Readers who take a more or less constant interest in current international politics are probably aware of the existence of an interstate configuration called the Quad, which includes the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
Although since its establishment in early 2021, the members of this formation regularly hold meetings of various levels (including the highest level), based on the results of which joint official documents are adopted, it is still difficult to qualify it in any particular way. One thing can be stated quite confidently: Quad is not a military-and-political organization and there is no visible prospect of its transformation into one yet.
Such formations, which at first glance make a rather strange impression (mainly by the composition of the members), have been appearing recently with growing frequency. Nevertheless, there is something that connects their members. Although the exact nature of this connection does not seem to be completely clear even to their members, and on this occasion it is possible to make guesses of varying degrees of plausibility.
During US President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East, a video summit of “Another Quad” took place. This is exactly the way (using the word “another”) it was designated in the Foreign Policy comment. The NEO has been one of those who drew attention to its possible establishment. The reason for this conclusion was the videoconference held in October 2021 by the foreign ministers of the United States, India, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
However, during the following months, no signs of essential activity on the part of the Quad-2 were noted and the impression was formed of an “accidental release” in a series of other more or less clear events of modern world politics.
But, as it turned out once again, the invisible director of the world political action has a detailed plan and at some point it simply actualizes one or another (previously designated by him) fragment of the “Big World Game”. It is the video session of the “Another Quad” held on July 14 that can be considered almost the only noteworthy result of the American president’s entire aforementioned trip.
In the Joint Statement adopted following the results of this event the members assigned the name to the new formation, which will now be designated by the acronym I2U2. This acronym includes the initial letters of two states whose names begin with I (India, Israel), and two with U (United Arab Emirates, United States).
The substantive part of this document begins with a rather pompous statement about a “group of countries” with certain “unique” characteristics, with the help of which “tackling the greatest challenges confronting our world” will be organized. Special attention is supposed to be paid to “joint investment and new initiatives” in order to solve problems with providing (apparently, the same “our world”) with water, energy, food, healthcare, and transport. The sphere of space exploration was not forgotten either.
It seems to be quite a positive goal-setting, at first glance, not particularly burdened with current squabbles of international politics. However, the outlines of some political problems are still visible in this document. Firstly, this refers to the highly politicized topic of combating climate change and environmental pollution, an important element of which is the focus on the priority development of “green” energy.
Secondly, the parties expressed support for the so-called “Abraham Accords”. This is the name given to the process of concluding agreements between Israel and three Arab countries (including the UAE) on the normalization of bilateral relations. This was an important step towards the overall process of Israel’s breaking diplomatic isolation in the Arab world.
Thirdly, various projects in the fields of “green” energy, long-term storage and preservation of food, as well as water are supposed to be implemented mainly on Indian territory. In general, a significant part of the document is devoted to India, which is quite consistent with one of the key issues of the modern “Big World Game”, due to the struggle of its main participants for influence on that country.
Essentially, the “first” Quad was created for the same purpose. This takes place while India itself is turning into one of the world’s leading players and skillfully balances its political course in the field of forces created by other significant players. All three of New Delhi’s I2U2 partners are by no means a product of random choice. Various aspects of the significance of the USA for India are regularly discussed in the NEO.
As for Israel and the UAE, India has long established stable and friendly relations with them. The former, in particular, is one of the main partners in the field of military and technical cooperation. The UAE also plays the role of an important link in the system of India’s relations with the countries of the Persian Gulf region (which is of critical importance for it) and with the Islamic world as a whole. It was the UAE that Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited at the end of June, after a well-known “gaffe” had happened a month earlier live on the capital’s television. Which provoked both serious internal unrest and various kinds of demarches taken in relation to India by a number of Muslim countries.
And yet the main component of the above-mentioned issue is due to the nature of the development of Sino-Indian relations. It is these latter that will increasingly determine the transformation of the situation in the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. Despite the marked presence of the factor of a general “shift to the East” concerning the vector of foreign policy of recent hegemons on the world political scene represented by the United States and some of the leading European countries.
Meanwhile, the overall picture of relations between the two Asian giants develops in a wave-like manner over time. The next period of their decline was registered almost immediately after the meeting of the leaders of both countries held in India in the autumn of 2019. Rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations sank to a dangerously low level by the summer of the following year, when a threat of direct military conflict arose in one of the high-altitude border regions.
Once again, we note the efficiency of measures to neutralize it in incipience and the subsequent actual restoration of relations to a more or less normal condition, which were taken by both sides as well as by the Russian diplomacy that participated in this. Since then, the process of solving both “local” problems in the border area and the development of bilateral relations in general has been ongoing without interruption.
The former is confirmed by another (16th in a row) meeting of military delegations held on July 17 this year, which are mainly engaged in creating conditions that both exclude certain incidents between the border guards of the parties and reduce general tension in the border area. The negotiations are difficult since the basis of various kinds of border conflicts is the fundamental (decades-old) problem of territorial disputes between India and China.
Nevertheless, we need to repeat that there is a trend towards the restoration of Sino-Indian relations in general. This is evidenced by another meeting of the Foreign Ministers of both countries, held on July 7 in Indonesia on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting, during which the situation in the border area was also discussed. But, of course, the most obvious confirmation of the mentioned trend was the fact that the leaders of both countries participated in the recent BRICS video summit held at the end of June.
In other words, so far there are no signs of any noticeable success in Washington’s obvious attempts to move India from the position of relative neutrality in which this country has been since independence (and they are not visible for the near future). Although this is exactly the goal set by the US leadership when certain international configurations are created with the participation of India.
And the fact of the formation of I2U2 in this regard is, of course, no exception.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.