Indo-US Relations

India’s rise has changed the nature of its relationships with other major players in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, regional states and great powers have moved to “engage” India. But what does “engagement” involve? And which “engagement strategies” – diplomatic, military, economic or public – have worked and which have not? Finally, what do the “engagement of India” tell us about India’s place in world politics and the best means by which it and others can manage its rise?

This book explores the various engagement strategies employed by key international actors, including those used by United States, Japan, Russia and China, as well as the responses these strategies have prompted from India in both its foreign and domestic policies. It draws upon a growing body of theoretical literature that explores the nature and utility of engagement in international relations,  and employs it to make better sense of India’s rise, its causes and its consequences.

The Look East policy has emerged as an important foreign policy initiative of India in the post-Cold War period. It was launched in 1991 by the then Narasimha Rao Government with the aim of developing political contacts, increasing economic integration and forging security cooperation with countries of Southeast Asia. The policy marked a shift in India’s perspective of the world, where the strategic and economic importance of Southeast Asia to India’s national interests is being recognised. The second phase, which began in 2003, extends the coverage of the Look East policy from Australia to East Asia, with ASEAN as its core. The new phase, thus, marks a shift in focus from trade to wider economic and security cooperation, political partnerships, physical connectivity through road and rail links. In this paper the evolution of India’s Look East policy and its recent approach are analysed.

The USS Enterprise naval task group entry into the Indian Ocean during the closing stages of 1971 Indo-Pak Conflict led to further deterioration in the relations between India and the United States (US), and this estrangement lasted until the end of the Cold War. The US couched this show of force under the rubric of ensuring safety of American personnel caught up in a war zone. In India, however, this was seen as a coercive attempt to prop up a genocidal military regime. Using recently declassified official records from both sides, additional scholarly works on the 1971 conflict, and in light of the rapprochement in Indo-US relations, the article attempts to deconstruct the rhetoric and reality of this incident. It examines the prevailing politico-strategic environment, roles of diplomatic-military apparatus of major players, the mechanics of the naval deployment, and provides lessons for historical re-interpretation and the utility of seapower in the contemporary context.

The post-Cold War period witnessed a spurt in regional integration and regional trading arrangements. India’s attempt at regional integration with Afro-Asian countries since the early days of independence was without much success. The economic reforms in 1991 has thrown open the floodgate of its Asianism. This article discusses the trend towards regional integration after the end of Cold War and argues that the Look East policy is the byproduct of India’s attempt at regional economic integration with its Asian neighbours.

The study of the rise of India and China in what has already been dubbed the ‘Asian 21st Century’ is of profound international importance. The resurgence of China and India marks the restoration to regional pre-eminence of two civilizations that dominated their mutual spheres of influence for millennia until Western imperial encroachment into Asia in the 17th Century.  Unsurprisingly, in addition to the re-establishment of strong bilateral economic relations – China is India’s greatest source of imports, for instance – ancient sources of Sino-Indian friction are re-emerging, and are acting as propellants for arms accumulation.  In this context, the April 2012 launch of India’s Agni V nuclear-capable ballistic missile was notable for two related reasons:  first, the missile’s range has rendered all of China vulnerable to an Indian nuclear strike; secondly, if any doubt remained over the Agni V’s intended target set, the Indian Press has universally dubbed the missile the ‘China Killer’, a nickname that seems to enjoy the Indian Government’s tacit approval.  Emblematic of the growing military competition between China and India, the Agni V launch lent credence to the notion that an arms race is evolving between Asia’s most populous powers. 

In assessing the threats and opportunities posed to the West and Russia by a Sino-Indian arms race, this thesis initially examines the applicability of arms race theory to the Sino-Indian strategic relationship, and why it is vital that stakeholders comprehend why unbridled programmes of arms accumulation tend to imperil rather than enhance national security.  This thesis concludes that India is a most desirable economic and strategic partner for the West and Russia, but that hidden threats lie in wait for would-be partners whose principal concern is to enrol India in a de facto anti-Chinese alliance.  Indeed, a China obsessed by the fear of being encircled by enemies is likely only to accelerate its own military advancement should it perceive that India is engaged in an alliance aimed at containing Chinese power.  It is also concluded that domestic factors are just as important drivers for Chinese arms accumulation as strategic competition with India and the USA.

