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South Korea and Australia in space: Towards a strategic partnership

Space cooperation between Australian and South Korea remains stuck in its infancy and, to some extent, is treated as an end in itself. This report argues that the time is ripe for both Australia and South Korea to embark on joint projects and initiatives that would deliver tangible and practical outcomes for both countries.

For South Korea and Australia, space cooperation and space development serve as key pillars of the bilateral relationship. The two nations elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in December 2021, incorporating space development into core areas of cooperation in the fields of economics, innovation and technology. As a part of that elevation, the leaders of both countries agreed to strengthen joint research and cooperation between space research institutes and industries. Following that, in 2022, South Korea and Australia established a Space Policy Dialogue.

A greater bilateral focus on expanding the scope and opportunities for space cooperation could deliver foreign-policy, national-security, defence and economic outcomes for South Korea and Australia. This report argues that there are opportunities in the bilateral relationship to boost both space cooperation (the collaborative efforts between nations to leverage space advancements for mutual benefit and to foster diplomatic ties and intergovernmental collaboration) and space development (the advancement of space-related technologies, infrastructure and industries) and is pivotal in areas such as national security, economic growth and resource management.

This report first analyses the space development strategies of South Korea and Australia and examines the environmental factors that can increase the potential for cooperation. It then proposes areas where the two countries can combine their technologies and resources to maximise mutual benefits and offers eight policy recommendations to the governments of both countries.

Scott Pace, former Executive Secretary of the US National Space Council, has emphasised that ‘International space cooperation is not an end in itself, but a means of advancing national interests.’ The South Korea – Australia partnership aligns with that principle, and it’s time to realise the opportunity.

Indonesia in 2035: Climate risks to security in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific region is particularly exposed to climate impacts, and Indonesia, like many countries, will be severely affected by climate impacts in the decade to come. The effects of climate-amplified disasters, combined with the political, social and economic consequences of climate impacts originating from within and across the region, will strain Indonesia’s economic and national-security interests.

This report presents the findings of a narrative-driven scenario to stress-test Indonesia’s climate risks emerging by 2035. Its objective is to identify opportunities for Indonesia and its economic and strategic partners to prepare for and mitigate the risks.

While Australian policymakers have devoted significant attention to the existential risks that Pacific island countries face, Southeast Asian countries are also highly exposed and often face similar risks. Within Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s climate risks have received very limited attention despite its high exposure to climate hazards, its very large population (over 10 times larger than all Pacific island countries combined) which is densely concentrated in vulnerable coastal areas and small islands, and its history of political unrest associated with disruptions to food and energy security. It’s also one of the closest neighbouring countries to Australia. Figure 1 on page 5 provides a visual summary of the interacting hazards, risks and consequences highlighted in this report.

The population size of Southeast Asian countries and their often-close proximity to one another means that climate impacts in one country will often have consequences beyond their borders and for their neighbours across the region. Gaining a better understanding of how Indonesia, as the largest country in Southeast Asia, will be affected by climate developments is vital, given both the domestic and regional consequences.

Even below the ‘safe’ threshold of a 1.5°C rise in global average temperature—the aspirational target set in 2015 by the signatories to the Paris Agreement—countries around the world are already experiencing serious, record-setting, climate-driven disruptions on a large scale. The era of climate-induced disruption is clearly already upon us—and it will intensify rapidly.

Building resilience while preparing for future disruption requires an enhanced appreciation of climate risk that goes beyond adapting to more frequent and severe natural hazards, such as floods and fires.

Development-assistance and defence communities have embraced the importance of treating climate change as a threat to human, economic and traditional military security. The challenge is to build the capacity and tools to assess the broad suite of security-related risks of climate change—and to translate that information into measures to mitigate the risks. Understanding the complexity and uncertainty associated with climate trends is a daunting task, greatly complicated by the need to incorporate the many ways climate change affects social, political and economic systems.

