Balaji Chandramohan
New Delhi, August 20, 2023
Editor’s Note: This article sits well with the news that members countries of Quad (the United States of America, Australia, Japan and India) are conducting the Malabar Exercise off Sydney from August 16 to August 21, 2023 and that INS Kolkata and INS Sahyadri, the two indigenously built ships of the Indian Navy will visit Auckland later this month.
The Malabar Exercise, for the first time being held off the Australian coast, serves as the most obvious example of the Quad countries’ growing mutual trust, military interoperability, and collective response to ensure the stability and security in the Indo-Pacific, where anxiety is growing over China’s rise and military assertiveness.
Unlike other drills, this Malabar Exercise has more depth and is a significant advancement in the Quad’s strengthening in the wider Indo-Pacific region.
The Exercise in Perspective
The Malabar Exercise, now in its 27th iteration, was first carried out in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between the Indian Navy and the US Navy. Australia rejoined the Quad in November 2020 for the first time since 2007, while Japan joined as a regular participant in 2015.
Australia was forced to leave this crucial Quad strategy after China’s protests about the first Quad Malabar Exercise.
It is obvious that Australia’s backdown from the Exercise and India’s subsequent resistance to allowing it to resume the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was caused by their deteriorating relations with China during the Covid-19 outbreak, as evidenced by the deadly conflict in Galwan Valley on the Indo-China border and China’s sanctions on Australian exports.
In the past, most of the drills took place in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Ocean off the coast of India and Japan, which has been a hotspot for the Indo-Chinese competition.
The drill is a decent atonement for the last-minute postponement of the Quad Summit Meeting in Sydney. More than that, the setting and the simple fact that Australia is taking part are significant. Despite Australia’s troubled involvement in the Malabar Exercise, the ongoing Exercise shows that the Quad countries are capable of cooperating and have the credibility to do so given the drill’s periodicity and sophistication.
China’s worrying behaviour
Despite all the diplomatic steps to mend the ties with China, China’s growing and assertive footprints in the waters close to the regional periphery of Australia have been concerning.
The Exercise Malabar off the Australian coast helps the Quad Navies to develop a better-coordinated response to counter the Chinese naval actions in coastal Southeast Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean. Australia’s growing focus on enhancing defence capabilities through bilateral and multilateral collaboration in recent years as well as the latest 2023 Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), Joint Australia-US Military Exercise, and the 2023 Talisman Sabre exercise involving 13 nations’ navies including Australia, the US, Japan and South Korea widen the door for actual cooperation in the Quad defence.
Considering that ‘inviting like-minded partners to participate’ is mentioned in the joint statement that was released following the latest AUSMIN, it is possible that in the future, countries like India and Japan, which have already been invited to join US-Australia force posture initiatives, will send aircraft to participate in joint maritime surveillance operations from Australian air bases.
These new developments will only make the Quad stronger.
The India-Australia equation
In this context, Australia’s engagement with India on the defence and security fronts is visible in the joint naval drills, maritime patrol aircraft visits to one another’s naval air stations for coordinated patrols and collaborative exercises as part of a new improved maritime surveillance strategy are noticeable development. India holds a significant and strategic position in the Quad for collective maritime surveillance operations.
The Quad military interoperability will be increased further by using the shared military infrastructure, strategic locations, and tactical capabilities, to implement a strategy of collective deterrence for maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific.
The joint military exercises, force posture efforts and coordinated military actions among the Quad and other like-minded nations in the region at bilateral and multilateral levels provide additional support for a collective defence strategy. These developments will give discreet but significant expression to the Quad naval cooperation outside of the Malabar Exercise.
A robust Indo-Pacific Strategy
The Quad continues to develop as a robust Indo-Pacific strategy. Successive summit meetings and the increasing sophistication of the Malabar Exercise demonstrate how the Quad has coagulated around a unified strategic reason, with mutual security objectives and balancing China’s intent of mastery of the Indo-Pacific region.
The intricate, sophisticated and strong defence relations between the Quad nations, at the bilateral and trilateral levels, demonstrate the Quad’s expanding power.
The latest Malabar Exercise, as well as everything else the Quad partners do jointly, sends a message that all four countries are dedicated and capable of upholding the fundamental principles of preserving a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific.
About Quad
The Quad was conceived in an August 2007 meeting in Manila, held on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), between the Prime Ministers of India, Japan, and Australia and the Vice-President of the United States.
It was widely perceived as a security forum to rein in the Chinese belligerence in the Indo-Pacific and re-establish a rule-based international order.
The following month, using the already existing Malabar exercise framework between the Indian and US Navies, a major naval drill was conducted between the navies of India, the US, Japan, and Australia, with Singapore participating as well.
The Chinese government responded angrily to Malabar in 2007 issuing diplomatic protests.
Australia quickly backtracked from the Quad and made its intention clear not to participate in future Malabar exercises.
Quad 1.0 thus quickly lost steam and wilted away. The US, India, and Japan eventually began to exercise trilaterally, in the absence of Australia until 2020.
The military alliance between US, India, Japan, and Australia can eventually develop as a Defence Alliance similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) with a subtle difference from the earlier proposed Quad 1.0 which was primarily a maritime exercise involving naval strategy.
Quad 2.0 is a politico-military strategy having a profound subset of maritime military strategy.
Balaji Chandramohan is Indian Newslink Correspondent based in New Delhi.
