The Quad is not keeping pace with security needs in the Indo-Pacific. Its members—Australia, India, Japan and the United States—should step up cooperation to keep an eye on what’s going on at sea. They have the tools for this. The partnership is already helping other countries in the Indo-Pacific to monitor their own and nearby waters. A program known as the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) provides commercially sourced imagery from satellites to regional states. But Chinese naval activity in the Indo-Pacific is intensifying. This calls for more systematic operational coordination among the four partners, particularly by coordinating operations of and sharing information from maritime patrol aircraft, especially Boeing P-8s. The Indian Ocean is the ideal venue for this cooperation, because Chinese maritime activity is expanding there and violent disputes, such as those in the South China Sea, are absent.
To counter China, Quad members should work closer in maritime surveillance | The Strategist