The scenario developed in this report isn’t a prediction of the future, but rather a description of a possible future. It identifies many climate impacts, but suggests three primary pathways through which Indonesia may face compounding and destabilising climate disruptions:

  • Significant food insecurity from losses to domestic production due to shifting precipitation timing and extremes across the wet and dry seasons, heightened sensitivity to shocks in global food prices, and reduced government ability to absorb economic shocks, such as food-price hikes.
  • Large-scale coastal population displacement driven by Indonesia’s high coastal population density and the significant exposure of that population to sea-level rise and climate-induced coastal flooding.
  • Slowed economic growth from lost agricultural output, declining revenues from stranded fossil-fuel assets, rising disaster costs at home and abroad affecting economic infrastructure and supply chains, and rising challenges in responding to domestic crises driven by food insecurity and population displacements.

A major finding of this research is that, in little more than a decade, Indonesia is likely to experience major climate disruptions that also amplify climate and security risks in the region, resulting in a range of additional and cascading risks for Australia. A second overarching finding in the report is that Indonesia may be underestimating the likely scale of the climate risks and should devote greater attention to analysing them. It’s in Australia’s interests to do the same and, as a good neighbour, to coordinate an Australian whole-of-government effort to support Indonesia to mitigate the risks, including cross-border risks.

National food security preparedness Green Paper

Australia’s agriculture sector and food system produce enough food to feed more than 70 million people worldwide. The system is one of the world’s least subsidised food systems. It has prospered under a global rules-based system influenced by Western liberal values, but it now faces chronic challenges due to rising geopolitical tensions, geo-economic transitions, climate change, deteriorating water security and rapid technological advances. The world is changing so rapidly that the assumptions, policy approaches and economic frameworks that have traditionally supported Australia’s food security are no longer fit for purpose. Potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific is driving enhanced preparedness activity in Australia’s defence force, but that isn’t being replicated across the agriculture sector and food system in a coordinated manner. Food hasn’t featured as a priority in the public versions of the Defence Strategic Review or the National Defence Strategy. This has created a gap in Australia’s preparedness activities: if Australia’s national security and defence organisations are preparing for potential conflict, then Australia’s agriculture sector and food system stakeholders should also be preparing for this period of strategic uncertainty.

Food security is a pillar of whole-of-nation preparedness for an uncertain future. While current targeted preparedness efforts and resilience mechanisms are valuable, they aren’t sufficient. Stakeholders are calling for stronger, proactive national coordination from the government to empower and support private-sector action. Meeting that demand is essential to strengthening overall resilience. So, too, is understanding that Australia’s food security relies on a holistic and interconnected ecosystem rather than a fragmented supply chain. Australia is a heavily trade-exposed nation that exports 70% of production, so any disruption to maritime and other transport corridors or to the infrastructure needed to move food risks undermining both national food security and Australia’s standing as a reliable global supplier.

This work has been written and constructed as a Green Paper, not an academic publication. Informed by six months of consultations with government, the private sector and civil society, the paper combines applied policy analysis and real-world insights to promote deliberate conversation about protecting Australia’s food security with the same priority as protecting Australia’s national security. The Green Paper is divided into four parts. It also includes three case studies in the Appendix, which use a threat and risk assessment to analyse three critical inputs to the food security ecosystem—phosphate, glyphosate and digital connectivity—to help stakeholders evaluate the vulnerabilities in Australia’s food security ecosystem.

The intention of this Green Paper is to deepen understanding of food security as a key public policy issue, stimulate public discussion, inform policymaking and provide both government and key stakeholders with policy options for consideration. This Green Paper’s 14 recommended policy options have been designed to equip governments and the private sector with structured national-security-inspired assessment tools and a framework to continuously identify, prioritise and mitigate vulnerabilities. That includes options to centralise the coordination and decentralise delivery of preparedness activities, establish accountability and embed food security as a national security priority and a key element of Australia’s engagement across the Indo-Pacific.

Pressure points: China’s air and maritime coercion

Pressure Points Website

New research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveals a range of nations are increasingly willing to challenge China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea than they were previously.

