Indian Council of World Affairs

The United States is increasingly embracing "minilateralism" in the Indo-Pacific region as a response to the limitations of traditional multilateral frameworks amid rising U.S.-China rivalry. It examines how these partnerships such as the QUAD and AUKUS, aim to shape regional order, and manage China’s rise, while also assessing their limitations. 

Introduction 

The Indo-Pacific region, home to more than half of the world’s population, nearly two-thirds of the world’s economy, and seven of the world’s largest militaries, has become the central theatre of competition between the US and China, driven by Beijing’s expanding military and economic capabilities as well as its willingness to challenge the status quo and shape a favourable regional order. Existing regional multilateral frameworks like ASEAN‐led mechanisms[i] and the US ‘hub and spoke’ alliance model have struggled to address the velocity of Sino-American rivalry and evolving hybrid threats. The existing regional security order is increasingly unable to deal with the evolving security challenges in the region. 

In response, the US has increasingly embraced ‘minilateralism’, creating small groups of its allies and partners to maintain the existing regional order and externally balance[ii] China. The QUAD and AUKUS are the most prominent examples of this model,[iii] and they can be classified as ‘strategic minilaterals’, meaning they focus on the broader strategic competition rather than a specific domain. These flexible formats enable the US to coordinate its strategic agenda with its allies without imposing the heavy institutional cost of traditional multilateral organisations, while simultaneously promoting functional cooperation. 

Nonetheless, excessive reliance on these groupings’ risks fragmenting the existing regional security architecture. This article focuses on strategic minilaterals and explores the drivers behind America’s minilateral turn and assesses their implications for Indo-Pacific order.

1.  Conceptualizing minilaterals 

Every state has a vision about how a regional order should look, based on its national interest; consequently, states ‘express’ this vision through institutional instruments known as security architecture. A regional security architecture encompasses all the formal and informal institutions, norms, and practices through which neighbouring states coordinate to manage shared threats and uphold a stable regional order. Therefore, states use regional security architecture to shape a favourable regional order. In this broader framework, minilaterals represent the instrumental layer through which like-minded partners pursue specific objectives without waiting for consensus among dozens of members who, at best, agree to a ‘lowest common denominator’ objective. 

It is difficult to accurately define minilaterals, but a provisional definition could be: a formal or informal grouping of three to five states that aim to coordinate their strategic agendas and facilitate functional cooperation in particular issue areas[iv]. Therefore, we can situate minilaterals somewhere between bilateral alliances (e.g. U.S.-Japan, U.S.-Australia) and multilateral organisations (e.g. ASEAN, EAS). Together, they form the three layers of a regional security architecture[v] with minilaterals playing an important role in bridging the gap between bilateral ties and multilateral bodies. Minilaterals also provide the flexibility to coordinate on specific issues and in that sense, they can also be looked at as issue-based coalitions.  

Unlike multilateral bodies like ASEAN, which rely on inclusivity and consensus, minilaterals emphasise select membership, speed, and targeted ‘club-goods’[vi]provision. By concentrating on well-defined issues and strategic alignment, these groupings establish voluntary, non-binding commitments with minimal bureaucracy, facilitating swift decision-making and adaptation as conditions change.  In practice, the ‘mini’ model facilitates cooperation through low-cost, low-barrier and flexible means, forging a lean but potent mechanism for preserving order and countering emerging threats[vii]. Minilaterals usually do not have dedicated secretariats to facilitate work. They rely on the bureaucracies of the individual member states to coordinate positions and actions.  

In addition to concentrating on narrow challenges and specific domains, such as supply chain resilience,[viii] maritime security, or economic cooperation, the ‘strategic minilaterals’[ix]  tend to focus on enduring goals aimed at shaping regional order, specifically balancing against peer adversaries. These initiatives address strategic competition across multiple domains, including military, technological, and informational spheres. In doing so, they emphasise the establishment of institutional rules, the assurance of long-term deterrence, and the counterbalancing of rising peer competitors, utilising both military and non-military means. 

