Lisa Curtis, Kareen Hart, Ryan Claffey, Keerthi Martyn and Thomas Corel
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan is becoming the focal point for economic and technological cooperation in the Indo-Pacific as the competition between the United States and China intensifies and regional power dynamics continue to evolve. The Quad nations share democratic values and seek to advance an affirmative vision for the region that promotes an inclusive regional architecture and offers options for regional partners, which are charting their economic and security futures in the face of growing great power competition.
The second Trump administration is signaling its commitment to deepening Quad cooperation to counter China’s efforts to dominate the region and to ensure other countries in the region remain prosperous, peaceful, and free from coercion. However, the administration also has indicated that it wants to streamline the work of the Quad and whittle down its dozens of different working groups to focus on a handful of priorities. With the need to deliver tangible results, the administration is interested in maintaining fewer—yet more active—working groups that produce substantial outputs.1
While the Quad has made notable progress since it was revived nearly eight years ago, there is opportunity to expand and deepen its work to fulfill its promise of promoting a free, open, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. To achieve its goals moving forward, the Quad should:
Expand the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative via use of regional information fusion centers, particularly in the western Indian Ocean. The 2022 IPMDA initiative has been largely successful in providing a maritime common operating picture to track illegal activities, but coverage in the western Indian Ocean has remained sparse.2 The Quad should investigate expanding information-sharing agreements with the Seychelles’ Regional Fusion and Law Enforcement Center for Safety and Security at Sea and the Madagascar Regional Maritime Information Fusion Center to develop a better picture of the entire Indian Ocean.3
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