This is not the first time the Quad has faced tension. Inaugurated informally as a response to the 2007 Indian Ocean tsunami and growing concerns over Chinese aggression, the group faltered almost immediately. In 2008, Australia withdrew from the newly elected Kevin Rudd government. Canberra’s decision reflects a classic cost-benefit calculation: Beijing had expressed strong opposition to the Quad, seeing it as an embryonic anti-China containment mechanism. Rudd’s administration chose not to anger China, prioritizing economic relations with its largest trading partner. The move, announced with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, effectively put the Quad into hibernation until its quiet revival in 2017. This episode revealed a recurring vulnerability: group solidarity depends on convergent threat assessments and domestic political will. Yet the fact of its resurgence, driven by shared democratic values, maritime interests and a collective desire to preserve the rules-based order, demonstrated its latent resilience.

The present interval is an echo of the previous interval but has a different character. India was to host the Quad leaders’ summit in 2025 as the rotating chair, yet 2025 passed without a leader-level meeting. Bilateral friction, including India-US trade tensions and changes in US priorities under the second Trump administration, contributed to the delay. Critics have seized on the optics of drift. Yet a closer examination of diplomatic activity reveals continuity rather than decline. Over the past year, the Quad has maintained momentum through ministerial and working-level engagement. On January 21, 2025, barely hours after his confirmation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called his Quad counterparts, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Australia’s Penny Wong and Japan’s Takeshi Iwaya, to Washington. The meeting reaffirmed the partners’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and their opposition to unilateral efforts to change the status quo by force. The second meeting of foreign ministers took place on July 1, 2025, again in Washington, where the four countries expanded their agenda to include maritime and international security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technologies, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. They launched the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative and announced new cooperation on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and law-enforcement capacity-building. These gatherings, although lower profile than leaders’ summits, have kept the mechanism functional and friendly.

Further evidence of vitality comes from the diplomatic calendar that follows. Secretary Rubio is scheduled to visit New Delhi from May 24 to 26, 2026, for bilateral consultations with the Indian leadership and the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The visit is clearly framed as an effort to reestablish and deepen India-US strategic ties strained by tariff disputes and other frictions. Far from a sign of abandonment, such insistence on maintaining ministerial rhythms shows that the Quad remains a priority even within the America First framework that emphasizes burden-sharing and transactional diplomacy.

Nowhere is the strategic logic of the Quad more evident than in India’s growing role as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region and the broader Indo-Pacific. New Delhi has long supported the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) approach; Prime Minister Narendra Modi during events in Mauritius in 2025 clarified its development in the Ocean – Reciprocal and holistic advancement for security and development in all sectors. The framework emphasizes capacity building, maritime domain awareness and inclusive regional architecture. India’s hosting of the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue in October 2025, attended by participants from more than 30 countries, underlined its convening power on issues ranging from blue-economy growth to climate-resilient maritime security.

At the heart of India’s Indo-Pacific position is the Great Nicobar Islands Development Project. Located at the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, barely 160 kilometers from the Strait of Malacca, ₹The Rs 81,000 crore initiative includes a major international container transshipment terminal at Galathea Bay, a dual-use civil-military airport, a township and supporting power infrastructure. Once operational, the project will enhance India’s ability to monitor one of the world’s busiest chokepoints, through which about 80 percent of China’s energy imports and 25-30% of global trade passes, while reducing dependence on foreign transshipment hubs. The dual-use facilities will strengthen naval projection, surveillance and logistics, directly countering Beijing’s string of pearls strategy and exacerbating China’s Malacca dilemma. Environmental safeguards and tribal welfare provisions have been integrated, yet the strategic logic of the project is clear: it cements India’s forward presence in the eastern Indian Ocean and serves as a concrete expression of the Quad’s maritime security objectives.

For its part, the US has signaled a basic level of continuity amid change. While emphasizing burden sharing and some degree of retrenchment elsewhere, Washington continues to invest in the Quad mechanisms for supply-chain resilience, critical minerals, and maritime domain awareness. The July 2025 Foreign Ministers’ Statement explicitly welcomed the next Leaders’ Summit and Australian-hosted Ministerial Meeting in 2026, reflecting institutional memory and forward planning.

