Dr. John Hemmings has a new article in the latest Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs titled “Should the Quad Become a Formal Alliance?”

According to Hemmings, “this article examines alignments and alliances before the First and Second World War and during the Cold War to shed light on the current Quad arrangement. Looking at the first two periods, we can see that under-balancing by democracies is not particularly unusual historically. It happens more often than not and often fails to deter aggression by other powers.” The end result is, as he states, “that not only are policy elites within the Quad under balancing by avoiding mutual defense commitments but they are also inviting the very aggression by China that they seek to avoid.”

Dr. John Hemmings is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect those of DKI APCSS, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.