How the Squad risks upending ASEAN norms

It’s Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) season for Washington and Manila. Over the last two weeks, 14,000 troops from the United States, Philippines, Australia, and Japan have been taking part in the largest annual military exercise between the two allies. This year’s iteration is particularly noteworthy for being the first to include all four members of the “Squad” since its establishment in 2024, highlighting the “S” in its namesake through their commitment to Indo-Pacific “security”. But as regional norms clash with extra-regional involvement, are minilaterals like Squad really the way forward for the Indo-Pacific?

Almost as soon as its inception, Squad has been touted as the regional coalition against China. While the original “Quad” (Australia–India–Japan–United States) had been similarly envisioned as a counterweight to Beijing, they diverged in two fundamental attributes: the capacity and the willingness to engage in military cooperation to deter Chinese aggression. Unlike the rest of Quad, New Delhi had a very different understanding of the “Indo-Pacific” concept. Whereas the US and its allies considered it synonymous to a containment strategy against Beijing, India understood it as a geographical condition. The Indian and Pacific Oceans were connected through a shared cultural and economic history, and New Delhi took it upon itself to establish a regional order based on that history. Quad itself was not an effort directed toward a specific adversary, but a platform with which to shape regional norms and values.

This was not at all Squad’s intent. By swapping India for the Philippines – a US ally with both an ongoing territorial dispute with China and, thanks to its proximity, a vested interest against a Taiwan invasion – Squad had explicitly laid out security and military cooperation as the key pillars of the new minilateral. All four Squad members identified Taiwan and the South China Sea as the focal point of regional tensions, and China as the main instigator behind them. But in adopting a country-specific rather than country-agnostic approach to regional security, Squad found itself at odds with one of the very geopolitical cornerstones of the Indo-Pacific: Southeast Asia.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations saw itself as the central component of any regional architecture. It was founded on the principles of mutual respect and non-interference, and it did not take kindly to outsiders meddling in its internal affairs. In fact, it was the prospect of unilateral intervention that led, in part, to the establishment of several ASEAN minilaterals such as the Malacca Strait Patrols and the Trilateral Cooperative Arrangement. By internationalising the South China Sea row, Manila effectively bypassed ASEAN as the main dispute resolution mechanism in Southeast Asia. None of the other Squad members are claimant parties; and the involvement of non-Asian states, Australia and the United States, undermined its legitimacy as an architect of the regional order.

Though middle powers have usually taken the lead in minilateralism, Squad was still very much a US-driven coalition. It needed Washington’s military to buttress its security efforts in the Indo-Pacific. While this might not have been a problem under Biden, in the age of Trumpian unilateralism, this dependency highlights a critical vulnerability to group cohesion. Without the same level of institutionalisation as multilaterals such as the United Nations and the European Union, minilaterals rely heavily on the commitment of senior partners.

Here, the advantages traditionally associated with minilateralism become liabilities. Fewer members may mean fewer bureaucratic hurdles to cooperation, but that also means fewer partners to share the burden. Less institutionalisation may mean greater flexibility in responding to threats, but that also entails fewer institutional safeguards to withdrawal. Washington may be pursuing a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” right now, but there is little stopping it from divesting other than its own strategic calculus.

This isn’t to say that we should relegate Squad to the dustbin of alliance politics. Minilateral cooperation has been invaluable to Philippine security in the short term. Manila was one of the few exemptions to Trump’s 90-day moratorium on foreign assistance, with Washington allocating US$336 million in aid to help modernise its armed forces. In 2024, Japan pledged 40 new vessels for the Philippine Coast Guard, putting it on track to become the largest in Southeast Asia by 2028. And just last month, the US greenlit the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Manila while Australia donated a batch of drones to boost its maritime domain awareness.

Squad is far from impotent. But if it hopes to position itself as an alternative to a China-centric regional architecture, then it needs to establish legitimacy in the eyes of ASEAN stakeholders. That means establishing partnerships with regional institutions that focus on security for the Indo-Pacific rather than against Beijing. Most ASEAN states were already pivoting toward China. Set against the backdrop of Trump’s growing antagonism toward the region, and Squad’s newfound assertiveness was looking more like rabble-rousing than coalition-building.

That’s certainly how China sees it. Chinese officials have made no secret of their displeasure toward the US Typhon missile system in the Philippines; the Reciprocal Access Agreement between Tokyo and Manila; or the possible expansion of Squad to India and South Korea. In their eyes, Squad was tightening the noose in order to stymie the country’s growth. And like a cornered animal, its response is to lash out against its would-be hunters. The result is not so much net security for the Indo-Pacific but insecurity for both Beijing and Squad, heightening the risk of a security dilemma – and armed conflict with it.

In the end, Washington and its partners need to understand that minilaterals can and do exist within the broader framework of multilateralism. But they exist in accordance with regional norms, not in spite of them. Squad as it is right now may have potential – but it is no silver bullet for the Indo-Pacific.