The analysis, detailed in Pressure points—a world first online resource tracking the activity and behaviour of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the South China Sea and beyond.

The website highlights almost a dozen recent incidents of unsafe military behaviour by China against countries including the United States, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, the Netherlands and others, and finds these unsafe incidents have ramped up in recent years, after first beginning in 2021.

The research also analyses the Chinese military’s use of air and maritime coercion to enforce Beijing’s excessive claims and advance China’s security and defence interests in the Indo-Pacific.

As outlined on the website, the PLA employs a variety of risky and dangerous tactics to try to deter others from operating in areas of the South China Sea and East China Sea, including through the release of flares, the use of lasers, sonar bursts and other dangerous manoeuvres.

Through a detailed examination of which countries do or don’t use their military forces to challenge China’s excessive claims, the research also finds that not all countries are regularly publicising the challenges they are engaged in.

While the US, Canada, France and the United Kingdom regularly publicise their challenges, Australia, Japan and New Zealand are among the countries that do not.

The project also provides governments, as well as regional and global militaries, with policy recommendations to help push back against China’s ambitions to reshape the regional order.

These focus on enhancing transparency through regular public statements to reinforce the importance of their military actions, building and strengthening networks between like-minded countries and demonstrating perseverance.

This new ASPI project fills an information gap regarding the PLA’s regional activity, and through greater data-driven transparency the project aims to deepen and inform public discourse on important defence and security issues.

It provides the public with a reliable and accurate account of the PLA’s regional activity by highlighting and analysing open-source data, military imagery and satellite footage and official statements. Future expansions of the work will occur in 2025-26.

Chief defence scientist: We must get emerging technologies into the hands of our war fighters faster

For chief defence scientist Tanya Monro, the concept of ‘minimum viable capability’ is critical to shifting Australia’s thinking on how to get cutting edge technologies into the hands of military personnel fast enough to give them an advantage on the battlefield.

Professor Monro believes a major mindset change is needed to develop new capabilities much more quickly. ‘Our thinking about a capability needs to be how can the war fighter use it, not in some ideal situation in 10 years when a piece of equipment or a platform is perfect, but in three months, in six months?’ That provides the clarity and the inspiration needed for the R&D community to know what they need to get after.

Last year’s defence strategic review (DSR) provided the scaffolding for a different approach to defence capability, says Monro. ‘It clearly articulates the priorities for innovation and science and technology. I think key leaders understood and knew of great examples in the past where some scientific breakthrough would mean a capability leap, but I don’t think they had a way of thinking about it systematically. That’s a significant shift.’

Monro says the DSR’s identification of innovation as one of six priorities, and that being followed up with substantial resources and a shift of intent through the creation of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) is a critical development. There’s also a conceptual shift that includes an acceptance of the idea that introducing a minimum viable capability now is better than waiting 10 years until it’s perfect.

‘The shift that I believe we’re driving through the system—as a clear response to the DSR—is from trying to develop technologies that Defence says need to be developed, to solving problems that Defence decides are the highest-priority problems. And that’s a profound shift.’

The Defence, Science and Group (DSTG), which Monro heads, is key to making that work. ‘We’ve been headed down this path through our STaR Shots, but now it’s clear that we get the best out of the whole Australian system by harnessing creativity and ingenuity, and respecting industry enough to tell them what problems we’re trying to solve, creating a mechanism by which we can bring good responses into Defence solutions.

‘That’s profound because historically Defence would go out and look for technologies without providing that partnered pathway that allows industry to understand what Defence needs and develop their capabilities accordingly.’

The idea that Defence takes war fighters’ needs and comes up with an exquisitely detailed specification for industry to respond to, will not work in the fast-moving modern military environment, she says. Defence must go hand in hand with companies to help them develop what they need to do that work.

That will involve an acceptance of risk that projects may not succeed, Monro says.

