Tactical hedging as coalition-building signal: The evolution of Quad and AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241227840 |
| Author | Kei Koga |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241227840
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 109 –134
© The Author(s) 2024
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sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13691481241227840
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Tactical hedging as
coalition-building signal:
The evolution of Quad and
AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific
Kei Koga
Abstract
How are the rise, fall, and evolution of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region explained? To
address this question, I examine the cases of the Quad and AUKUS, and argue that they were
caused by the success and failure of coalition-building efforts made through ‘tactical hedging’.
As the world transitions from a unipolar to a non-unipolar world, states attempt to formulate
coalitions to safeguard their national interests. However, the challenge is to figure out which
states are truly ‘like-minded’ and can strategically coordinate their policies for mutual interests.
Under this circumstance, states send signals through ‘tactical hedging’ – ‘an ambiguous, temporal
declaratory policy doctrine’ – that assists the hedger in assessing whether its allies and partners
are willing to cooperate; in this case, building a coalition towards the same or similar strategic
objectives. The key is the initial ambiguity in signalling, which becomes critical to the future success
of building a coalition among parties whose interests are not always congruent.
Keywords
alignment, AUKUS, coalition, coalition-building, hedging, Indo-Pacific, international order,
international security, Quad, signalling, tactical hedging
Introduction
Minilateralism has become a significant strategic feature in the Indo-Pacific region. There
are now cooperative frameworks that consist of three to five states, including the US–
Japan–Australia Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative
among Australia, Japan, and India, and the US–Japan–Philippines frameworks. Most
notably, the Quad, the Australia–India–Japan–US consulting group, has been steadily
institutionalised since the United States announced the importance of the ‘Free and Open
Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) in 2017. The Australia–UK–US (AUKUS) Security Partnership was
School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
Corresponding author:
Kei Koga, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 48 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore
639818.
Emails: kkei@ntu.edu.sg; keikoga@gmail.com
1227840BPI0010.1177/13691481241227840The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsKoga
research-article2024
Special Issue Article
110The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
also established in 2021 to strengthen Australia’s military capabilities by acquiring
nuclear-powered submarines and trilateral cooperation in defence technology.
Most scholars and policymakers attribute this rise of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific
to China’s increasing material capabilities, which are expected to shift the regional bal-
ance of power. This shift also indicates power diffusion worldwide as the United States is
no longer able to maintain its concrete unipolar status alone. Moving towards a non-uni-
polar world has gradually made it difficult for the existing multilateral and bilateral mech-
anisms endorsed by the United States to uphold and impose their rules and norms.
However, rising powers, particularly China, have more room to propose new principles,
rules, and norms that serve their interests, opening up options for other international and
domestic actors to accept alternative rules and norms (Barnett, 2021; Koga, 2023b; Zurn,
2018). In this context, the United States has attempted to build strong strategic coalitions
with ‘like-minded’ states, such as US allies and partners, by facilitating minilateralism to
defend the existing international order, which embodies the power struggle between great
powers during a power shift (e.g. Schweller and Pu, 2011).
This structural explanation provides us with a general configuration and trend of
great power competition; however, it is not satisfactory for understanding the develop-
ment of minilateral coalitions. For instance, why did the Quad collapse in 2008 given
China’s consistent rise? Why did it take almost a decade for the Quad to be resurrected?
Why was the AUKUS not established until 2021? In addition, not only the United States
but also US allies and partners initiated minilateral coalitions. In other words, structural
factors alone cannot explain the dynamic process of the rise, fall, and evolution of
minilateralism.
Clarifying this puzzle requires an analysis of not only structural factors but also the
political dynamics among member states within a minilateral framework. While the ini-
tiator of minilateral coalition-building largely steers the fate of the coalition by determin-
ing its strategic vision, objectives, and approaches, there is always the possibility that
potential members disagree with them. The initiator thus needs to be careful about sus-
taining their interests in joining the coalition. To this end, in the initial phase, the initiator
sends an ambiguous foreign-policy signal to draw potential members’ reactions, clarify
their respective strategic positions, and adjust the objectives or approaches of the coali-
tion framework to consolidate their strategic ties.
In this context, I argue that the rise, fall, and evolution of minilateralism in the Indo-
Pacific region are caused by the success and failure of coalition-building efforts made
through ‘tactical hedging’. As the world transitions from a unipolar to a non-unipolar
world, including a multipolar world, states attempt to formulate coalitions to ensure their
national interests. However, they are unsure which states are truly ‘like-minded’ and can
strategically coordinate their policies for mutual interests. To find this out, states send
signals through ‘tactical hedging’ – ‘an ambiguous, temporal declaratory policy doctrine’
– that assists the hedger in assessing whether its allies and partners are willing to cooper-
ate; in this case, building a coalition towards the same or similar strategic objectives. In
so doing, the initial ambiguity in strategic objectives becomes the key to the future suc-
cess of building a coalition among parties whose interests are not always congruent.
The cases of the Quad and AUKUS demonstrate two different developmental paths
of minilateralism. On the Quad, Japan conducted ‘tactical hedging’ by emphasising
the importance of the existing international rules and norms under a ‘Free and Open
Indo-Pacific Strategy’ in 2016, and successfully induced diplomatic cooperation from
Australia, India, and the United States, resurrecting the Quad in 2017. On AUKUS,
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