Quad, AUKUS, and now Squad: How multiple groupings are dissipating US' effort against China

There have been an increased number of groupings on the geopolitical landscape, apparently with the common aim of ensuring rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific in general and in the South China Sea (SCS) in particular. China has been making multiple attempts to seek avoidable conflicts from multiple nations on one pretext or another in its effort to become the singular world leader.

As opposed to becoming one of the important poles, it is attempting to replace the main superpower of the world, the US. China has become emboldened due to its ‘no limit friendship’ with Russia and the emergence of a new axis in the form of Russia-China-North Korea-Iran, to name a few. This is substantiated by the fact that Putin has chosen to visit China as the first country in his current presidential tenure.

While the US and its allies, as the affected countries, have undertaken multiple measures on various counts, one of the options exercised includes the creation of strategic groupings to address the China challenge.

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The first such grouping emerged in the form of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). It includes four countries, namely the US, Japan, Australia, and India. The security connection of the US with Japan and Australia is well known, but the acceptance of India as part of this is a new strategic development. Quad, conceived by Shinzo Abe; Japan came into being first in 2007 but got real traction post-2020 despite having been revived in 2017. This active revival also coincided with the Chinese transgression in eastern Ladakh in April–May 2020 against India.

Despite India not being affected as much in the South China and East China Seas as compared to some of the other nations, this Chinese transgression into eastern Ladakh probably became a more compelling reason for India to be part of the Quad as compared to some other nations, as the sanctity of the land border is more important as compared to that of the maritime domain. Though coordination in the form of Malabar exercises as well as on other counts is underway, no formal securitisation of Quad has been done so far. It is a separate issue that Quad is also called Asian NATO by some defence analysts.

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It is strange that when Quad was growing very well, including multiple interactions between the leaders, another grouping in the form of AUKUS came up on September 21. This grouping had two members from Quad, viz., the US and Australia. The UK was the surprise addition, but India and Japan were the surprise omissions. If the role and charter of AUKUS are examined, inclusion of the UK is non-essential as it does not have any prominent ‘China challenge’ as compared to other nations. With the exclusion of India and Japan, AUKUS has no locus standi with primacy of motive to ensure rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific.

As if that were not enough, the US has come up with a new grouping called Squad, with the US, Australia, Japan, and the Philippines as its members. The US and Australia continue to be members of this third grouping as well, whereas Japan, a part of the Quad, that was left out in the AUKUS, has been included. Instead of India, the Philippines is the new entrant in this new grouping.

China is continuing to trouble multiple nations around the South and East China Seas, increasing its influence over India’s trusted neighbours, including weaning away from some of them totally towards it, like the Maldives, and checking the impact of the US and its Western allies despite multiple sanctions initiated against Chinese companies/nationals. In such a situation, what would be the cumulative impact of these three groupings on Chinese activities to checkmate its actions in the contested areas? Is the total sum of these three individual groupings greater, or is it reducing the impact and diluting the intent? A close analysis will reveal that this approach is defensive in nature at the moment.

NATO continued to enhance its membership, and each member further strengthened this security grouping. It has become so formidable that Russia feared for its security when Ukraine made efforts to join NATO. This became one of the most important underlying factors for the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is still ongoing.

Though NATO is a security organisation, Quad, AUKUS, and Squad have not been structured in that manner, but the larger aim remains the same. It would be more appropriate that these three organisations be merged to create a singular organisation wherein more nations affected adversely by Chinese actions can form part of this group. The new group may not be securitised on the lines of NATO in the initial stage, and security structures may continue on a bilateral basis; however, the scope of Malabar-like exercises should be extended to all such countries so as to have interoperability to work together in the future as and when such a need arises.

It is felt today that by creating multiple organisations like Quad, AUKUS, and Squad, effort will dissipate as it will not enhance the bandwidth of those nations, who propagate the concept of ‘rule-based order’ in the world, against China. The US, the lead country in all three groupings, needs to re-strategise them afresh with an increasing role for India.

The author is Director General of CENJOWS and Kargil war veteran. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.