‘Giving frontline personnel an asymmetrical advantage will sometimes mean working on a concept before we fully understand what it will do, how and how fast it can be developed and precisely how it will be combined with existing equipment when it’s deployed in a conflict,’ she says.

‘We also we need to harness the ingenuity of our smart, young men and women in uniform and I think that, historically, we’ve struggled with how to unlock that potential.’

‘The challenge is to do all of this before the best way to develop and use those technologies is necessarily fully understood. ‘You can have all the best scientists with the best ideas in the world working collaboratively, and until you can put them in a military context alongside those war fighters the concepts of operations and employment won’t be well developed from a war fighter perspective.’

Working closely with military personnel to Identify the key characteristics of a capability they need can provide the clarity and inspiration the research and development community, and defence manufacturers, require to create a ‘minimum viable’ version, Monro says.

‘And it provides tangibility so that if reduced warning time of a possible conflict means we have to give the government choices, we have a fighting chance of using some of the things this nation can do.‘

Monro’s a physicist and she says there’s a culture change at the science end too. ‘You don’t want your scientists beavering away until they think there’s no more to do, because then they’ll never finish.’

She was recently made a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the first Australian woman to be recognised with that award.

Monro says budget and resource constraints are such that it can no longer be a matter of replacing like for like and introducing new. ‘We need to be a bit cleverer’.

Her goal is to change the culture of Defence’s scientists to consider what is the biggest difference each can make in all stages of the process. ‘To me, we’re not using our science enterprise well if the primary role we play is reducing risk of acquisition.’

Monro is officially the ‘owner’ of technical risk in Defence. ‘One way to deal with technical risk is to make decision makers aware of it. But you can also come up with ways of doing R&D which mitigate that risk. That can sometimes lead to significant benefits.’

She wants to focus on what needs to be done differently to get the right results quickly. ‘When I look across the whole Defence enterprise, not just the department but I include the department, they’re tackling hard problems, whether its workforce or platforms or resources. I see it as our role as scientists to create different, unexpected ways of making a better future for them. I guess I’ve seen my own mindset shift to be one of, how do we get more creative about supporting the whole enterprise so we can deal with the difficult trade-offs that are required.’

A good example is how uncrewed systems can remove men and women from the most dirty, dangerous, and difficult situations. ‘It allows us to experiment a bit more with this concept of minimum viable because you’ve not got a person inside a capability. You can take more risks than you would if you actually had people under the seas, for example.’

Planning to provide the ADF with uncrewed aerial systems was ASCA’s first major innovation challenge, says Monro.

ACSA asked Australian companies what they could contribute to a sovereign aerial drone capability—anything from a full system to relevant algorithm software or other components that would contribute to their manufacture and operation.

ADF chief, General Angus Campbell, commented in this context that the paradigm change was that in Afghanistan troops needed to look at the ground in search of improvised explosive devices, but Ukraine had demonstrated the need to watch the sky for drones.

Drones are highly relevant across all the services, Monro says. ‘To me this is a great example because they use relatively simple technology, and we got around 250 responses from Australian industry. We picked the best 11, put them in contract in December and we’re doing a sovereign drone fly-off shortly. We’ve essentially given resources to those best 11 companies to come and bring their wares and then, in a controlled environment with the war fighter, show us what they can do so that we can rapidly procure solutions.

‘To me that’s where the innovation, science, technology community comes together with the ADF to go after something really tangible where we might not know precisely every specification we would put out for procurement, but where we can together figure out what can be done now, and in the future.’

The Ghost Shark program is intended to provide the ADF with uncrewed vessels for the undersea environment. It’s a $140 million, dollar-for-dollar match of Defence and industry money, with about 40 companies in its supply chain. ‘It’s not an R&D project. It’s a prototyping program contracted to deliver three prototypes to Navy for use in exercises, says Monro.

‘DSTG folk are part of that integrated team with Navy, the SMEs and Anduril Australia. It uses, for example, sophisticated science that makes submarines quiet. This cross fertilisation of deep expertise in this next generation of defence technology is a different way of working.’

