The Quad: Security in the Indo-Pacific

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to the Indo-Pacific this month for meetings with key allies and to highlight that the United States’ strategic focus remains firmly on the Asia-Pacific and countering China’s growing economic, military, and political clout around the world. The revival of the Quad—the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—as a potential counterweight to China highlights the threats seen by western countries to a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific. What challenges does the Quad face, internally and externally, as it seeks to maintain the status quo in this strategic region? Join the World Affairs Council on February 24th at 12 pm PST for a discussion on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with foreign policy experts Dhruva Jaishankar and Tanvi Madan. Moderating the conversation will be Rebecca Yang from Amazon Web Services (AWS) who previously worked in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, U.S. Embassy Bangkok, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relation’s Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 

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About the Speakers:

Dhruva Jaishankar is Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America (ORF America).  He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the Lowy Institute in Australia. A regular contributor to the Indian and international media, he presently writes a monthly column for the Hindustan Times. His published research on India’s relations with the United States, Japan, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Europe; defense and security policy; and globalization, democracy, and technology; has appeared in several books, policy reports, and publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Survival.

Jaishankar was previously Director of the U.S. Initiative at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Prior to that, he was a Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings India in New Delhi and the Brookings Institution in Washington DC from 2016 to 2019. From 2012 to 2016, he was a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund (GMF) in Washington DC, where he managed the India Trilateral Forum, a regular policy dialogue involving participants from India, Europe, and the United States. From 2009 to 2012, he was program officer with the Asia Program at GMF. Before that, he worked as a research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington and as a news writer and reporter for CNN-IBN television in New Delhi. In 2015-2016, he was a Visiting Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Jaishankar holds a B.A. in history and classics from Macalester College, and an M.A. in security studies from Georgetown University.

Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Madan’s work explores India’s role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing in particular on India's relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S. and India’s approaches in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad.

Madan is the author of the book “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War” (Brookings Institution Press, 2020). Her ongoing work includes a book project on the recent past, present, and future of the China-India-US triangle, and a monograph on India’s foreign policy diversification strategy.

Madan is a member of the editorial board of Asia Policy, a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, and a member of the Australian National University’s National Security College’s Futures Council.

Previously, she was a Harrington doctoral fellow and teaching assistant at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. In the past, Madan has also been a research analyst at Brookings, and worked in the information technology industry in India.

Madan has authored a number of publications on India's foreign policy and been cited by media outlets such as the Associated Press, The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Madan has also appeared on a number of news shows including on the BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, Channel NewsAsia, CNBC, Fox News, India Today TV, NDTV, NPR, and PBS.

In addition to a doctorate in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin, she has a master's degree in international relations from Yale University and a bachelor's degree with honors in history from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, India.

About the moderator:

Rebecca Yang builds bridges across tech, government, and civil society to solve global challenges. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), she leads strategic initiatives across Amazon and AWS’ Worldwide Public Sector's State and Local Government and Education organization to scale the business. Prior to joining AWS, Rebecca worked on Facebook's Global Trust and Safety team, focused on Commerce. Previously, she served as a U.S. diplomat in Istanbul, where she covered elections, domestic politics, human rights, and religious freedom. Rebecca led U.S. engagement on women’s rights in Turkey and collaborated with the UN and U.S. interagency to address the unique needs of LGBTI refugees. She led her team through unprecedented security challenges, including a coup attempt, terrorist attacks, and an evacuation due to increased terrorist threats. Her reports were featured in the President’s Daily Brief and she won a Meritorious Honor Award for her service. Passionate about U.S.-China relations, Rebecca also worked in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, U.S. Embassy Bangkok, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relation’s Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 

Rebecca is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, a Truman National Security Fellow, and a World Affairs Council Fellow alumna. She has a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Dedicated to building inclusive organizations, Rebecca founded, led, and scaled inclusion initiatives at AWS, Facebook, the U.S. State Department, and Harvard. She is proficient in Turkish and Mandarin Chinese and is currently learning Japanese and German. In her free time, Rebecca enjoys scuba diving, reading, traveling, oil painting, music, and food.