The Malabar Exercise of Quad nations

Context:

• Malabar, which began as a bilateral exercise, is now one of the cornerstones of military interoperability of the Quad forces.

What is Malabar?

• It is a multilateral war-gaming naval exercise that was started in 1992.
• It began as a bilateral exercise between the navies of India and the United States.
• Navies of the four member nations of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad — India, the United States, Japan, and Australia — are participating in the 25th edition of the Malabar Exercise
• From 2002 onward, the exercise has been conducted every year.
• Japan and Australia first participated in 2007, and since 2014, India, the US and Japan have participated in the exercise every year.

How did it the exercise expand from a bilateral exercise?

• Japan joined the naval exercise in 2015 as a permanent member, and Malabar became a trilateral exercise.
• Last year, for the first time in over a decade, the exercise saw the participation of all four Quad members.
• It was the second time that Australia participated in the Malabar series of Naval exercises.

Why did Australia return, and why is its participation important?

• The main reason is
• As a grouping of four powerful navies in the Indo-Pacific region, the Quad has irked China, which is flexing its military power globally.
• Earlier, it was due to the possibility of riling China that India had not expanded Malabar and, to an extent, why Australia had pulled out after 2007.
• But with China’s relations vexed with all four participating nations — and with an ongoing military standoff in eastern Ladakh for more than 15 months — the Malabar sends a strong message.

Does India conduct any other naval exercises with these countries?

• India has several kinds of bilateral and multilateral military exercises with all these nations.
• Last year, the Indian Navy conducted a number of Passage Exercises (PASSEX) with the navies of Japan, Australia, and the US.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/malabar-exercise-of-quad-nations-why-it-matters-to-india-7472058/