India and the US as enduring global partners: An assessment

• Author: Riaz Ahmad,Muhammad Mussa Khan,Azeem Gul
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2094

ACADEMIC PAPER

India and the US as enduring global partners: An assessment

Riaz Ahmad

1

| Azeem Gul

2

| Muhammad Mussa Khan

3

1

School of Public Policy and Administration,

Xi'an Jiaotong University, Beilin, China

2

Peace and Conflict Studies, National Defence

University, Islamabad, Pakistan

3

School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University,

Hangzhou, China

Correspondence

Dr. Riaz Ahmad (Postdoc Fellow) HEC PhD

Approved Supervisor, School of Public Policy

and Administration, Xi'an Jiaotong University,

China.

Email: drriaz@xjtu.edu.cn; drriaz@zju.edu.cn

This paper examines the nature of India and the US relations. The relations between

two the states have improved in the post−/11 era. The willingness of the US to pro-

vide India political support at the regional and global level is one aspect that resulted

in changing the nature of that relationship. Second, growing defense ties both in con-

ventional and nonconventional sectors fundamentally galvanized the nature of that

relationship. This paper further analyzes the geopolitical compulsion of both states to

counter various state and non-state actors' threats such as China's increasing mari-

time presence in the Indian Ocean region and terrorism. Moreover, this discussion

argues about the political, strategic, commercial aspects of the strategic partnership

till date. Much part of this paper analyzes what is the nature of this relationship and

how it developed?

1|INTRODUCTION

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and India's Defense Minister

have resumed the 2 + 2 strategic dialogue in December 12, 2019 as

part of the strategic partnership. This Ministerial level dialogue would

give the US to transfer defense equipment such as the Naval and

others. From 2013 to 2017, the US sale to India increased by 557%

(Montague, Montague, 2019). Historically, India and the US have

transformed the defense and trade relations during the US President

George W. Bush and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This

great transition in defense and trade has taken place since 2004 and

gradually moving upward recently. Both states have agreed on com-

prehensive security cooperation. With this, India and the US strategic

partnership has become a diplomatic lexicon which means both have

common strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region now called as

the Indo-Pacific region (Bhatia, 2012). Both states have converged

foreign policy's strategic goals (Garg & Mishra, 2004).

The relations warmed after signing of a breakthrough cooperative

on July 18, 2005. This seems to be a part of quid. The nature of India

and the US relations transformed truly under the “New Framework for

the U.S.-India defense Relations (NFDR)”signed by secretary of

defense Donald Rumsfeld and then minister of defense Pranab

Mukherjee in 2005. The NFDR introduced the idea of “Strategic Part-

nership”and defined the emerging strategic interests in the Indo-US

relations. The Defense Policy Group (DPG) remained the apex body

for the defense discussion and its subordinate groups (Hedrick, 2009).

The NFDR includes the unprecedented steps toward strategic

partnership in India and the US relations coincides with the comple-

tion of “Next Step in Strategic Partnership (NSSP)”launched in

January 2004 to formalize the bilateral relations (Bhonsle, Prakash, &

Gupta, 2007).

2|CIVILIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY

This section discusses India and the US relations in nuclear energy. The

beginning of this energy deal negotiated recognized as a watershed to

bring the USand India both as cooperatingin energy sector. The US has

lifted 30 year of moratorium on nuclear trade with India. Through offi-

cial ministerial dialogues, the political, military and trade barriers were

eliminated. A final agreement concluded in nuclear energy in 2008.

With this, India's experts havebelieved that it reshaped boththe states

a new projectilefor pursuing long-term securityobjectives.

In a meeting with the US officials, Prime Minister of India

expressed the diplomatic lexicon and calling this is a seminal and his-

toric development. After a long period of estrangement, the great

wave of this relation in fact became more since 2004 (Malone, 2009).

The first great leap toward being both as defense partners took place

from 2002 to 2008 during the Bush administration. India was not an

ally, in fact, friendly relations with the US and its nuclear program

posed no direct threat for the latter. Against this backdrop, The US

sought to make India a strong defense partner to check and keep

close eyes on China's activities and maintaining balance of power in

the Indo-Pacific region (Weiss, 2007).

Received: 7 February 2020 Accepted: 7 February 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2094

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2094. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1of7

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2094