Washington, DC: If you can read a map you can understand India’s importance to the Quad—and vice versa.
The Chinese have no trouble in this regard. Beijing takes a look at the Indo-Pacific stretching from East Africa across the Indian Ocean and over to, say, USINDOPACOM headquarters in Honolulu. And it wants to control or dominate all of it.
And it might like its odds if it can take on the regional nations one-on-one. Beijing might think the Japanese won’t like it but they can be browbeaten into minding their own business. The Australians are too few and too far south. India is no pushover, but can be contained.
The American military is a problem, but maybe a receding one as the PLA’s capabilities and reach expand along with China’s commercial and political influence.
The US does have some friends, however, and this helps.
Beijing absolutely hates it when its potential victims get together to defend themselves. And the Quad is a big step beyond the bilateral security treaty alliances the US has with Japan, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea. A few of these alliances are either lukewarm, as with the Philippines and Thailand, or narrowly focused, as with South Korea.
The US-Japan defence alliance is the one that causes Beijing most concern, but it is focused on Northeast Asia. The Australians were keen for a “three-way” with the Americans and the Japanese, but that still left the Indian Ocean uncovered. So when the US, Japan, Australia, and India agreed to get serious about “the Quad” in 2017 that—and the potential for real defence cooperation between the four nations covering the entire Indo-Pacific—rattled the PRC.
It’s easy to grasp the benefits of—at least in theory—combining each nation’s military resources, coordinating operational activities and coverage, operating from each other’s bases, and sharing logistics and intelligence.
India’s involvement in the Quad also addressed an issue that nobody much wanted to consider: how to cover the Indian Ocean. It’s key terrain from a strategic and commercial perspective, as Beijing and Tokyo know better than anyone.
The United States hasn’t got the “bandwidth” of any sort—military, diplomatic, commercial—to hold its own in the Indian Ocean Region. Not while it’s hard pressed to cover the rest of the globe. Japan doesn’t either, and nor does Australia. The decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India to join the mix was indispensable.
And India’s local knowledge and intelligence coverage—not least of Chinese political warfare efforts throughout the region—are better than anyone else’s, by far.
THERE’S MORE TO QUAD THAN MILITARY
There is of course more to the Quad than just the military component. There is the economic aspect that is in fact just as important as the military. As a Quad member, India is even better positioned to help the US, Japan, and the rest of the free world get over its dependency on China for manufacturing, which in turn helps fund the PRC’s military build-up. Kicking this addiction is worth any number of F35s or attack submarines.
Indian companies also can play a key role in countering the Chinese commercial presence in most of the Indo-Pacific—especially the still developing parts—that serves as the front end of its political influence and eventual military inroads.
This bolsters a weak point for the other Quad countries. The US government frets that American companies need to get into the remote parts of the Pacific region. They are like coyotes howling at the moon, however. The Australians aren’t really a scalable option.
The Japanese are good on infrastructure projects and don’t mind going where the living is rough, but normally don’t do the at scale ground-level business development. Indian businesses know how to play this game and have been doing it for years, in the region, Africa, and worldwide. With a combination of US funding, Japanese skills, resources and networks, and a little imagination the Quad can get to work on the “economic” front.
THE POLITICAL
There will be limits to how far into the Pacific the Indian military can operate. It hasn’t got the resources, and has enough to do in the Indian Ocean. But its ships and aircraft operating east of Malacca also have outsized political effects. And the same goes in reverse as American, Japanese, and Australian forces pitch in with India. And India’s ties with Vietnam, Southeast Asian nations, and Pacific Island Countries are most welcome.
The Indians being more or less aligned with the three other countries on countering Chinese aggression will have an effect on certain countries that might be sceptical of the Americans and the Australians. India has a different cache.
This is no small thing with international organizations.
Another significant political advantage of India being in the Quad is “inter-quad” dynamics. As one example, India and Japan have a uniquely good relationship owing to historical reasons. This matters. It potentially brings Japan out of its shell defence-wise faster than otherwise the case. And Indian ties (including defence) with Japan undercut Beijing’s narrative that Japan is still tainted owing to its behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s.
