India-Vietnam and the Quest for a Quadrilateral Partnership

In the context of the geo-strategic and economic importance of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, a new geopolitical construct of ‘Indo-Pacific' has emerged and this terminology has proliferated the academic literature and dossiers of defense strategists and policy makers world over. This Paper outlines the quest for a quadrilateral partnership in the Indo-Pacific region as a tool for the understanding geopolitics of the twenty-first century. Amidst the complementarities and contradictions—emerging out of the Big Powers, the Paper offers a multilateral approach to the emerging rivalry in the IndoPacific. Finally, it argues that the growing competition and clash of interest of the global and regional powers would increase the geo-strategic significance of this region in the years to come.