The article is an analysis of India-Myanmar foreign relations which are marked by both paranoia and bonhomie. Myanmar is strategically important for India, especially in achieving its objective of a Look-East Policy. India has to maintain a cordial relationship with Myanmar’s non-democratic military junta to extend its influence in Southeast Asia and due to internal security concerns of its north-eastern states which are under continuous threat from various insurgent groups. This article discusses the pragmatic shift of India’s stand on Myanmar where the growing presence of China in Myanmar and India’s quest for energy are the major drivers. In economic terms, China is a major investor in Myanmar and its military relations with Myanmar are causes for concern in India. The article also discusses concerns raised about India’s Myanmar policy, keeping in view widespread scepticism about its military junta.

Eurasian region and Indian Ocean has great strategic attraction owing to their geography, which combines them as a single pivot of global geopolitics in the 21st century. Historically, there has been a universal consensus among all the strategists, despite the difference in their approaches, that Eurasia and Indian Ocean are the key regions to extend the political influence at global level. Various land power and sea power theories were presented to achieve this goal but the rise of aerial warfare over sea i.e. naval aviation, has changed the modern approach of safeguarding and extending the political and military influence of a state in any region. Technological strides made in air-sea warfare, since the World War II, transformed the naval aviation into a credible strategic force over sea and land and an influential foreign policy as well. The US, being the most dominant global power, has been trying to extend its influence in the Eurasian region for many decades. The U.S. naval aviation capabilities and future plans along with her foreign policy goals for the region are the primary driving force behind the naval power competition in the Indian Ocean. This paper examines the emerging trends of naval aviation in the context of prevailing geopolitics in the region with a focus on strategic importance of Indian Ocean and the Eurasian landmass. This analysis of balance of power of naval aviation in Indian Ocean is critical as it has far reaching implication for all the littoral nations in the region particularly for Pakistan due to the Indian participation in this strategic competition as an American ally.

Mr. Kamala Kanta Dash, a policy analyst and now a PhD Candidate from Monash University, presented a paper on Public Policy and Advocacy: Understanding Indian Diaspora Advocacy. He argued that public policy and advocacy go together. He defined Policy advocacy as a process that represents specific or broader community interests, identifies existing loopholes to strengthen policy provisions, shapes policy discourses and facilitates its effective implementation and feedback. Mr. Dash focused on the nature of policy advocacy and methods & effectiveness of Diaspora advocacy. He further discussed whether Indian Diaspora Advocacy in United States has impacted Policy Making in United States and India and if they have influenced India’s bilateral trade and security ties with the United States. Taking the case of US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), Mr. Dash discussed the important role of USINPAC in Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Energy Deal.

Source: GRFDT Newsletter, May 2012, p.5
http://grfdt.com/Upload/Attachment/5_GRFDT%20Newsletter.pdf

The impressive trajectory of India’s naval cooperation with the West in recent years notwithstanding, a ‘glass ceiling’ remains to be breached. This article examines India's Maritime Security Strategy of 2015, with the aim of extrapolating its key facets, including the nature of cooperation that India seeks with the West.

The relationship between India and the US has been one of great transformation in the foreign policies of the both countries. From India’s declaration and championing of the non-align movement to developing close ties with east and west blocs at different points of time for the pursuit of her political interest. United States and India have not only developed closed ties on strategic and economic interest, they have also shared an equal commitment to the pursuit of democracy. The just concluded US elections have raised the hope of many Indians who somewhat believe that a United States led by the democratic party candidate Joe Biden would go a long way in strengthening relations between India and U.S. However, if there is no appropriate attention from both country’s leaders, Indo-US ties might just simply muddle through without ever reaching its full potential. To fulfil the possibilities of this relationship, difficult choices might need to be taken by both countries with the faith and belief that, in the long run, a stronger India will mean a stronger United States, and vice versa. In this paper we look at the strategic factors that have influenced US - India relations in the last two decades and recommend factors that will help bolster relations between them in the years to come.

