Italy and the Quad: Functional Cooperation and Latent Opportunities

Since its revival in 2017, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) has become a popular mechanism for advancing a ‘free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific’. Alongside intra-framework cooperation, its members have independently engaged external actors. Although not formally linked to the Quad, or its ‘Plus’ version, Italy is among the latest European powers with an interest in the Indo-Pacific. This development, partly encouraged by Washington, reflects Rome’s growing ambition to forge deeper ties with the Quad members. This chapter examines Italy’s evolving engagement with the Indo-Pacific through the lens of its interactions with the Quad. It argues that Italy’s approach reflects only a partial alignment with Washington’s hard-security vision for the Indo-Pacific, favoring instead functional cooperation, with a particular focus on defence industry opportunities, connectivity, and the extension of collaboration into non-traditional security domains, such as ocean governance. The chapter further evaluates synergies and latent opportunities for functional cooperation with the Quad framework and concludes that prospects for such engagement could be constrained by characterizations of the grouping as an ‘Asian NATO’. In doing so, the chapter contributes to scholarly debates on European security roles in the Indo-Pacific, highlighting Italy’s distinct trajectory and the modalities of its engagement with key regional actors.