As the roadmap and scope of the two pillars of AUKUS are now clearly defined, near-term tangible outcomes can be expected to materialise from 2024 onwards.
The new Labor Party government in Australia is likely to show continuity on AUKUS and Quad initiatives in the Indo-Pacific, while policy approaches on Pacific Islands and China, as also on climate change, may get a re-look.
India and Australia need to take a leadership role in maritime security affairs in the two oceans and have deeper engagements with the Pacific and Indian Ocean island countries.
While the US, Japan and Australia have taken an overtly critical stand towards Russia at the UN, India has abstained from all the UN resolutions condemning Russia. Will divergent views over the Ukrainian crisis weaken the Quad, is a pertinent question being examined in this issue brief.
The recent Joint Statement issued after the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Melbourne indicates the grouping’s drive towards institutionalisation and coming close to achieving a concrete mandate for its existence.
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio gave a resolute call for pursuing “realism diplomacy for a new era” in his Diet deliberations. How strategically innovative and politically effective will it prove in pursuing Tokyo’s national interests in the US–China–Japan calculus?
