India, Oct. 27 -- The late Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, can claim to be the original proponent of the QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) in 2007. QUAD, or the "Democratic Security Diamond", was envisaged as a strategic coalition of maritime democracies (the United States of America, Japan, India, and Australia), or like-minded nations, to work towards a "free and open Indo-Pacific" region.

What remained unsaid was the "elephant in the room" - the commonality of Sino-wariness that beset the four QUAD nations as they awoke to the realities of a belligerent, hegemonic, and expansionist China. Initial fanfare with the 2007 Malabar Exercise (Joint Naval Exercises) notwithstanding, the ideation went into dormancy for a decade, only...