Monro says it’s about starting out with a shared understanding of the problem, having a commitment to deliver something to personnel in the short to medium term and having a partnered approach where risk in genuinely shared. ‘It’s not just about funding industry to do something, it’s about them putting skin in the game and accepting risk. And having an expectation that if you deliver and it meets a priority there’ll be an acquisition path. That’s going beyond the world of science and tech and prototyping, into reform of our acquisition system,’ she says.

‘To me, applying your best science and your best innovators, your engineers to a tangible problem that your military says is important, means you implicitly and explicitly get their buy-in to use it. You get it on exercise, you get it on trials, and you insert it.’

A key area of strength for Australia is hypersonics, with the goal of enabling craft to travel at more than five times the speed of sound. In 2022, establishment of the Eagle Farm hypersonics precinct was announced to bring together a critical mass of industry, defence science, and military personnel engaged in flight testing.

Monro says the research is vital so that Australia understands how to deal with hypersonic weapons if they are every deployed against it. But for Australia to develop the capability would also give our government additional deterrence options ‘that might discourage an adversary from ever considering that today’s the day’.

Governing AI in the global disorder

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that finding consensus on anything in the international system is difficult at the best of times, let alone in this age of geopolitical fracture, ideological contest and ‘permacrisis.’

Yet the United Nations General Assembly took a historic step in March by unanimously adopting the world’s first-ever UN resolution on artificial intelligence.

Proposed by the United States, and co-sponsored by more than 120 nations, including China, the resolution focused on AI safety and the development of ‘safe, secure, and trustworthy’ AI in line with the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The resolution reportedly took months of diplomacy by the US and, while not legally binding, represents a crucial first step toward fostering some kind of global cooperation on responsible AI development.

Indeed, in response to the rapid recent advances, AI is at the top of the UN agenda.

Last year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened a new High Level Advisory Board on AI to provide urgent recommendations on international AI governance. The board’s work will feed into the negotiations on the UN Pact for the Future and the accompanying Global Digital Compact, which will be announced at the UN’s Summit of the Future in September this year. Together these will set out the international community’s approach to challenges arising from AI and other digital technologies.

Last July, the UN Security Council also held its first formal meeting on AI to discuss its implications on international peace and security. Guterres has backed calls from some countries and tech figures to establish a global AI treaty or new UN body to govern AI. The Secretary-General has also encouraged nations to engage in multilateral processes around the military applications of AI and to agree on global frameworks for the governance of AI.

This momentum builds on a number of UN processes and forums that have been considering how best to govern and regulate AI as far back as 2013.

Yet multilateralism has been in crisis now for many years—and even more so as the world becomes dangerously unstable and increasingly fragmented. With AI increasingly affecting our economies, societies, communications and security, the debates on how to govern AI go to the heart of the ideological competition that is reshaping the global order.

To get around the growing fragmentation among nations—coupled with the UN’s challenges in establishing quick and effective governance mechanisms at the best of times—there’s a rise in minilateral and other initiatives on AI as nations race to ensure rules on AI reflect their own values and interests.

Democracies are particularly keen to set the rules for AI. The UK’s AI Safety Summit in November was the first global initiative that brought together governments, leading AI companies, civil society groups, and research experts to deliberate on the risks and potential benefits of AI. One of the summit’s noteworthy outcomes was the Bletchley Declaration, a joint statement endorsed by 28 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, the European Union and even China. The declaration affirmed AI developers’ responsibility for ensuring the safety and security of their systems, committed to international co-operation in AI safety research, and called for the establishment of common principles for AI development and deployment. Follow-up summits will be held in South Korea and France later this year.

This builds on other work that democracies are doing to get out in front and shape global AI governance. G7 leaders released the International Guiding Principles on Artificial Intelligence and a voluntary Code of Conduct for AI developers in October, marking the culmination of the G7 Hiroshima AI Process. The Quad released its own principles on AI in 2024. Meanwhile the European Union’s AI Act—officially endorsed by the EU Parliament a few weeks ago—will establish the world’s first comprehensive framework for regulating AI development and use, focusing on risk assessment, human rights and transparency.

