India's Quad Calculus and China

From its formation as a disaster response group after the 2004 tsunami to its revival in 2017, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—consisting of India, US—has become a key mechanism within the multilateral power framework of the Indo-Pacific region. Although overtly driven by their shared concerns over China, India and its fellow Quad states maintain that the grouping is far from an exclusive China containment framework. Rather, India's participation draws on efforts to better situate itself in a liberal regional and global order; and perhaps to defend and strengthen itself in the face of a revisionist China. As Indo-Pacific states face…