Flashpoints | Security

How the Quad Can Deliver in a New Strategic Era

The regular tempo of on-the-ground cooperation suggests that the Quad – despite its thin institutional structure – may in fact be insulated from higher level political volatility.

The Quad Foreign Minister’s Meeting in New Delhi, India, May 26, 2026.

Since it was first conceived over two decades ago, the Quad’s obituary has been penned time and again by commentators and strategic rivals alike. 

Following its revival in 2017, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi famously predicted the grouping between Australia, the United States, Japan and India would “dissipate like sea foam.” More recently, one Australian analyst observed in November 2025, “the Quad is either dead or on life support so deep there are few signs of life.”

A bungled vaccine rollout, diplomatic spats, and an enduring “coherence problem” have done little to prove its critics wrong. Since the advent of Trump 2.0, India-U.S. tensions have threatened to undo decades of quiet diplomacy aimed at anchoring India in a U.S.-aligned Indo-Pacific, while the wars in Iran and Ukraine have pulled into sharp focus the daylight in strategic outlook among the four Quad members.

Yet, perhaps most glaring is the lack of a leaders’ level summit since September 2024. Leaders’ meetings motivate bureaucracies, offer a closed-door forum for candid discussion, and serve a vital signaling function to regional partners. They were an annual event under the Biden administration, which elevated the Quad as a core pillar of the Indo-Pacific security architecture.

But the absence of a summit shouldn’t be overstated as evidence of the Quad’s demise.

While the four leaders have not met since Trump’s second inauguration, practical Quad work has continued in the interim. Indeed, in the first year of Trump’s term, Quad countries continued to have at least one engagement every month at the working group level.

This includes the four countries coordinating support in the wake of the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake, conducting the first collaborative coast guard efforts in June 2025, launching the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative in July 2025, as well as hosting the third meeting of the Quad Counterterrorism Working Group, the first Field Training Exercise of the Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network, and the Quad Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response Tabletop Exercise and Strategic Meeting, which took place in December 2025. 

Last month, the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New Delhi brought a spate of announcements – from commitments to advancing port infrastructure in Fiji to the launch of new initiatives on critical minerals and maritime surveillance.

The regular tempo of on-the-ground cooperation suggests that the Quad – despite its thin institutional structure – may in fact be insulated from higher level political volatility. Reinforcing these working level relationships could prove to be its best path to survival through turbulent geopolitical times.

With this in mind, in February 2026, the United States Studies Center hosted the second Quad Track-1.5 Leadership Dialogue in Sydney, Australia. The Chatham House dialogue convened three dozen Australian, American, Japanese, and Indian officials, experts, academics, industry stakeholders, and policy researchers to dissect the state of play for the Quad and pathways forward in a new strategic era.

From the discussions, it was clear that the Quad has struggled to deliver on many of its announcements, which participants viewed as a gift to the grouping’s critics and strategic rivals. As one aptly put, the Quad appears to be “afraid to fail, but also afraid to succeed.”

Participants argued that the Quad must now focus its “sprawling” agenda, and double down on a limited number of priority areas where it can deliver meaningful outcomes for regional partners.

So, which opportunities hold the greatest potential for the Quad?

Maritime security stood out as arguably the “most important contribution” the Quad can make in terms of socializing habits of day-to-day cooperation. Participants were clear on the overall effects the four maritime powers should aim to generate: as one surmised, “The Quad needs to be an instrument of collective deterrence, and if required, collective defense.”

But the Quad does not need to reinvent the wheel to have impact. Many of its existing activities........

© The Diplomat