Context
Recently, a new four-way security arrangement to launch SQUAD in the Indo-Pacific was institutionalized.
- The Defense Ministers of the USA met his counterparts from Australia, Philippines and Japan to launch the ‘Squad’ to outline their collective vision for peace, stability, and deterrence in the region.
Minilaterals:
- They typically involve three to nine countries collaborating in an informal setting to address specific and common challenges faced by these countries.
- Features: Mini laterals are task-oriented, exclusive, and more conducive to reaching consensus. Their informal nature also makes them more agile and adaptable
- According to a recent Perth USAsia Centre report, Australia already belongs to more than 20 minilateral groupings
- Notable Examples:
- Indo Pacific Region: They are the favored form of security cooperation with the emergence of Quad and AUKUS
- China headed: China heads the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism in East Asia
- Southeast Asia: The Malacca Strait Patrols between Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
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The Squad
- It is a quadrilateral grouping comprising the 4 Indo Pacific Nations of USA, Australia, Philippines and Japan
- Security ‘mini-lateral’ groupings in the Indo-Pacific: The SQUAD has become the recent addition to the series of such mini-lateral security groups in the Indo Pacific region.
- Example: Quad, Aukus, the US-Philippines-Japan trilateral and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral.
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- Prime Objective: The objective is to deepen the level of integration amongst themselves and counter the hegemonic tendencies of China in militarizing the South China Sea threatening the rules-based order of the Indo-Pacific.
- Origin: The idea of an informal grouping of the 4 nations in an effort to enhance their strategic collaboration in the South China Sea has been on the table since 2023.
- 2023: The Defense chiefs of all four countries met for the first time on the sidelines of the Shangri La security dialogue in Singapore.
- Collaboration:
- April 2024: The USA, Japan, the Philippines and Australia conducted their first-ever multilateral maritime exercise in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
- Each of these countries shares a bilateral treaty alliance with the USA but the Philippines, Japan and Australia are not treaty allies at present.
- Existing collaboration: The Philippines is currently negotiating a reciprocal access agreement (RAA) with Japan to enhance troop deployments between both countries complementing the existing Visiting Forces of Agreement (VFA) with the US and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Australia.
- Significance:
- Capacity Building: The 4 nations will bring together a wide range of resources and capabilities with Australia and Japan providing substantial naval and defense resources and Philippines’ with its marine capabilities.
- Role of the Philippines: Philippines will play the central role with respect to its strategic location in Southeast Asia, and has positioned itself as the Squad’s fulcrum.
- The Philippines has been propelled into a central role in the broader US strategy of “integrated deterrence” in the region.
- Indo Pacific Security: The alliance plans to enhance military interoperability, conduct additional joint patrols and drills, and improve intelligence and maritime security cooperation in the region.
- Encourage Strategic Convergence: The Squad, AUKUS, and QUAD are important components of a new security architecture fostering cooperation on a variety of security and defense challenges, by bringing together states with complementary capabilities and objectives.
- Example: The External Affairs Minister (EAM) of India visited the Philippines in the background of heightened tensions between the Philippines and Chinese naval forces.
- Connect with Regional Players: These informal coalitions aim to connect with a wider range of regional players e.g. ASEAN, improving communication and convergence supplementing current international frameworks, rather than being exclusive.
About the Indo-Pacific: Differing Perceptions
- For the USA: it extends up to the west coast of India which is also the geographic boundary of the US Indo-Pacific command
- For India: It includes the entire Indian Ocean and the western Pacific as highlighted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his keynote speech at the Shangri La Dialogue in 2018.
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May 23, 2024