traditional security given the state of development in the Indo-Pacific region where the Quad is active. Considering that the global institutions have failed to provide public goods and global governance, minilaterals such as the Quad need to step in. But here’s the Quad’s dilemma: A narrow military agenda may be too sensitive and confrontational for many of the region’s middle and smaller powers, while a limited public goods agenda may be too little to be useful for anyone.
Therefore, a huge public goods agenda with little military component appears to be a compromise to deal with the dilemma regarding its plan of action. But this approach is also not without its problems: It may become too crowded, promise too much and deliver too little.
The China dilemma
The second fundamental dilemma that the Quad faces is in dealing with the China question. This is particularly noteworthy considering that the quad, at its core, is a dissuasion strategy designed for China. And yet, China is conspicuously absent from all Quad documentation except for some indirect mentions. This is the closest that Quad is willing to go in terms of talking about China: “We are seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.”
Quad’s decision to pussyfoot around the China challenge highlights its second dilemma. Naming China as an aggressor might attract an unwanted outcome, China’s ire; however, not naming China, on the other hand, could suggest that the Quad Four lack the courage to stand up to China’s aggression. The compromise chosen by the Quad Four appears to be an indirect castigation of China which it might not object to considering that the Quad’s wording can be open to interpretation. While it is perhaps the best available strategy, it still runs the risk of the Quad giving out the message that it is indirectly following the redlines set by Beijing.
The militarisation dilemma
There have been calls for militarising the Quad. However, the quad member states have unequivocally and repeatedly stated that it is neither a military alliance nor an initiative intended to create military outcomes, even though the four quad members are also the four participants in the Malabar exercises. In 2023, Secretary of State Blinken, for instance, clarified that “This is not a military grouping, it's not that kind of alliance”.
Here's the Quad’s dilemma. If the quad goes military, it is bound to trigger strong responses from China. However, if the quad members don’t address the larger security context, it will over time help China given its continuing rise in the broader region. The compromise seems to be to address security issues indirectly. Some of the issues in this approach are the Promotion of maritime domain awareness in the region, highlighting illegal fishing (primarily by China), emphasizing international law, rule-based international order, free and open Indo-Pacific, and freedom of navigation, among others.
The problem with this compromise is that if indeed one of the quad partners faces a military eventuality, the other quad partners will not be able to do much through this particular platform. In that sense, the Quad may, after all, only be a partnership during good times.
The democracy dilemma
Quad’s fourth dilemma pertains to one of its foundational claims: the coming together of four democracies to provide public goods to the region. The quad faces multiple democracy-related dilemmas. For one, while the Quad repeatedly underscores that it is bound by democratic principles, it functions as a top-down regional public goods provider with little quad plus mechanisms or regional platforms for consultations and consensus-building with like-minded states. As a matter of fact, several aspirants are keen on joining the Quad in a Quad Plus format, but the Quad Four wants to function as an elite and exclusive club, for good or bad.
While the Quad is far more democratic than the BRI, it may not come across as truly democratic unless it creates mechanisms for more consensus-building in the region and other transparency measures, something the Quad partners individually accuse China’s BRI of lacking by design.
Secondly, its focus on ‘democracy’ may need to undergo compromises especially when dealing with states with less-than-perfect democratic systems, and under the influence of China. Put differently, if the objective is to check China in the region by providing an alternative to China in the region, the Quad would have to think beyond democracy as an organising principle of its regional engagement.
Yet another problem with foregrounding democracy in Quad’s philosophy is that such philosophical underpinnings could become doctrinal. For instance, if certain Quad partners seek to achieve geopolitical outcomes using the ‘democracies vs non-democracies’ logic, it could lead to disharmony within the Quad. For the moment, however, none of these fears have crystalized primarily because democracy, for the Quad, is still a rallying cry rather than the basis of collective action.
Quad is a unique and promising initiative but is beset with several fundamental dilemmas. Its members must, therefore, address them to maintain better unity of purpose and effective regional engagement.
Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and is the founder of the Council for Strategic and Defence Research, a New Delhi-based think tank. The views expressed are personal
Continue reading with HT Premium Subscription
