Ahead of Quad summit, US hopes Russia’s war and China’s assertiveness have shaken India
- Washington has made strides in deepening security ties with New Delhi and regards it as a strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific
- India maintains ties to Russia, its leading arms supplier, but regards China as its leading regional threat, analysts say
In 2015, the US and India made a landmark announcement in their burgeoning military partnership: they would co-develop jet engines and aircraft carrier technology.
India wanted the technology to develop its own jet fighter, one of the projects in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative. The US sought to increase its security ties with India to balance against China’s increasing influence in the region.
But after much fanfare, the project was suspended in 2019, with the Pentagon citing US export controls and differences between Delhi and Washington over which technologies would be useful to India. Instead, the two sides agreed to collaborate on drone technology, lightweight small arms, and aircraft support systems – a drastic step down.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of US-India relations: incremental progress, missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential.
In part, such false starts are due to decades of distrust stemming from partnerships with each other’s adversaries – India with Russia, the US with Pakistan.
Despite Delhi seeing Beijing as its biggest threat and Modi’s push for a more assertive foreign policy, India has only cautiously engaged with US attempts to bring it into a network of “like-minded nations” aimed at countering China’s efforts to reshape the international system.
