QUAD May Announce Expansion of Maritime Pact to Indian Ocean: White House
By R Anil Kumar
The US-India bilateral partnership is increasingly concerned with Indo-Pacific security, which is reflected in the outcomes of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent state visit to the United States. The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is a key strategic and economic theatre in this region that is often overlooked by the United States but remains a high priority for India in its efforts to bolster regional security. India is the dominant player in the Indian Ocean, but its capacities are still limited. Moreover, it has historically had a more passive approach to security in the IOR. However, acutely conscious of the looming threat from China and the positioning of the Indo-Pacific as the next big theater of competition
Washington, September 21. The QUAD summit has plans to expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness initiative from South East Asia to the Indian Ocean Region, the White House said Friday, September 20. The QUAD leadership summit begins Saturday, September 21, in Wilmington, Delaware, with participation of the four member states — India, US, Japan, and Australia.
The maritime initiative which seeks to keep a check on illegal activities on seas was first launched at the QUAD Leaders Summit in Tokyo two years ago.
A formal announcement about the expansion will be made in Wilmington on September 21, a senior administration official has said.
Besides the expansion, the partnership will now include “new sophisticated technologies to improve the maritime domain picture”, as well as new training programmes, the official said.
Another senior administration official said the expansion of the IPMDA to the Indian Ocean “provides opportunities, not just for Australia to coordinate with us in the Pacific, but also with India to coordinate more with a lot of our partners in the Indian Ocean region.”
“We are also going to be launching as part of our new quad development, increased work together on logistics cooperation. The advent of the QUAD was responding to humanitarian disasters.
“All of our countries have a lot of capacity when it comes to logistics, in the air, at the sea, to respond to these kinds of disasters. We are really pleased that we’re going to be piloting this next year with some new work that will allow us to work more closely in this space,” the official said.
Responding to a question, the official expressed confidence in the QUAD countries’ long term future as like-minded democracies.
“We are, of course, four leading democracies and political change is baked into the cake,” the Official said.
US President Joe Biden will host Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan for the fourth in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit on Saturday, September 21.