Department of Political Science and the newly established School of International Studies (SIS) of Ravenshaw University co-hosted a special lecture yesterday on The United States and India: Public Policy, Antitrust Policies and Social Responsibility delivered by Dr. Ba-Shen T. Welch of Miles College, Birmingham of Alabama from United States of America. Dr. Asima Sahu, HOD, Department of Political Science welcomed Dr. Welch and Prof Niranjan Barik, Coordinator of SIS spoke on the history of engagement of Ravenshaw with Miles College and introduced the topic of discussion.

India keeps growing – economic power, nuclear power, military power and presumably in the middle of the millennium the country with the largest population in the world. There is no doubt: India is on its way to become a future world power. Through this it gets increasingly interesting as a political ally. But where is India positioned as a declared Non-Aligned Nation? And even more important: Where will it look for allies in the future?



Since its independence in 1947 India has declared its support for the principles of non-alignment that India’s first prime minister Nehru developed. Neutrality, non-interference, peaceful coexistence and the renunciation of any kind of aggressive action were to become principles in foreign policy.



Since the end of the Cold War it seems, however, that this concept of Non-Alignment is slowly being pushed into the background, making way for a complete reorientation. Is this the result of a radical rift?



Carsten Rauch has been investigating Indian foreign policy since the independence regarding the adherence to the principles of Non –Alignment, and demonstrates that from the beginning deviations from this ideal occurred consistently. Even Nehru always considered it the main goal to keep India’s independence and to increase its sphere of influence.

The author shows that India will gain more and more importance in setting up the world order and recommends Europe and Germany to quickly intensify its relations with India, because India, as a global player, will, with newly acquired self-assurance, keep all options open and will not necessarily consider Europe the best of all possible allies.

New alignments are compelling democracies to rethink strategies and find ways to manoeuvre them. In the past, America was considered a ‘Pariah’ both in Indian polity as well as in discussions within the strategic and military community. Decades of uncanny obsession for pushing non-alignment, India shied away from leveraging advantage from a tech-hardened grand old democracy. Today relations enjoy bipartisan support from either side of the aisle in both countries.

RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email: [email protected] for feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, Mr Yang Razali Kassim. Synopsis In light of recent events, especially President Obama's visit to India and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj's visit to China, India's foreign policy appears to have undergone a transformative shift since the heyday of Non-Alignment. Is this indeed the case? Commentary PRESIDENT OBAMA'S visit to New Delhi as guest of honour for the Republic Day celebrations on 26 January 2015 has been notable beyond its signi...

Since the early 2000s, in keeping with India’s rise on the world stage, the scholarly and policy communities in India and abroad have witnessed a steady increase in writing on India’s soft power. Many of these assessments are optimistic, placing faith in India’s potential as a civilizational great power with considerable resources arising from its culture, domestic ideology and diplomacy. However, in terms of impact, Indian soft power has fallen far short of expectations. Significant sections of public opinion in the West and in Asia are still not favorable toward India. Moreover, one is hard pressed to identify a significant role played by soft power in India’s diplomatic gains since the early 1990s. This paper argues that India’s inability to capitalize on its soft power resources is the result of three factors. First, the overestimation of these resources by analysts. Second, the lack of sufficient hard power to undergird India’s soft power ambitions. And finally, unresolved elements of India’s identity that tend to undermine its efforts at soft power projection through public diplomacy.

