Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific

A s China’s military might and tendency toward regional aggression grow, the United States and its allies are increasingly concerned with deterrence. Their strategies seek to prevent Beijing from disrupting the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific by, for example, invading Taiwan or conducting gray-zone operations in the South China Sea. One of those strategies was to revive the Quad grouping with Australia, Japan, India, and the United States in 2017 to protect freedom of navigation and promote democratic values.1 In the period since, the Quad has become implicitly—or explicitly, at least on the part of the United States—aimed at countering China’s malign activities in the Indo-Pacific region.2 Statements from the February 2022 Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting highlighted the threat of “unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force and coercion” in the South and East China Seas while also reaffirming the Quad’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.3 Although the Quad has been reluctant to directly address security cooperation, the 2020 and 2021 joint military Malabar exercises revealed a shared focus on improving interoperability.4 Yet deterring China with minilateral groupings of states is more complex and difficult than traditional deterrence theory might suggest. This essay lays out some of the unique characteristics of the China challenge before considering how minilaterals can best enhance deterrence in these circumstances.