India, May 28 -- There was something quietly significant about this year's Quad foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi, and it had less to do with the official statements than with the political choreography surrounding them. When US secretary of state Marco Rubio arrived in India ahead of the summit engagements, it did not merely signal diplomatic enthusiasm. It reflected a larger geopolitical truth: Washington increasingly sees India not as a partner that needs persuasion, but as a power that must be consulted before the Indo-Pacific story is written. That distinction matters.

For years, Quad, comprising India, the US, Japan, and Australia, was viewed almost entirely through the prism of China. Was it an Asian NATO? A balancing coalit...