While democracies use these minilateral and multistakeholder initiatives to chart a course towards responsible and ethical AI governance, China is also advancing its own vision of AI governance—one that prioritises government control over individual rights—through its Global AI Governance Initiative (GAIGI).

Launched by President Xi Jinping last October—and still in its early stages—it’s clear the GAIGI represents China’s efforts to shape the global AI landscape in line with its own political and ideological interests. It shows an obvious intent to promote this system as an alternative to US or Western-supported AI governance frameworks.

Yet while Western counties and likeminded democracies are focused on writing the rules of the road for AI, China is also building the road itself by exporting Chinese-made AI eco-systems around the world. ASPI’s Mapping China’s Tech Giants research has shown how China’s Digital Silk Road has served as an important vehicle for exporting Chinese technology, standards and digital authoritarianism to other nations. This is the same with AI. With Chinese AI technology dominating markets around the world, Chinese AI governance frameworks become the default on the ground.

In a way this highlights the challenges of establishing unified global AI governance frameworks in a fragmenting world.

With nations gravitating towards AI governance models that align with their existing political and social systems, we are likely to see an increasingly fragmented global AI landscape emerge, with different regions and blocs adhering to distinct rules and norms. The free and open internet is already under strain, and AI has the potential to turbocharge this fragmentation. This poses significant risks, potentially hindering international cooperation, exacerbating existing geopolitical tensions, and creating barriers to innovation – let alone the impact on human rights and freedoms in different parts of the world.

This is why, despite the UN’s inherent challenges, multilateral efforts such as last month’s General Assembly resolution to govern AI remain essential. The UN, with its inclusive platform that brings together diverse voices from governments, civil society, academia, and the tech industry, provides a unique forum for global dialogue on AI governance. While the UN may not ever be able to mandate a single global AI governance framework, it can play a crucial role in setting minimum standards, fostering consensus on core principles and facilitating interoperability between different technological blocs, ensuring that AI is developed and deployed responsibly for the benefit of everyone.

This is more important than ever, and last month’s resolution is a good start.

India in the Quad: insider or outlier?

The Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics, was held from 21 to 23 February this year, and discussions on and around the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) took centre stage. Indian Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar summed up his opening remarks at the inaugural Raisina Quad Think Tank Forum, stating ‘The Quad is here to stay. The Quad is here to grow. The Quad is here to contribute.’ However, India’s commitment to double down on its ties with Russia, coupled with the potential impact of Japan’s new security bill on India–Japan relations, raises concerns over India’s suitability and reliability as a partner within the Quad alliance.

The Quad is a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the US initially formed in 2004 to provide humanitarian relief and disaster assistance after the Indian Ocean tsunami. In 2017, the focus shifted to the Indo-Pacific region to counter China’s growing assertiveness there. Over the years, the Quad has formed multiple working groups. While member nations have progressed bilaterally and trilaterally, substantial collective progress is missing. Security cooperation between the four members looks more like a symptom of regional instability than a solution.

The Quad essentially suffers from the drawbacks of minilaterals. Minilaterals are voluntary, non-binding and consensus-based, and, therefore, while the motivation to shape policies and actions is present, they lack effective implementation mechanisms. Minilaterals are issue-specific partnerships with shared interests and security concerns, as is the Quad, but the national interests and priorities of individual countries might take precedence, resulting in poor execution efforts. India’s relations with Russia could be a classic example of national interests being embedded in strategic decisions.

Even though India has historically trodden the path of non-alignment, rising geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region have made it imperative for India, as a key player and middle power, to actively participate in alliances in counterbalancing China’s growing assertiveness. Consequently, India claims to have shifted to a multi-aligned strategy by playing a moderating part in the Quad, the G7, the G20, the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The State of Southeast Asia 2023 survey shows India’s improved standing as a trusted partner in the region: it jumped from the bottom to third place when its approval rating doubled from 5.1% in 2022 to 11.3% in 2023. However, it’s crucial to evaluate India’s evolving foreign policy, given its challenges in upholding international law, as seen in its responses to events such as the Russia–Ukraine conflict and the Myanmar coup in 2021.

