State Partnership Program

Video by Ernest Gunasekara-Rockwell

Let Taiwan and the Quad Fight Side by Side: How Can the Quad Incorporate Taiwan into Its Military Deterrence against China?

Air University Public Affairs Multimedia

April 1, 2022 | 43:47

In response to a highly potential military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait, both the United States and Taiwan must look for a strong collective defense framework against China·s threat, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), composed of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, is a decent platform for that concept. The Quad has a good basis for developing a mutual security system in the Indo-Pacific, although it is still far from a real military alliance. I contend that the Quad can keep working on legalizing and institutionalizing the mechanism while also developing its military strategy. At the same time, the Quad and Taiwan can develop to incorporate one another into their mutual defense network starting with lower-grade meetings, then moving to summits and foreign affairs-defense (2 plus 2) ministerial conferences, intelligence sharing, joint staff assignments, and joint military exercises. The Quad·Taiwan defense cooperation preserves several options to establish their common military strategy and accumulate energy in deterring and denying China·s island invasion plan. Rather than enthusiastic discussions of these ·the Quad Plus Taiwan· issues, however, going back to the beginning to persuade each other to take the next step is more important.