Are the US and India on the Same Page When It Comes to the Quad?

Recent conflicting statements by the Indian foreign minister and a U.S. deputy secretary of state provide little clarity about common future perceptions of the grouping.

Increasingly, nothing seems to agitate the Indian strategic imagination more than the U.S.-Australia-Japan-India «quad.» Every mention of the moniker – and especially by U.S. government officials – is analyzed and, on occasion, amplified by the Indian social as well as traditional media. Speaking at the U.S. India Business Council’s India Ideas Summit, Jaishankar was clear where India stood when it came to the alliance system, noting «I think the U.S. really has to learn to work … with a more multipolar world, with more plurilateral arrangements, go beyond alliances with which really it has grown up over the last two generations.» In fact, Jaishankar has repeatedly downplayed the importance of the quad, calling it one of the many issue-based coalitions India is part of. While India has not participated in a U.S.-Australia-Japan initiative that seeks to address the problem of infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific , it very recently became part of a trilateral dialogue with Australia and Japan around supply-chain resilience.

This article was written by Abhijnan Rej

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