What might possibly explain India’s current approach? India’s porous borders have presented a longstanding and significant security concern for the country. Sharing borders with six countries (Pakistan, China, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh), India faces a diverse range of threats, from armed infiltrations to insurgency and smuggling activities. The 2020 Galwan clash and continuing Myanmar border challenges underscore the need for ongoing vigilance and decisive action. Strengthening border infrastructure is therefore a top security priority, shaping diplomatic and strategic ties. For instance, following the Galwan clash, India expanded its security cooperation, inviting Australia to join the US–India–Japan Malabar exercise for the first time since 2007. This could also explain India’s longstanding ‘Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership’ with Russia. India–Russia relations were initially bolstered after the Soviet Union helped to mediate a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in their 1965 war. Ever since, India has relied on first the Soviet Union and then Russia for its military equipment, and, while India aims to diversify its defence procurement, reducing dependency on Russia might not be an option. At Raisina, Minister S Jaishankar advocated for strengthening ties with Russia, stating ‘It makes sense to give Russia multiple options’ and arguing that shutting doors to Russia could push it closer to China—a scenario undesirable for regional stability.

Looking ahead, shifts in the political landscape and the policies of member nations could add to the Quad’s challenges, amplifying doubts about India’s role in the alliance.

First, amid uncertainties over political leadership changes in Quad countries, including the possibility of a second Trump administration in Washington, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is probably well positioned for a third term. Modi’s re-election would mean a continuation and even a doubling down of India’s current approach to foreign policy matters and alliances, including the Quad.

Second, Japan’s new security bill could have indirect implications for India’s suitability as a Quad partner. Recently, Japan’s cabinet extended support to the Security Clearance Bill. When it’s enacted, the bill will certify the government’s and the private sector’s handling of sensitive economic information, including data on critical infrastructure, advanced chips and cybersecurity. The bill is expected to bolster Japan’s national security and promote further international collaboration.

The passage of the bill also stands to strengthen Japan’s ties with its Quad partners, particularly the US and Australia, by enhancing its credibility as a partner and facilitating greater information sharing. However, that may inadvertently strain relations between Japan and India, moving Japan closer to the other Quad partners and positioning India as an outlier and limiting India’s ability to cooperate, share intel and build trust with the partners. India, unlike Japan and Australia, is not an ally of the US and emphasises its strategic autonomy. India–Japan relations were initially strained when the main promoter of this bilateral relationship, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe, was assassinated in 2022. Coupled with differences in policy approaches to the Ukraine–Russia war, that affected bilateral security cooperation, especially when India refused to land transport planes of the Japan Self Defence Force to carry UN stocks to support Ukraine. Nevertheless, India is still considered to be an important partner for Japan, as underscored at the recent Raisina roundtable held in Tokyo, where both the nations agreed to ‘step up‘ economic and security ties.

What could be a few possible ways to improve the effectiveness of the Quad?

One possible way could be to adopt a hybrid structure, keeping the ad hoc and flexible nature of minilaterals but having a governing body bounded by some legal framework to guide the implementation process and hold member nations accountable for progress. The governing body could consist of a rotating chair and secretariat selected from the member nations. Under each chair’s term, certain deliverables could be laid out as goals. At the end of the term, the member nations could organise a sitting to discuss successes and challenges.

Another mechanism could be to narrow the scale and scope of projects being undertaken by the Quad. That would allow countries to prioritise their most important issue while scoping out the feasibility and funds for the solution.

Finally, improving India’s credibility within the Quad could involve strict information-sharing protocols, including adopting standardised formats for exchanging information.

Adopting such measures will help build a framework that allows all member nations, including India, to contribute more effectively.