The change in interna onal order from unipolar to mul polar has resulted in change of US priori es. South Asia faces new challenges amid these changes. US concerns over a range of issues like terrorism, Islamic militancy and nuclear prolifera on coupled with the rise of Russia and China have resulted in the US re-posturing towards the Asia Pacific. Economic incen ves in Asia also offer the US and European powers an urge to adopt Asia centric economic policy. In this newly evolving security paradigm, India is encouraged by the US to play a cri cal role in the containment of China. Pakistan is therefore becoming less important for Washington and would have to seek new rela onships with newly emerging powers namely Russia and China by offering lucra ve economic incen ves.

India-Pakistan conflict continues to be dangerous given recent events of air attacks by India, and a captured Indian pilot by Pakistan. These have significant geopolitical repercussions for both Delhi & Islamabad, but how should Washington DC navigate the terrain.

On 29 August 2016, India and the US signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA). Essentially, LEMOA is only a ‘functional’ agreement ‘to account for’ the essential supplies and services that one country would provide to the visiting military force of the other. Nonetheless, its significant symbolic and strategic import cannot be ignored. This essay attempts to clarify a few key issues, and appraise LEMOA in terms of its strategic implications.

In the last twenty-five years India attracted a great consideration in particular by United States thanks to an impressive economic growth. The U.S. pivot to Asia and the re-balance strategy to contain Chinese ascendance provide a special role to India as showed by recent Indo-U.S. military agreements. This paper, considering representations of India in the global stage and historical elements of its approach to international relations, analyses angles of India’s foreign policy in Asia, which is influenced by traditional strategic autonomy and alignment towards U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific. This attitude will be proved by several examples related to India’s policy in Asia, showing different perspectives. It will be analyzed why Washington considers contemporary India as a “swing state”, providing key aspects of New Delhi’s relations with United States, China and Asian States that will influence power politics ambitions of India.

Indo-US Relations have been playing an important role in the world. Since time immoral the Indo-US non-official relations were developed in the various fields in general and counter terrorism particular. After independence of India the official relationship between Indian Prime Minister of Jawahar lal Nehru and the US president Dwight D. Eisenhower period. Further Indo-US relations developed in 1991 when India declared economic liberal policy under the PM PV Narashima Rao and Finance Minister Dr. Manmahan Singh Period when the US government had expanded its interest towards India especially in the economic sector after 9/11 incident. Due to the security issues and the strategic point of view Indo-US cooperation on counter terrorism has been considered as a major concerned of foreign policy for the both countries. However, during the Bush administration Indo-US cooperation on counter terrorism became more meaningful for their foreign policy for defending their national interests.

America’s pursuit of an Asiatic rebalance has influenced US diplomatic ties with India and has led to a number of academic debates surrounding India’s foreign policies and regional military ambitions. In 2009-10, a number of defense policy analysts published a series of articles that assessed India’s economic growth and international aspirations. Some suggested the United States could influence India to use its modernizing military to support US goals visa vie China. Further, many authors argued that India was attempting to develop naval and other expeditionary capacities to enforce a more assertive security policy. Among those writers were James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara who labeled India’s security policy an Indian version of the “Monroe Doctrine.” Another author, David Scott called the policy “India’s Extended Neighborhood Concept.” Additionally, Walter C. Ladwig III in his article, “India and Military Power Projection: Will the Land of Gandhi Become a Conventional Great Power?” concentrated on security to explain India’s ascendance as an Indo-Pacific power. Collectively, these authors claimed that India was increasing its military capacity commensurate with its rising economic power. If their claims are incorrect US reliance on India in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea would be improvident. Six years have passed since those claims were made and, therefore, it is reasonable to ask whether current evidence still supports the conclusion that India is committed to more aggressive foreign and national security policies.
Determining the direction of India’s security policy required a standard by which to make the assessment. Fortunately, the articles that made the claim contained their own metrics. By using those metrics, all that was necessary was to collect the new data, compare it with the original data, thereby, assess whether the author’s claims still have merit.
The evidence revealed that India has shown neither the political fortitude nor the military capability to prosecute aggressive security strategies. Indian governmental leaders possess three strong historically based policy proclivities that influence Indian foreign and security policy-making. India’s economic ambitions always drive India’s foreign policy. Those economic ambitions dictate that the domestic economy with have priority over military spending. The small investments in maritime modernization have not significantly increased India’s naval capabilities. The MOD’s modest attempts to replace outdated equipment are also handicapped by burdensome civilian bureaucracies and inept defense processes. Therefore, Indian foreign policies are not shifting the nation to pursue aggressive national security policies. Ultimately, it would be a strategic miscalculation for the US to rely on India to counter-balance Chinese ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region.