Strategic minilaterals can be further divided into two types. The first type aims at shaping regional order through rule and norm-making by institutions like QUAD. The second type focuses on military cooperation to check a rising power’s behaviour, as seen with AUKUS and the US-JP-AUS Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD). These institutions focus on providing either public goods[x], club goods or both. They symbolise the rise of a new, less rigid form of security cooperation.

2.  Structural triggers of the US minilateral shift 

The world is experiencing profound structural changes characterised by the shift from a unipolar world order marked by US hegemony in the 1990s to a multipolar one, where China’s rapid economic and military modernisation, along with the rise of middle powers like India, has contributed to a situation where neither a single power can guarantee regional security nor can it dominate a region unilaterally. 

Another trigger is that multilateral organisations are suffering from a lack of reforms and ineffective functioning, as evident from the response to COVID-19, or the failure of the UNSC to effectively prevent or conclude conflicts. In the Indo-Pacific region, ASEAN-led security mechanisms have struggled to respond decisively to threats against regional stability and have shown limited capacity to counter Beijing’s coercive actions in the South China Sea. Consequently, neither the bilateral alliances nor the current multilateral security forums sufficiently protect the long-term strategic interests or the leadership of the US in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Against this backdrop, the US has turned to minilateral cooperation as a means of institutional balancing. It has an asymmetric advantage over China when forming small, flexible ‘minilateral’ coalitions in the region due to its vast network of formal allies and partners in the region. The shared democratic values and commitment to a rules-based international order among these partners enhance political trust, facilitating the coordination and deployment of US-led minilaterals.[xi]

American minilateralism can be described by characteristics, such as exclusivity, an offensive posture, efficiency and small membership. These minilaterals are working on the twin objectives of forming a favourable regional order by shaping rules, behaviours, norms, and standards in various emerging and existing domains like cybersecurity, disaster relief, etc. While also striving to enhance military capacity and foster security cooperation among partners to address China’s rise, the US ‘hub and spoke’ alliance model is evolving into a latticework of complementary security relationships distributed across various sub-regions of the Indo-Pacific.[xii]

Since 2019, at least four US-led minilaterals[xiii] have emerged, each focusing squarely on providing club goods. These minilaterals focus generally on military cooperation, information sharing, technological exchange, and critical and emerging technology, with a focus on building the capacity and capabilities of allies and partners for better burden sharing and division of labour. Similarly, amidst the ebb and flow of US commitments, allies have formed various interconnecting minilaterals filling the gaps left by the reduction of US commitment and military capacity in the region.

3.  Hurdles and headwinds 

Firstly, for the minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific region it is important to also coordinate with established regional institutions, particularly ASEAN, which emphasise consensus and non-interference, as well as the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). These organisations have a key role in maintaining a sustainable security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region. Establishing a consensus and fostering goodwill among regional stakeholders will be crucial for retaining broader support and achieving a favourable balance of power for US-led initiatives. This can be accomplished by increasing investments in regional public goods, such as maritime domain awareness (MDA), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations (HADR), maritime security, and infrastructure development.

Secondly, the proliferation of minilateral groupings is likely to overstretch US diplomatic capacity. Effectively managing multiple forums where each requires strong leadership, coordination, and follow-through can lead to diplomatic fatigue. Without careful prioritisation, the strategic clarity these coalitions promise will be compromised by an overwhelming volume of overlapping initiatives that offer redundant or conflicting goals.

Thirdly, it is crucial to strike a definitive balance between institutionalisation and flexibility. While minilaterals benefit from informality, enabling swift decision-making and alignment, a lack of robust institutional structures can result in coordination gaps, inconsistent engagement, and limited follow-through. Therefore, there is a need to maintain a ‘goldilocks’ balance[xiv] by establishing light yet durable frameworks to safeguard effectiveness without sacrificing agility. To this end, the US seeks to promote greater institutionalisation and futureproofing wherever possible, employing various lock-in mechanisms, such as annual meetings at multiple levels of government and deeper military-industrial cooperation. These strategies create sunk costs that insure against political vicissitudes by making the termination of these collaborations expensive and undesirable[xv].

