The “Quad,” short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue of India, Australia, Japan and the United States, recently held its first major summit to address mutual concerns about Beijing’s behaviour in the Indo-Pacific. The summit’s result could set the stage for a future mutual defence alliance, perhaps akin to NATO.
The Quad first met in 2004 to co-ordinate relief in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami in the Indonesian islands. The tsunami killed 200,000 people, mostly in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The Quad met again in 2007 and later that year, the group held joint military exercises with Singapore. After that, things went quiet until 2017, when the group was informally restarted by the Trump administration at the working level. It quickly expanded to the ministerial level of interaction and discussion and just a few weeks ago, held its first Quad Leaders’ Summit, opened by U.S. President Joe Biden.
The summit never mentioned China by name in its communiqué, but Beijing was “the dragon in the tent” and the group, while not yet a military alliance, certainly holds a mutual goal to restrain, deter and even moderate President Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive behaviour. Beijing bristled at the leaders’ summit, with the Chinese Communist Party’s daily tabloid Global Times writing, “While the U.S. is trying to contain China through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as Quad, or the ‘Asian NATO,’ such ambition is impossible to realize… and given the different demands, political and religious situations in the Indo-Pacific region, it is impractical for the U.S. to replicate the NATO model in Asia.”
Beijing has raised its hackles repeatedly over wording such as “Indo-Pacific,” which it sees as an attempt by the U.S. and its allies to draw India into the Pacific region in order to contain Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party prefers the term “Asia-Pacific,” which seemingly excludes India from the region. It has termed Indo-Pacific as a “headline-grabbing” idea and suggested it would “dissipate like sea foam.” Many Asia watchers are now asking the question, so what is the impact of the Quad on the future of Indo-Pacific security?
Clearly the Quad would likely not exist without China’s increasingly bellicose and aggressive behaviour throughout the region. The U.S., Australia and Japan have bilateral defence ties and a relationship with once non-aligned India, but there has been no formal military alliance to date. That could be changing. China has threatened Indian territory along the line of actual control between the two countries as recently as the last year using “salami tactics” (seizure of slices of land over time that doesn’t invite a war) in the Himalayas. Beijing has acted with aggression in the South China Sea in what it views as its sovereign internal waters although its ASEAN neighbours, the rest of the world and the International Court at the Hague see it as an international waterway and do not accept China’s claims to the region in its “nine dash line.”
China’s military test
Almost every day, Chinese fighter and bomber aircraft test Taiwan’s air defence zone, while the Chinese coast guard and People’s Liberation Army navy threaten Taiwan’s control of the Pratas Islands, the Philippines Thitu and Japan’s Senkaku Islands, all flashpoints in the South China Sea. Beijing’s new law allows its Coast Guard to fire on ships in what it claims, despite international opposition, as its territorial waters. In China’s view, the South China Sea has been viewed by its resistant neighbours as the basis for “grey zone” operations to seize further territory in the region. Australian demands for an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and its challenge to Beijing’s behaviour in Hong Kong and its treatment of its Turkic peoples in what many nations believe is genocide, has seen China lash out at Canberra in what amounts to economic warfare.
Some would argue that China’s aggressive behaviour, while not new, has just increased in frequency and intensity with the COVID-19 pandemic, the twilight years of the Trump administration and now the start of the Biden presidency. In December 2020, NATO member states gathered with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea to look at the future Asian security dynamic and how the alliance might pivot to the Pacific in NATO 2030: United for A New Era. The report had a section on China that warned, “The scale of Chinese power and global reach poses acute challenges to open and democratic societies, particularly because of that country’s trajectory to greater authoritarianism and an expansion of its territorial ambitions.”