The Quad’s ability to tolerate without continued summit talks reflects the maturity of micro-lateral diplomacy. The high-level spectacle is symbolically valuable, but the group’s real strength lies in its working groups, technical cooperation and habit of consultation. Practical deliveries, such as vaccine diplomacy, humanitarian aid coordination and now critical-mineral security during the pandemic, build trust and interoperability more durably than photo opportunities. In a fragmented order where formal alliances risk entrapment and multilateral platforms risk paralysis, the Quad offers calibrated flexibility: democratic solidarity without the rigidity of treaty obligations.

Skeptics will continue to question the group’s relevance whenever leaders’ calendars diverge. Yet history and recent practice suggest otherwise. The 2008 comeback did not end the Quad; It just stopped it. Today’s tensions arising from domestic politics and economic restructuring in one of the four members have also failed to derail its core functions. As Rubio prepares to land in New Delhi later this month, the message is clear: The Quad persists not despite the absence of a leaders’ summit, but because its participants believe that sustained, functional cooperation serves their shared interests far better than episodic spectacle. In the contested waters of the Indo-Pacific, quiet resilience may prove to be the most powerful form of strategic signaling.

(Views expressed are personal)

This article is written by Shriparna Pathak, Professor, China Studies and International Relations, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat.

McFarland noted his friendship with Loftis and how he has given back to the racing community. what’s here cleatus mcfarland said of Kyle Loftis.

McFarland began, “I think these guys did a great job of showing how effortlessly Kyle helped everyone around him and started his career.” He added, “I can’t count how many times Kyle has jump-started someone’s career or passion and taken their life on a different path than they ever could have imagined. And it’s really incredible what kind of guy he was.”

Read this also Remembering Kyle Loftis: 10 photos from the life and legacy of the 1320Video founder

Additionally, McFarland remembered Loftis and said, “It’s also incredible how many friends Kyle had. I think he had more friends than anyone I know. He was one of the kindest, most loving people and could talk to anybody, but you know, he had a lot of friends.”

Loftis’ friend also noted the many people brought together by the late video producer and said, “I mean, you look around the room and the diversity of people Kyle brought together was really amazing. And his unique skill at bringing people together was one of his best. If you look around, there’s a good chance Kyle has introduced you to the person you’re sitting next to.”

McFarland said of Loftis, “However, his passion for cars was absolutely infectious. When we met Kyle many of us had no idea what a journey we were about to take.” McFarland then recounted his meeting with Loftis.

“When I met Kyle… he was at the Sonic, too. And man, does Kyle love the Sonic. I don’t know how much he boosted the economy of the Sonic, especially in the Nebraska area, but he deserves some credit there. But, uh, I ended up here at the Sonic on 180th and Center after getting an invitation from Chase. And I remember this guy stuck a GoPro on a Fox body. And at that time, you know, Had come out. I didn’t really know this was putting this GoPro on. There’s this huge camera, you know? I’m 15 years old. I’m like, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” McFarland said.

He continued, “So, I jump in my car and I’m chasing these guys and Kyle is in the car behind to coordinate the race. Sure enough, they race straight down Center Street and then they come in and I’m like, this was the first street race I had ever seen. It was the best thing I had ever seen in my life.”

Speaking about his first conversation with Loftis, McFarland said, “I go to Kyle, you know, because I can tell this guy I think he’s in charge of this deal. And I’m just like, what are you going to do with this video? You know, it was great. And he said, “Oh, I’m putting it on my YouTube channel, 1320 Videos. It’ll wake up in the morning.” I’m like, “Holy cow, this is the coolest guy I’ve ever met.” So, I go home, probably like most of you, once you meet Kyle, you watch 13, 20 videos, right? I watched as many videos as a man can watch in one night. And I was completely obsessed. After just one conversation with Kyle for a conversation period, my love for cars 10x By this point in my life, all I wanted to do was be a part of Kyle’s crew.”

