The reference to international terrorism skirts the issue of what the international community needs to do to counter this threat, which, as the article postulates, could result in "non state" actors becoming players in destabilizing the world including by using weapons of mass destruction.

I found four books useful to understand the context of what is called "jihadi terrorism" that is often said to emanate from the "AfPak"region.

These four books are

(i) "Lawrence in Arabia" by Scott Andersen (2013), which provides a detailed account of how "political Islam" was conceived of during the closing days of the First World War by the Kaiser's Germany and implemented in Egypt, from where it spread into the Middle East and up to Karachi in Pakistan.

(ii) "The Wrong Enemy" (2014) by New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall, who lived in the AfPak region from 2001 to 2014, and identified the role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence in using terrorism as a lever of state policy in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

(iii) "Directorate S" (2018) by Steve Coll, another New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, which gives details of the complicity of the Pakistani state agencies in fomenting terrorism in Afghanistan and India.

(iv) "The Afghanistan Papers" (2021) by Craig Whitlock, a journalist with The Washington Post, which meticulously uses official records obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to reconstruct the role of the Taliban, Al Qaida and Pakistan's state agencies in ensuring that the "global war on terror" declared by the U.S. in 2001 ended with handing over Afghanistan to the Taliban, who never renounced their links with Al Qaida, in August 2021.

I think therefore that the response to the use of terrorism as a lever of state policy really requires a direct acknowledgement of the facts given in such published accounts, and measures using Articles 41 (economic sanctions) and 42 (armed force) of the UN Charter by the UN Security Council to prevent international terrorism from threatening to disrupt the declared global objective of peace, security, and sustainable development.

This reference to the "Quad" grouping of the U.S., Australia, Japan and India has been linked in strategic analysis with the framework of the "Indo Pacific". However, both the "Quad" and the "Indo Pacific" have inherent divergences which impact on any possible "direct conflict" with China.

Within the "Quad", three countries are linked by military alliance treaties (the U.S. with Japan, and the U.S. with Australia), which make the U.S. the dominant decision making partner for any allied action. India does not belong to any military alliance, and is at a disadvantage in decision-making for military "conflict" with China. Since all four countries are participatory democracies, domestic support for any decision on engaging in conflict in "alliance" cannot be taken for granted for a "Quad" military conflict with China.

This is compounded by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's public comment during his official visit to India in July 2021 that in the case of any bilateral military conflict between China and India over their land border, the "Quad" will not be a player. Such a position makes India's participation in a U.S. led military conflict with China doubtful.

A second issue for this "Quad" is its scope of operation. The strategic framework of the "Indo Pacific" has two interpretations. Japan (and India) endorse the "Indo Pacific" as comprising the entirety of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, as articulated by former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in his address to India's Parliament in August 2007 and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech at the June 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. On the other hand, the U.S. National Security Strategy of the White House published in December 2017 (which is yet to be superseded by the Biden White House) defines the "Indo Pacific" as the Pacific Ocean from the western coast of the U.S. to the middle of the Indian Ocean up to the coast of India. Australia too follows the U.S. definition of the "Indo Pacific".

This implies two things on the ground. First, the U.S. will use only its Indo-Pac Command based in Hawaii for conflict issues in the Indo Pacific, which would stop short of addressing conflicts in the maritime domain between the Red Sea/East African coast and India (which is the domain of responsibility of another U.S. theatre command, the Central Command). This gives primacy to China in the U.S. Indo Pacific strategic framework, but does not extend to China's land borders in the Eurasian landmass, including the disputed land border with India which is currently volatile.

Secondly, the strategic interest of India as a part of the "Quad" in the western "Indo Pacific" as defined by India - which is the maritime and littoral space between the Red Sea and the west coast of India, is left vacant. This is the space which is vital for India's national security interests, with two sea lanes of communication choke points (the Bab al Mandab connecting the Indian Ocean/Red Sea to Europe, and the Straits of Hormuz transporting the bulk of India's and Asia's energy imports from the Gulf). An added factor for India is the fact that over 8 million Indian passport holders are employed in the Gulf region, who remit about $35 billion annually directly into the Indian economy. There is no comparable Indian presence so far in the eastern "Indo Pacific".

In operational terms, the driving force of the U.S. initiative for its "Quad" in the "Indo Pacific" seems to be to increase the exports of U.S. naval equipment to the partner countries, for which the U.S. has already put in place a military alliance supportive structure for inter-operability and use of U.S. military equipment. For this reason, too, the priority of the U.S. has been to enter into a bilateral interoperability military agreement with India.

All this leaves India's immediate interests to secure its land border with China, and the volatility in the littoral of the Indian Ocean where Pakistan and Iran are situated, in the air as far as the "Quad" and "Indo Pacific" are concerned.

To add to this complication, the U.S. has last week announced the formation of another "Quad" to address the region between the Red Sea and India. This grouping consists of the U.S., the U.K., the UAE and Saudi Arabia. India is conspicuously absent from this grouping, which will impact on its participation in the Indo Pacific Quad in both operational and policy terms.

Apart from helping to structure thought, I think that the process of writing also helps to retain ideas in the memory. That has been my own experience.