Europe pivots firepower to the Pacific
Building on this NATO pivot or hurdle to the Indo-Pacific, Britain announced, in its just-released Defence Review, its concern about China and Britain’s intention to increase its engagement in the Western Pacific, notably with the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier battle group, including two destroyers, two frigates and a nuclear-powered attack submarine scheduled to transit the region this year. The Netherlands has said that it will send a warship along with the Queen Elizabeth battle group. Britain’s Integrated Review has called for permanent basing and docking facilities in the Far East for the first time since then-defence secretary Denis Healey announced its withdrawal 50 years ago “East of Suez” in 1968. The United Kingdom, which has docking facilities in Bahrain, is paying for a new dock in Oman that can accommodate its aircraft carriers and their escorts, and is looking at an increased presence in Singapore where it maintains a military dock, or Brunei, where it also maintains a jungle warfare training centre.
The French Tonnerre amphibious assault ship and a frigate were transiting the region this spring for a joint naval amphibious exercise with Japan and the U.S. in May before returning home for July 14 Bastille Day. Germany announced it would send a frigate into the South China Sea in August of this year in its first trip through the disputed region since 2002. Berlin is also in the process of joining an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan. In fact, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have all released strategy documents planning for a return to the region on a regular basis. HMCS Winnipeg transited the Taiwan Strait in January of this year, to the outrage of Beijing. Last year, Quad nations took part in a month-long joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, and this year Canada joined the Quad in an anti-submarine exercise around Guam as further pushback on Beijing.
The Indo-Pacific was once home to two Cold War Era (1946-1991) military alliances — Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) — both modelled on NATO. CENTO, originally called the Baghdad Pact, was a military alliance of the Cold War between 1955 and 1979 and included Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom. In a sense, CENTO was replaced as a regional security alliance by the smaller Gulf Cooperation Council in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1981.
Jordan and Morocco have shown an interest in joining the Gulf States in an alliance. It is important to note that the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco and Bahrain recognized Israel this year, building on intelligence relationships in the past decade or so, and on fear of Iran. Saudi Arabia is expected to follow suit on the death of Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Building on current and historic alliances
SEATO, or the Manila Pact, was made up of Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States between 1954 and 1977. Similarly, a regional economic and security organization called Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) emerged in the region of Southeast Asia in 1961, made up of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines and has expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. ASEAN Plus Three brought in China, Japan and South Korea. ASEAN Plus Six added Australia, New Zealand and India. Britain, France and Holland all have historic and former colonial ties to the Indo-Pacific region, and all maintain some presence. The United Kingdom remains part of the 1971 Five Power Defence Arrangements designed to protect Malaysia along with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
The United States routinely conducts a large annual military exercise with Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia, called Cobra Gold, and a biannual naval exercise called RIMPAC with past partners, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. Behind this backdrop of ASEAN and the Five Power Defence Arrangement is a virtual plethora of bilateral defence arrangements between the United States and its principal military allies in the region such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
This patchwork quilt of bilateral, multilateral military relationships, mutual national interests and the emergence of the Quad has left many observers to look at the prospect of alliance-building from the Middle East to the Indian Ocean region and the Indian Ocean to the Western Pacific region to contain China, Iran and, to a lesser extent, North Korea and Russia. It is that dare-to-dream moment for the United States and its closest allies and for those being bullied and harassed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea to build a new alliance or chain of alliances to bolster the Liberal rules-based world order against those that would destroy it or replace it with their own order. The formation, maintenance and use of alliances, in peace and war are difficult and challenging, to say the very least.
Successful alliances are among the hardest feats in peace and war, in the realm of grand strategy. Alliances are about more than a common threat and the lowest common denominator. A common threat is the basis for states “bandwagoning” together in an alliance, but for them to succeed in challenging times, let alone war, they must have other mutual interests in military, economic, cultural and scientific power and, in NATO, those additional interests have held the alliance together in good times and bad. Without question, an alliance focused on containing Iran in Southwest Asia and Russia and China would have to have more than mutual interest and a common threat. Just as an alliance in the Pacific geared to containing China and, to a lesser extent, Russia and North Korea, cannot be based on a military or economic threat alone, even though those are profound persuaders.
