The Indo Pacific and minilaterals

The first principle

The Indian and Pacific Oceans have become one strategic space because the trade, energy and navies that matter to Asia now move across both. When one power can no longer be balanced by a single alliance, states that share an interest but not every interest form small, purpose built groups around a task. India uses these minilaterals to secure a free and open sea, gain technology and build capacity, while keeping its strategic autonomy, which is why it joins groupings but not alliances.

The core

The Indo Pacific idea

• Confluence of the Two Seas (2007). Shinzo Abe, then Prime Minister of Japan, told India's Parliament in August 2007 that the Pacific and Indian Oceans were coming together as "a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity", which gave the idea its first clear statement and placed India at its centre.
• Adoption by the United States (2018). In May 2018 the United States (US) renamed its Pacific Command as the Indo Pacific Command, a sign that it now treated the Indian Ocean and India as part of one theatre with the western Pacific.
• India's definition (2018). At the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore in June 2018, Prime Minister Modi described the Indo Pacific as "free, open and inclusive", with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at its centre, and said India did not see it as a strategy or a club of limited members directed against any country.
• ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific (2019). ASEAN adopted its own outlook in June 2019, stressing dialogue, ASEAN centrality and cooperation in maritime affairs, connectivity and the Sustainable Development Goals, rather than rivalry.
• Indo Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI, 2019). India announced the IPOI at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2019 as an open, non treaty arrangement with seven pillars, each led by one or two partner countries.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)

• Origins. India, the United States, Japan and Australia first worked together as the Tsunami Core Group after the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and officials of the four met as a group in 2007. The Malabar exercise that year included all four, but China protested and Australia withdrew in 2008.
• Revival and upgrading. The four revived the dialogue at officials' level in Manila in November 2017, raised it to foreign ministers in 2019 and held the first leaders' summit, a virtual one, in March 2021; in person summits followed in Washington (2021), Tokyo (2022), Hiroshima (2023) and Wilmington (2024).
• What it now does. The leaders' agenda is mostly about public goods: the Quad Vaccine Partnership (2021), working groups on critical and emerging technology and on climate, a semiconductor supply chain initiative, infrastructure and cable connectivity, health and cancer care, disaster response, and maritime domain awareness.

Is the Quad an alliance or a trade bloc?

• Not a military alliance. It has no treaty, no secretariat, no mutual defence clause and no joint command, and India in particular has refused to give it a military character. The naval exercise Malabar, which Japan joined permanently in 2015 and Australia rejoined in 2020, runs alongside the Quad but is not formally part of it.
• Not a trade bloc either. It has no tariff preferences or free trade agreement; its economic work is about supply chains, standards and investment in infrastructure, so the better description is a flexible grouping of democracies that supplies public goods while balancing China quietly.

Dimensions

• Security. The Indo Pacific frame lets India treat its western Indian Ocean interests and its stake in the South China Sea as one, and the Quad gives it partners for surveillance, logistics and exercises without the obligations of an alliance.
• Economic. Around half of global trade passes through these waters, and minilaterals such as the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, launched in April 2021 by India, Japan and Australia, aim to cut dependence on any single country for critical inputs.
• Technological. Groupings give India access to technology it cannot easily buy, such as satellite data, semiconductors and secure undersea cables, and the Quad's technology principles promote trusted vendors.
• Diplomatic. Minilaterals let India work with different partners on different tasks: France and Australia in the Indian Ocean, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel in West Asia, Japan and the United States in the Pacific.
• Why minilaterals rise. The United Nations (UN) Security Council and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are often deadlocked, no single alliance can balance China, and tasks such as vaccines or satellite data need a few capable partners rather than a hundred and ninety members. Small groups without treaties also suit India, since they bring capability without the obligations of an alliance.
• Normative. India stresses the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982), freedom of navigation and peaceful settlement of disputes, which puts the rules, rather than any country, at the centre of its case.

In practice

Indo Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA)

• What it is. Launched at the Tokyo Quad summit in May 2022, IPMDA buys commercial satellite data, including radio frequency signals, to track "dark" ships that switch off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) to fish illegally, smuggle or evade sanctions. The data is shared free with partner countries through regional centres: the Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region (IFC IOR) at Gurugram, set up by the Indian Navy in 2018, the centre in Singapore, and Pacific bodies in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
• How it bridges SAGAR and the Quad. SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), announced in Mauritius in March 2015 and widened in March 2025 as MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), casts India as the first responder and capacity builder for small littoral states. IPMDA turns that bilateral vision into a collective service, since the Quad pays for the data, India's fusion centre distributes it, and island states such as Mauritius, Seychelles and the Maldives receive a picture of their own Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) they could never build alone.
• Its limits. The picture is only as useful as the coast guards that act on it, and many small states lack the ships to respond; coverage is uneven across the Indian Ocean; some states fear the data feeds great power rivalry; and India must balance the Quad brand with its own preference to appear as a neighbour, not an ally of anyone.

