Warships from the United States, Japan, Australia, India and France have from Sunday, sailed together through the Indo-Pacific in a three-day naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal. It will be the first such exercise involving the so-called Quad countries – the US, Japan, Australia and India – after their leaders met for a virtual summit last month. Dr Collin Koh Swee Lean, a Research Fellow at the Singapore-based RSIS said the exercise would be “definitely significant” if the countries decided to make it a regular event, adding that it might become an encouraging sign for other non-Quad regional countries to consider similar cooperative activities with the Quad.