The fact that the Quad got all four national leaders to a summit that had never been held before — and in a time of pandemic — speaks louder than words. What was once the realm of officials and then foreign ministers has grown to heads of government and is likely to expand to defence ministers this year. The fact that the Quad branched out its security and economic discussions to include climate change, technology and vaccines against COVID-19 and providing them to Oceania has further rocked Beijing, which fears containment and an Asian NATO. The Chinese Communist Party had previously downplayed the Quad as a U.S. dream or an “exclusive club” of sorts, but the rapid maturity coming from the grouping, only revamped in 2017, is impressive. The move to challenge China’s own vaccine diplomacy throughout the globe with a Quad vaccine program was most unwelcome in Beijing. The fact that India is so key to the Quad is a telling sign of that country’s rise as a great power and a further challenge to China and the Chinese Communist Party’s hope to be Asia’s dominant power by 2027.
Answering nine key “wild card” questions
The United States, United Kingdom and France, when partnered with Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, would have incredible land, sea and nuclear power to constrain Iran and its proxies. If coupled with Indian power, it would be formidable, but these states have a spotty history of acting together and training together in a land, sea and air environment. The holding of joint exercises and success of integration would be key to establishing a deterrent stance. Similarly, the Quad, backed by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, parts of ASEAN and Chile would have impressive military power across the gamut of land, sea, air and nuclear power. And, when coupled with India, it would be that much more formidable in dealing with an aggressive China, and, secondarily, North Korea and Russia. But these nascent allies’ history of acting together in the Indo-Pacific has been largely in naval activity and much work must be done in other realms to put together a NATO-like alliance that restrains Russia in Europe and the North Atlantic.
There are many “wild cards” that could strengthen or weaken potential alliances:
• Can Turkey be brought back into the NATO fold, given it is fighting Russian forces in Libya, Syria and in the recent Azeri-Armenia war?
• Can Iraq be brought back from the brink of falling to Iranian-backed militias and Iranian military power?
• Pakistan has much in common with Saudi Arabia as a Sunni state with a Shia minority. Can it be enticed to leave China and join an alliance with Saudi Arabia, India and Israel?
• Is India, with its history in the non-aligned movement, prepared, as a U.S. and Quad ally, to do more than it has done to date? How divided is ASEAN between a superpower on the downward slope in terms of the United States, and China on the upward swing as a superpower and its No. 1 trading partner?
• Could choosing sides between the United States and China lead to civil war in different ASEAN states, particularly with sizable Muslim and Chinese populations?
• Will Taiwan, Japan and South Korea arm themselves with nuclear weapons and will Japan rewrite its pacifist post-Second World War (1939-1945) constitution?
• Will Japan and South Korea come together as allies crucial to Pacific security or move farther apart?
Even in the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada and New Zealand are the weak links in terms of Chinese pressure and appeasing Beijing and the Five Eyes may get new members in France, Germany, Japan and South Korea. While it is clear China and North Korea are military allies, it is less clear that their strategic partnerships with Russia and Iran are more than loose ones. Their ties are not necessarily alliances, as they have as many differences between them as potential United States allies arrayed against the twosome do.
Alliances are tough. They are tough to build, maintain and use as instruments of international power. But the Biden administration has the opportunity of a lifetime to build alliances in the post-Trump era to secure in the interests of the United States and its allies around the globe. This will not be easy and will require muscular diplomacy and commitment to building a new coalition to restrain the non-status-quo powers of the world. The news coming out of the Alaska summit and the insults hurtled back and forth between the United States and China are illustrative of a new level of great power competition, and, potentially, of conflict.
The fact that Biden was attacked personally by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Biden had previously labelled “a killer,” while the United States is trying to tell Beijing to back off, is a further example of a badly divided multi-polar world where new alliances are critical.
Joe Varner is the author of Canada’s Asia-Pacific Security Dilemma, a former director of policy to the minister of national defence and an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