Talking about the way Loftis inspired those around him, McFarland said, “And I think a lot of you can relate to this, but I wanted one of those 1320 video shirts that had the film crew written on it. And I just wanted to be around Kyle and see what he was doing because obviously he was doing good work and everyone there loved him and you know I Let’s just say he was the guy who wanted to be like him. And that’s just a small example of how easily he inspired other people. I mean, you can’t watch a 1320 video without putting a big turbo on your car, right?

“Kyle’s passion for cars was extremely strong, right? That’s what we all know him for. But if you really knew him, his passion was really for documenting everything. And I can guarantee that if he were here, he would have the most photos and videos on a cell phone in this room. And he probably already has about a hundred photos from this morning. Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe like 250 photos by this time in the day, because he saw that brick structure Would be out, took 20 pictures of him. He would come in, take pictures of all of you. And that was one of his best features, but it was almost exhausting how many times he would take pictures, and uh, there was no stopping him,” McFarland also said of his late friend. He then recounted an anecdote, “I mean, I remember driving down the road in Australia. Cooper and I were talking about this last night, and there’s a train on the side of the road that’s just like going, you know, just going by. And he hits the brakes. We switch so he can film from the passenger seat. And I mean, we’re following this train for about 20 minutes, you know, just getting video of it. And uh, this is just some of the footage that you’ve never seen before, but I mean, it’s like 5% because he took a lot of the videos and photos, I’m sure we went to this zoo in Australia, Kyle. You can pass up this exhibit with birds, but we got a photo and video of literally every animal in the zoo.

“And I think a lot of you can remember when Kyle first downloaded Snapchat. None of us were prepared for how many Snapchats Kyle was going to take. I don’t think the servers at Snapchat were ready. I mean, he had to be the number one user of Snapchat or the top five. I mean, his Snap stories were so long. It was incredible to get through them. And even at this point in his life, he wanted the permanent version too. But Kyle was like, you know, downloading Snapchat, and then switching on his camera, but it was, you know, you got at least a hundred Snapchats, cars, food, puppies for that day. Loved documenting. And it didn’t matter if it was the car or his friends or anything interesting.

He praised the late video producer’s leadership and told attendees, “I also think Kyle was one of the best leaders we could have asked for when we worked for him. And whether you worked directly for 1320 Video or you volunteered at one of his events, as I know many of you did, he really treated us great. The meetings before the events were so much fun. Like they were more of a party than a meeting. I don’t know how he did it, but he, you know, made these creative shirts and a lot of the little things. And he never stopped there to make sure that his employees were really taken care of.”

McFarland recounted some funny moments with Loftis. He said, “I loved Kyle’s sense of humor. I mean, you really had to go out of your way to upset him. I mean, you could get away with a lot. I remember one time Alec and I went to the front desk of our hotel, told him we needed his room key. Went up to his room about 2:00, you know, we had a few drinks and we put pizza on top of him. We put pizza on his arm and then Matt, You were there, too. Uh, and I just remember being in this shitty hotel, and I, you know, I could hear him laughing through the paper-thin walls. I mean, he was never that angry, you know. Boy.”

McFarland said, “Uh, another fun story, just one more before we go. I remember Kyle had this brand new drone. It was cool when DJI came out, right? Like it’s state of the art and we’re in Colorado. There’s a waterfall. Of course, Kyle is on it, right? Like it’s a waterfall. It looks like Kyle’s phone is out of his pocket. You know, we have a thing for this thing. Magneto. I don’t even know what happened to the waterfall before that. You know, we charged it and Kyle was getting so close to the waterfall, and ultimately the drone flew in and never got it, but it’s like he was always making the extra effort to get the best video and picture of Kyle. He never missed a shot. He had to get the right picture, get the right video. It was amazing.

Ending on an emotional note, McFarland said, “We were so lucky to have Kyle. So, let’s not let his legacy fade away. Now is the time to spread the great word of 1320 Video more than ever. Wear your shirt. Wear your hat. Keep tagging those stickers wherever you go. And most importantly, remember to smile like Kyle.”

On Facebook, McFarland recently posted again about Loftis, writing, “My brother. Still no words. The most inspirational boy of my life.”