India and Australia: Creating New Strategy Geometries in the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

This chapter considers Australia's perspectives on India's growing connections in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was a high-level security dialogue among Japan, India, the United States (US) and Australia first proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2006. Australia has a significant interest in promoting security cooperation with US allies and others to reduce the potential for over-reliance on its bilateral alliance with the US. Australia also has a strong interest including India in such arrangements as a friendly power in the Indian Ocean and as a way of building India into a rules-based security order across the Indo-Pacific. Australia and India have some unique complementarities that make a partnership potentially significant for the Indo-Pacific strategic order. They both have substantial capabilities, the benefits of their strategic geography, and the potential to engage and mobilize a wide range of partners between them including a mix of US allies and notionally non-aligned states.