Established at the Foreign Ministers' meeting in October 2021, I2U2 stands for India, Israel, United Arab Emirates(UAE), and the United States( US) quadrilateral cooperation. The leaders of the below four member countries met for the first time on 14th July 2022. Combining reciprocal strengths and capabilities to fulfill collective socio-profitable interests, the new Quad mates look forward to bolstering cooperation and cooperation in the region as indicated in the initial peak.
The changing dynamic of West Asia has still made the foreign policy sphere replete with enterprise on the strategic and geopolitical prospects, and the viability of this recently formed mini-lateral. It's in this light that this issue brief examines the aspects of this recently formed body and the implicit prospects of cooperation that lie ahead. With a brief understanding of the purpose of this new Quad, the paper studies the nature of existent bilateral connections between members, their individual divergent geopolitical interests, and the factors that bring them together, exploring the road ahead.
I2U2 identifies 6 areas of cooperation and investment, videlicet- water, energy, transportation, space, health, and food security. It intends to mobilize private sector capital and moxie to help modernize the structure, develop low carbon development pathways for diligence, ameliorate public health, and promote the development of critical arising and green technologies in the member countries. The countries deny any military angle to their cooperation with the docket of the mini-lateral concentrated on profitable and infrastructural development.
Two civil democracies, a Jewish popular state, and a monarchy - the four I2U2 member countries partake in comprehensive profitable, military, and political bilateral relationships with each other. The US is the largest trading mate for both, India and Israel. India, on the other hand, is the second-largest trading mate of UAE(2021) and the third-largest Asian trade mate of Israel(2019). India- UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(CEPA) also entered into force lately (February 2022). In terms of trade in defense, India was the largest importer of arms in 2017- 21 with Israel and the US being its third and fourth largest defense supplier independently. India is also the largest buyer of Israeli military outfits. The countries are also participants in different military exercises, like, the Blue Flag air combat exercise (Israel), or the Desert Flag exercise(UAE), which saw the participation of both India and the US along with other countries.
Bilaterally, India shares fat connections with the three other members; boasting of a Global Strategic Partnership with the US, a comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the UAE, and 30 times successful politic relationship with Israel. Indian deportees moment make up roughly 30 percent of UAE's total residers - a facsimile of the original Emirati ethnical population themselves. US and Israel also partake in a Strategic Partnership relationship. The US was the third country to establish formal politic relations with the UAE post its independence in 1971. The strategic propinquity of their relationship is displayed in the fact that UAE hosts the busiest US air base in the world for surveillance breakouts, Al Dhafra. It also hosts the busiest US Navy harborage of call, Jebel Ali. likewise, the signing of the Abraham Accords brokered by the US in August 2020 has led to the full normalization of ties between the Jewish state of Israel and the Arab UAE.
The thriving bilateral connections still don't mean that the four countries partake same ideological and strategic interests. For example, the Iranian context is central to the US and Israeli outlook on West Asia. India and UAE, on the other hand, continue to find ways to engage with Tehran. India's literal and artistic relationship with Iran, though dragooned under Western warrants, continues to thrive as witnessed during the recent politic exchanges between the two countries. also, the rise of China has had different meanings for the four countries in the discussion. While the US eyes the rising Chinese vestiges in the region and Indo- Pacific with inimical sight, India has a tight rope to walk with its current truculent neighbour. Israel and UAE, on the other hand, have been observed to be serving from the rising Chinese profitable investments in the region. China and UAE lately upgraded their ties to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership status. There has also been increased defense and specialized cooperation between China and Israel which has caused enterprises in Western nations, particularly the US. The Chinese investment in the construction of vessel outstations in Haifa harborage (Israel) and Khalifa harborage (UAE) as part of its flagship Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) further exacerbate the US security enterprises in the region.
The pending resolution of the Palestinian issue is also a point of divergence in the relationship participated by these four countries. For illustration, the Arab- Israel contest and the two countries' result announced by the UN is known to have shaped West Asian geopolitics since 1947. India also calls for a peaceful resolution of the Israel- Palestine issue. In light of these dynamics, India- Israel bilateral relationship remained substantially confined to technology, defense, and husbandry until recent high-position visits post-2014. Economics, energy, and the arising geopolitical trends have now paved the way for a further realist outlook in the current century as witnessed in the signing of the Abraham Accords.
The creation of I2U2 is seen as one of the crucial tips of the Abraham Accords that intends to pave the way for normalisation of Arab- Israel ties. moment, Israel has recently established politic connections with four Arab League countries, videlicet UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The evolving geopolitical, profitable, security and social realities of the region are encouraging new politic discourses. For illustration, the Neom Meeting between Saudi Crown Prince and Israel Prime Minister was held in November, 2020. With the eventuality coming together of the West Asian region, the four nations' foreign ministers' meeting was held in a mongrel format last time. India, Israel, UAE, and the US, explored possibilities for common structure systems in transportation, tech, maritime security, economics, and trade, as well as for fresh common systems. In this meeting, the Ministers decided to establish a forum for profitable cooperation to take forward their demoiselle dialogue which ultimately led to the current format of I2U2. In the event of this clustering of foreign policy interests of the else socially and regionally different countries, it becomes essential to understand what brings these nations together.
