‘Squad’ Can Make ‘Quad’ Inconsequential, Philippines Is Now India For The US

(L-R) US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin with his Australian, Japanese and Filipino counterparts — Richard Marles, Minoru Kihara and Gilberto Teodoro, respectively — in Hawaii last week. ( Image Source :X/@SecDef )

Earlier this month, India was in for a rude shock when US President Joe Biden called India “xenophobic” along with a handful of other countries. The jolt got bigger last week when the United States, along with Japan and Australia – India’s Quad allies – got into a major military grouping of sorts with the Philippines, and secretively named it ‘Squad’, in a much sharper aim at China. Such a move overnight put a big question mark on the relevance of the