The relationship between India and the United States has transformed significantly since
the Cold War, notwithstanding the denial regime imposed after the 1998 nuclear tests.
In the complex 21st-century environment, both countries have articulated their strategic
outreaches spanning the new geographical construct of a maritime configured Indo-
Pacific. This article examines the coherence, correspondence and divergence in the
approaches and the institutions of relevance in India’s “Act East” and the US “Strategic
Rebalance” through the “interest contiguity” paradigm. The salient aspects examined are
the politico-diplomatic, economic and military security dimensions, by using a
combinational of realist and rational choice theoretical prisms. The paper concludes that
while there is a virtual coincidence of “interests’” between India and the US, their
approaches and institutional frameworks are different in certain cases, driven by
respective geopolitical, geoeconomic and geostrategic imperatives. The emerging positivity
in the Indo–US relationship, like many other important engagements across the Indo-Pacific, will continue to contain a mix of cooperation and competition, which is not
unusual and offers avenues for further strengthening of coordinated endeavours.

Rebalancing in Asia and India's strategic location has provided it with the benefit of being key ally of the United States (US). The convergence of interests of the two states culminated into a maritime partnership providing an opportunity to Indian Navy to develop its maritime capabilities for carrying out blue water missions. Such naval build up and alliance formation in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) will be counterproductive, creating security dilemma for the regional states by threatening their national and strategic interests. Contrary to the assumption that such a development will create balance of power in the region, there are threats that these developments may cause conflicts, confrontation, and maritime cold war in the region. The study seeks to explore such dangers. It stresses that sustaining peace at sea hinges upon discouraging an arms race in maritime domain and promoting engagement and collaboration.

For quite some time now, India has been committing one blunder after another in its approach towards the tiny but sensitive southern neighbour, the Maldives. That country now presents a complex challenge for India’s diplomacy and needs deft handling.

After  the  victory  of  the  BJP  and  its  leader  Narendra  Modi  there  were  questions  on  probable  changes  of  India’s  foreign  policy  generically,  and  Indian  relations  with  Russia  and  the  United States specifically. Some  Russian  observers  look  at  these  questions  in  the  context  of  a  US–Russia  rivalry  for  India.

In his policy disruptions, calibrations, continuations, hard-nosed negotiations and leaps of faith, the one thing that stands distinct is Vajpayee’s belief in Indian exceptionalism. Nearly all the decisions that he took during his six-year tenure as India’s prime minister are rooted in the understanding that India as a power is unique, and its exceptionalism is shaped by the colonial experience and a civilizational ethos that lies at the core of its nationalism.

The change in international order from uni-polar to multi-
polar has resulted in change of US priorities. South Asia
faces new challenges amid these changes. US concerns
over a range of issues like terrorism, Islamic militancy and
nuclear proliferation coupled with the rise of Russia and
China have resulted in the US re-posturing towards the
Asia Pacific. Economic incentives in Asia also offer the US
and European powers an urge to adopt Asia centric
economic policy. In this newly evolving security paradigm,
India is encouraged by the US to play a critical role in the
containment of China. Pakistan is therefore becoming less
important for Washington and would have to seek new
relationships with newly emerging powers namely Russia
and China by offering lucrative economic incentives.