4.  Conclusion 

The US is currently facing what can be termed a capability-commitment gap in the region, and minilaterals are emerging as a preferred mechanism for bridging this gap and counterbalancing China. These minilateral arrangements serve to address institutional weak spots left by dysfunctional multilateral organisations. However, minilaterals and multilaterals have vital roles within the regional security architecture, as neither can fully substitute for the other. The exclusive nature, limited membership, and relatively narrow focus of minilaterals prevent them from occupying the same space as multilaterals, which emphasise inclusivity, global governance, and broader issues. Consequently, incorporating them into a layered framework that enhances rather than undermines existing multilateral institutions, Washington can ensure that minilaterals strengthen collective resilience, improve burden-sharing, and maintain its vision of a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific. 

For India, the rise of US-led minilaterals brings both opportunities and challenges. These arrangements enable India to engage with like-minded partners while maintaining strategic autonomy and influencing the Indo-Pacific without formal alliances. However, they also pose a risk of increased pressure to align against China, potentially impacting India’s diplomatic balancing act.

India’s path forward lies in securing a seat ‘inside the room’ where new architectures are designed while also championing Indian ocean‑centric formats that safeguard its maritime interests. By advocating inclusive minilateral models that respect both wider multilateral norms and its autonomy, India can help craft a more stable and multipolar Indo‑Pacific order.

*****

*Saumyasingh Kshatriya, Research Intern, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. 

Endnotes

[i] Asean Regional Forum (ARF), East Asia Summit (EAS), ADMM+.

[ii] Balance of power theory.

[iii] Mohan, C. R. (2023, November 10). The nimble new minilaterals. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/11/minilateral-alliances-geopolitics-quad-aukus-i2u2-coalitions-multilateralism-india-japan-us-china/

[iv] Koga, K. (2022). A new strategic minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific. Asia Policy, 17(4), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2022.0063

[v] Wilkins, T. S. (2023). The “minilateral moment” and the regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific. In NIDS Commentary (No. 254). https://www.nids.mod.go.jp/english/publication/commentary/pdf/commentary254e.pdf

[vi] Club goods can include Intelligence sharing, Logistics support, advanced technology access, interoperability, and joint exercises. These are the exclusive perks reserved for the members of the group.

[vii] Panda, Jagannath, and Daewon Ohn. 2024. “Minilateralism and the New Indo-Pacific Order: Theoretical Ambitions and Empirical Realities.” Australian Journal of International Affairs 78 (6): 767–81. doi:10.1080/10357718.2024.2410411.

[viii] India-AUS-Japan trilateral. “Boosting Supply Chain Resilience.” n.d. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/for-australian-business/boosting-supply-chain-resilience.

[ix] Coined first by Kei Koga in Koga, K. (2022). A new strategic minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific. Asia Policy, 17(4), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2022.0063

[x] Public goods can include disaster relief, MDA, Regional security, Freedom of navigation, etc. These activities also benefits states not formally part of the minilateral.

[xi] “Joint Statement by the Quad Foreign Ministers.” n.d. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/joint-statement-quad-foreign-ministers?_gl=1*1148n5j*_ga*MzI1MDAxMTkyLjE3NDk5Nzc1MjA.*_ga_8Z18QMQG8V*czE3NDk5Nzc1MjAkbzEkZzEkdDE3NDk5ODIwNTckajYwJGwwJGgw.

[xii] Southeast Asia, South Asia, Northeast Asia and the Pacific. Indo-Pacific strategy: Uniting all the players on the board. (n.d.). Lowy Institute. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indo-pacific-strategy-uniting-all-players-board

[xiii] AUKUS, US-Japan-South Korea trilateral, SQUAD, US-Japan-Philippines trilateral.   

[xiv] The optimal point in policy design where institutional arrangements are neither too expansive nor too narrow.

[xv] Richey, M., & Ohn, D. (2024). ‘It’s fine in practice, but how about in theory?’ State-of-the-art minilateralism between expectations and reality. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2024.2409361