India’s national interests lie in deepening ties with America.
The rise of China at the doorstep, the role of capital and technology in industrialisation, employment generation and national security, the importance of shaping global norms and conversations, the benefit of insurance policies in geopolitically adverse times, the doors that open up by being friends with the system’s most powerful player, and the need to ensure that one’s own interests are not hurt (or are hurt as minimally as possible) dictate that India cultivates the US. Washington DC remains — not fully but partly, and in conjunction with others — the most powerful international capital that can help Delhi meet its geopolitical and economic goals of security and prosperity.
And make no mistake, the US remains extraordinarily powerful. It has an approximately 25% share of global GDP, the world’s most lethal military, the most transformative technologies of our times, and the richest corporations. It is often the decisive presence in every theatre and voice on every issue globally. It is hegemonic in the Americas; it is central to European security; it is on the verge of reshaping West Asian geopolitics; it is the central balancer to Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific; it takes responsibility for the security of treaty allies from North America to Europe to Asia to Australia; it is the most dominant actor in the strategic, civilian, and private sector in space; it has unprecedented ability to control high technology access and semiconductor supply chains; and it is the central driver of most multilateral organisations. Donald Trump has taken over this empire.
Therefore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warm phone call with Trump, external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s two visits to Washington DC in the span of three weeks, his presence at Trump’s inauguration and participation at a Quad meeting, are all essential diplomatic investments. Leveraging personal ties between the principals, strategic logic, personal relationships, networks of partners, diplomatic experience (it is striking that Jaishankar has been in the foreign policy business for 48 years while Marco Rubio is 53 years old), bipartisan connections, and business links, India has ensured a good start with Trump.
The US, too, can clearly see the logic in the strategic relationship with India, the value that India brings to any conversation because of its unique set of experiences, interests and relationships, the possibilities India presents as the second major pole in Asia, and the opportunities presented by both the talent and market in India. The fact that ties with India remain a source of bipartisan consensus is a remarkable feature of today’s Washington. With India not being an ally, the costs for the US in investing in ties are limited, a key metric for Trump who treats adversaries with flattery and allies with contempt and India is mostly spared either.
And, therefore, America’s status as an essential partner for India is a given. This is widely accepted by all those inside the system who have the responsibility for core national security and economic policy and all those outside willing to honestly acknowledge it.
But while being essential, the US is an undependable power and, increasingly so, as the Trump era is displaying every day.
It is undependable because there is a return of an extreme form of American nationalism, the reassertion of the paranoid streak of American politics, the resurgence of nativist and racist politics, and the revival of imperial instincts. All of it makes any attempt to cast America as the rule-abiding good cop — even if it was for rhetoric, it served the purpose of legitimacy-building — as a shallow proposition. It makes Americans talk about respecting human freedom and dignity and democratic values empty of meaning. It makes America’s ability to sustain alliances and partnerships suspect. It makes America’s treatment of its minorities a global issue given the intersection of the politics of immigrant communities with the politics of their countries of origin.
It is undependable because one man’s decisions, guided by some ideological beliefs but often based on impulse, will define much of US policy on any issue for the next four years. Yes, others matter but when chaos is a conscious choice, the ability to shape thoughtful outcomes rests on chance. Flattering that one man remains central to American goodwill. It is undependable because it is now home to one of the most visible and unapologetic oligarchies in the world, where the world’s richest businessman’s second home is the President’s private resort and his second office is in the building next to the White House, where a cabinet of conservative billionaires are entrusted with public good, and where a bunch of the president’s children are running political, diplomatic and business franchises. What matters in decision-making is hard to know in these circumstances.
In Jekyll and Hyde mode, the US is undependable because it changes its mind on the threat of the climate crisis every four years, in what must rank as the most irresponsible feature of the new Trumpian era. It changed its mind about the need for international organisations to deal with issues that span borders such as health. It changes its mind on the direction of global taxation and new financial and digital technologies. It changes its mind on whether it should respect its smaller neighbours and compensate for historical errors or threaten the same neighbours and take back their territory (ask Panama).
But policymakers don’t have the luxury of distant moralising. They have to deal with the world as it is. Global geopolitics often involves choices between the ideal and the pragmatic, the good and the bad (or sometimes, the bad and the worse) that have to be made for the larger good. That is why India has to continue doing what it doing. It has to carefully and methodically deepen ties with the US and leverage both strategic and economic opportunities that open up. It has to remain acutely conscious of the rupture in the US that has made it an externally revisionist power, a strange turn for the dominant player in the system, and an internally ultra-nationalistic and majoritarian country, an unfortunate turn in one of the world’s most diverse lands. Navigating this new complex America will be among Indian diplomacy’s core tasks in the years to come. Proximity, with autonomy, will be the path forward.
The views expressed are personal
