Minilaterals and Deterrence: A Critical New Nexus

Abstract

As countries around the Indo-Pacific strive to manage the challenges of China’s growing power and assertiveness, they have emphasized two concepts. First, they have increasingly embraced “minilateral” groupings—small, issue-based, informal, and uninstitutionalized partnerships—as a way of coordinating international policy action. This trend has been building gradually for over two decades, ever since the emergence of mechanisms such as the U.S.-Japan-Korea Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group in the late 1990s and the U.S.Australia-Japan Trilateral Strategic Dialogue during the early 2000s. But these groupings sharply expanded in number and ambition in the 2010s. The standard-bearer of the minilateral model is the Quad—comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—which was resuscitated in 2017 and now involves regular summit-level meetings. The boldest minilateral is AUKUS, announced in 2021, which brings together alreadyclose allies Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to further deepen defense technology cooperation, including the provision of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. Second, the United States and its allies, such as Australia and Japan, have renewed their commitment to deterrence to maintain regional stability. Rather than relying on institutions to deepen regional integration, which was their preferred option after the end of the Cold War, they are designing defense policies to dissuade potential adversaries, especially China, from revisionist behavior. For example, “integrated deterrence” has been highlighted as the centerpiece of the Biden administration’s emerging