India’s QUAD Meet and the Flawed Indo-Pacific Strategy?
Article by Debalina Ghoshal
The recent QUAD meeting was the eleventh QUAD Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in May 2026 with India, the United States, Japan and Australia. The QUAD is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to strengthen maritime security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region through cooperation. While the entire focus for the Minister of External Affairs (MEA), Shri S. Jaishankar, has been on strengthening resilience in the region to support trade and security-related activities, this article also aims to highlight that India’s Indo-Pacific strategy has become a lateral mode of strategy, resulting in flawed approaches from military leadership.
Amid the QUAD meeting, senior military leadership acknowledged scholarly merit from affiliations of Asia Pacific institutes, thereby signalling a confusing message to the regional security architecture. This done by the top echelons of military leadership clearly leaves a scope for bafflement regarding the discourse in the grand strategy of the Indo-Pacific security framework. Such gaps are not only visible in India’s policy-making but also visible in the United States, where credible policy-making organisations have affiliated themselves with organisations that cover Asia Pacific security and strategic imperatives.
There could be three reasons why India’s military is not willing to openly accept India’s Indo-Pacific strategy:
- China can only be contained, not countered.
- India’s military leadership is unwilling to call China its adversary.
- The United States is not a trusted partner.
India’s foreign policy in Indo-Pacific is determined to put India’s grand image in a regional framework that could bolster its pride and prestige. This is also well supported by India’s military preparedness, which focuses on a perfect offence-defence military balance. The grievous issue is the human resources in the Indian military who are unwilling to understand the consequences of their simple actions of acknowledging institutions and their affiliates, focusing on the Asia Pacific periphery.
The only assumption why India fails to acknowledge the Indo-Pacific stance in India’s military leadership could be a wider and broader ambition in exerting naval and maritime influence extending up to the Middle East and North Africa Region, the Arctic and the Antarctic regions.
For the past couple of years, France has also refused to acknowledge an Indo-Pacific strategy that explores options to counter China, even though it takes into account the growing military might of Beijing in the region. But this chain of command is a top-down chain of command.
India’s chain of command in Indo-Pacific strategy is becoming a lateral chain of command, with lower echelons of the lateral command failing to distinguish between Indo-Pacific and Asia Pacific. The issue is that these lower chains in the lateral mode of command are the top brass of military leadership. Even though in the United States organisations have affiliated themselves with institutes that deal with Asia Pacific security, the military echelons have distanced themselves from such a framework.
This is probably the reason why Indonesia seeks missiles from India, but also seeks advanced military aircraft from Pakistan. India’s foreign policy objectives of strengthening the Indo-Pacific strategy through an encircling strategy would have to be in congruence with the beliefs and policies of the military leadership. Simple actions that go against India’s Indo-Pacific strategy could send out a wrong signal to the United States regarding India’s keenness to contain China.
The author refrains from applauding India’s ability to counter China, as countering Beijing is a strategic choice that will be ingrained in our policy decisions also. These decisions not only imply military preparedness but also psychological awareness of the concept of Indo-Pacific strategy. As long as Indian military leadership or policy makers and decision makers subscribe to the Indo-Pacific concept, MEA’s effort to strengthen India’s stance as an Indo-Pacific power cannot fructify.
China is not an adversary for India. This is clear for India’s military. If Beijing complicates India’s security framework, India is, however, militarily prepared. However, if the Indo-Pacific strategy exists, then policymakers and practitioners must be educated on conceptual differences in policymaking. A simple step towards networking could lead a country to utter shame and disgrace, especially at a time when the country is acknowledging strategies to strengthen Indo-Pacific cooperation and resilience.
Conclusion
Military prowess serves as a crucial tool for shaping foreign policy and advancing national interests and objectives. Military decision-making must align closely with India’s overarching foreign policy goals. This alignment ensures that defence strategies effectively support diplomatic initiatives. Failure to integrate military strength with foreign policy could create vulnerabilities, allowing neighbouring countries to exploit any perceived weaknesses. Such exploitation may result in strategic miscalculations and political instability, further complicating regional dynamics. Therefore, policymakers must consider how military capabilities are utilised in the context of their diplomatic engagements, promoting stability and fostering cooperative relationships in the region.
