Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific

Oriana Skylar Mastro

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As 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.