AUKUS and I2U2

• AUKUS (September 2021). Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the US agreed to help Australia acquire conventionally armed, nuclear powered submarines (Pillar I) and to cooperate on advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, hypersonics and undersea systems (Pillar II). It cost France an earlier submarine contract with Australia and drew criticism on nuclear non proliferation grounds.
• Will AUKUS supersede the Quad? It is unlikely, because the two do different jobs: AUKUS is a defence technology pact among treaty allies, while the Quad is a non military grouping supplying public goods. India's response was that AUKUS is neither relevant to the Quad nor will it affect its functioning; for India it adds deterrence in the Pacific without asking India to join an alliance.
• I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, United States). Formed at a foreign ministers' meeting in October 2021, it held its first leaders' summit, a virtual one, in July 2022, with six areas: water, energy, transport, space, health and food security. Its first projects were UAE investment in integrated food parks in India and a hybrid renewable energy project in Gujarat.
• How I2U2 changes India's position. It lets India deal with West Asia through economics and technology rather than through the old lens of Pakistan or the Arab Israel conflict, and links Gulf capital, Israeli technology, American finance and Indian scale and markets, an approach carried further by the India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced at the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in New Delhi in September 2023.

Other minilaterals

• Trilaterals. India works with Japan and the United States (leaders first met as a trio in 2018), with France and Australia in the Indian Ocean, and with France and the UAE, each built around a narrower agenda than the Quad.
• Indo Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF, 2022). Launched by the United States in Tokyo in May 2022 and now with fourteen members, it has four pillars: trade, supply chains, clean economy and fair economy. India joined three but stayed out of the trade pillar because of concerns over binding commitments on labour, environment and digital trade.

Issues and way forward

• Dependence on United States politics. Minilaterals led by Washington rise and fall with its priorities, as shown by the Quad's lapse after 2008, so India should keep building parallel groups with Japan, Australia, France and ASEAN that do not depend on one capital.
• China's reading. Beijing calls the Quad an "Asian NATO", likening it to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and India manages this by keeping the Quad non military, by continuing dialogue with China and by stressing inclusiveness and ASEAN centrality.
• Delivery gap. Announcements have outpaced projects, especially in infrastructure; a small standing support unit and fewer, funded flagship projects would build credibility with smaller states.
• Western Indian Ocean. Most Quad activity is in the Pacific, while India's direct interests are in the Indian Ocean, so India should use IPMDA, the IPOI and its fusion centre to pull attention westward.

Common confusions

• Indo Pacific and Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific was centred on the Pacific Rim and largely left India out; Indo Pacific joins the two oceans and places India inside the region.
• Quad and Malabar. The Quad is a diplomatic grouping of governments; Malabar is a naval exercise among the same four navies that predates the revived Quad.
• SAGAR and IPOI. SAGAR is India's vision for its maritime neighbourhood; the IPOI is a framework of seven pillars open to any country across the wider Indo Pacific.
• IPEF and a free trade agreement. IPEF offers no tariff cuts or market access, so it is a rule setting framework, not a free trade agreement.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: Confluence of the Two Seas, free open and inclusive, ASEAN centrality, Indo Pacific Oceans Initiative, Quad, public goods, Malabar, IPMDA, dark shipping, IFC IOR, SAGAR, AUKUS, I2U2, minilateralism, strategic autonomy.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "Since the first Quad leaders' summit in March 2021, the four countries held leaders' summits every year up to 2024 and built working groups on vaccines, technology, climate and maritime awareness, not on joint defence."
  • Introduction with a quote: "At the Shangri La Dialogue in 2018, India described the Indo Pacific as free, open and inclusive, a region and not a club directed against any country."
  • Conclusion: "Minilaterals let India combine partners task by task, gaining capability without surrendering the strategic autonomy that alliances would demand."
  • Conclusion: "IPMDA shows the model at its best, with the Quad supplying the data and India supplying the regional trust that turns it into security for small states."