The four members of I2U2 feel to be bound by two major interests - the indigenous geopolitical footmark expansion and the global socio-profitable security. For the US, the creation of this alliance serves two purposes, originally, it negates the “notion” of the US pullout from West Asia, and secondly, it strengthens its strategic vestiges in the region by fulfillment of the long term American commitment towards Israeli profitable, political and strategic integration in the region. For Israel and UAE, the two nations bound by profitable literalism, this alliance can produce the design for effective West Asian unborn cooperation. The founding class of this Westernmini-lateral also reaffirms the leadership part that India holds a moment in connection with the South Asian rimland. I2U2 offers India a platform to more openly engage with Israel and other Arab countries beyond bilateral means to profit economically, socially, and geopolitically in the region.
Speaking of the global socio-profitable security interest, the world, as we know the moment, is witnessing a new set of arising challenges beyond conventional threats. However, the COVID-19 epidemic, added competition for global dominance, If global growth was at threat( as reported by the UN). Supply chains break- down, trade wars, energy instability, and geopolitical- profitable issues have been observed to pull down the global profitable recovery attempts. Whereas ecologically, food instability, declining soil productivity, global warming, and climate change hang the long-term survival of the societies themselves. It's in this light that the confluence of different capabilities becomes important to fight the forces of unsustainability - as depicted in the docket for I2U2.
For the US, the 'West quadrangle' allows for the expansion of the geographic compass of its relationship in the region - securing the East Mediterranean Coast to the Persian Gulf axis. This becomes important when viewed in confluence with the suspected development of the Russia China- Iran triangle in the region. It'll also help the States reinvigorate the hookups which suffered during the former administration of Donald Trump. A stable, connected, and collaborative West Asia further ensures the security of the US' socio-profitable interests and investments in the region as its policy focus expands to the Indo-Pacific.
I2U2 also presents India with an occasion to play a global leadership part alongside the US while keeping its strategic autonomy and public interests complete. heightening ties with the West Asia region presents holistic political and infrastructural connectivity channels for India. This can profit both, the large Indian diaspora in West Asia, as well as India's own profitable and political interests. For illustration, the realization of the India- Arab- Mediterranean Corridor, as a coming step of India - West Asia connectivity, can give economically feasible alternate trade routes connecting the Indian key to the European landmass. The prospective completion of this force chain corridor won't only profit the people-to-people connection but will also strengthen India's trade and energy security.
The recently formed political ties between Israel and UAE also have the eventuality to profit the West Asia region at large. For UAE, it impresses upon the growing elevation of the country in the Gulf region with its smart high profitable profile. Whereas for Israel, it presents an occasion for the inauguration, expansion, and solidification of formal politic ties with other Arab countries. Successful cooperation between Israel and UAE within the American marquee and Indian support can open doors for the realization of a profitable relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia as a coming step.
While on paper this new setup grouping is said to be entirely riveted on profitable and infrastructural development, one can not fully ignore the security and geopolitical issues which compass the four member countries. Different scholars have questioned the viability of this union when it comes to clashing ideological and public interests; the response to Iranian trouble being a case in point.
As noted by Winston Churchill," We've no endless musketeers, but endless interests". The combined fear of weaponization of the Iranian nuclear program is known to bring different nations together rounded by American support. While there exists an anti-Iran front, there also coexists a sense of balance in the region when viewed from UAE and Indian perspectives. India has been working with and around Western warrants to maintain the strategic warmth of its major relationship with Iran. This also becomes important in light of recent Chinese strategic preludes in the region.
China is overtly known for making its profitable raids into West Asia since the morning of this century. Although Chinese investments in Israel, UAE, and other Gulf countries have remained profitable till now, the surfacing of the Iran-China Strategic Partnership Agreement bodes deeper engagement in the region. The growing Chinese profitable, and now strategic, heft in the region, bodes a possibility of competition and disputation in the region in the race for the opposition. The I2U2 pretensions would therefore profit by releasing the forum's profitable and development dockets from the member states' individual security and strategic interests. The denial of any military angle in the first peak of the grouping hints in this direction.
I2U2 offers a unique combination of Israeli innovative technology, US global artificial moxie, Emirati profitable coffers, and Indian request leadership together to present sustainable competitive openings that can profit the global profitable order moment. In light of current global fermentation like the COVID-19 epidemic fall- outs and the ongoing Russia- Ukraine extremity, the areas of cooperation linked by this grouping videlicet- water, energy, transportation, space, health, and food security - are both short-term conditions and long-term imperatives. The burgeoning global population, and the declining earth capacity, in confluence with potentially destructive multipolarity contestations, can therefore use responsible leadership to attain balance in the below disciplines.
As far as India is concerned, it's no longer happy to be an unresistant donor of issues in the West Asian region, and it's with this understanding with Delhi is getting more visionary about heightening its connections in the region. Rather than staying for the ties to take shape organically or bare negotiation to events as they do, I2U2 presents India with an important suited leadership part for shaping the global socio-profitable security structure. still, it remains inversely essential for the member states to not lose out on the below global pretensions for individual geopolitical interests. A stable, less unpredictable, and collaborative West Asia holds a stopgap for the else restive world moment.