In a letter to President Bill Clinton after the May 1998 nuclear tests, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee blamed China while much of the western world focused on India.
“We have an overt nuclear weapon state on our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with that country have improved in the last decade or so, an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem,” Vajpayee said.
While the tests were a temporary setback, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran wrote in his book, How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century, that “by the turn of the century, [India’s] relations with the US and the West in general had begun to crystallise into a mutually beneficial and substantive relationship” (2018)
One of the most significant geopolitical changes of the new millennium was the reconciliation and subsequent development of bilateral ties. President Clinton’s historic visit to India in March 2000 was the result of discussions between then-External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, and the Indo-US nuclear agreement signed during the George W. Bush administration elevated bilateral relations to a higher strategic trajectory.
The global financial crisis struck in the last months of the Bush administration, and Pakistani militants attacked Mumbai. Relationships between New Delhi and Washington remained steady through the subsequent storm. Barack Obama made history by being the first president to travel to India twice, and he welcomed both Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi to the White House.
Despite the erratic behaviour of President Donald Trump, relations kept getting better, the Quad framework was resurrected, and the defence collaboration was cemented with the signing of the fundamental agreements. One of Trump’s final trips abroad before the virus shut down most of the world was to India. Even if the messy US pullout from Afghanistan last year left New Delhi exposed at a time when it was already up against a challenge on the Line of Actual Control, the rhythm has been maintained under President Joe Biden, especially with regard to the Indo-Pacific policy.
The chairman of Carnegie India, Rudra Chaudhuri, noted in his book, Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947, “India’s connection with the US has been the most comprehensive association the country has had since independence…this is really a partnership forged in crisis” (2014). The type of depth and breadth that the India-US relationship has gained in the last couple of decades…has been a really surprise development, Saran remarked at an interview this year, “If you had told me in 2005 that we would have such a strong military-to-military cooperation and partnership for counterterrorism 20 years later, I probably would have thought it was an impossible expectation. But that did happen… It is acknowledged that in terms of This relationship will be crucial in overcoming the difficulties we currently face and will encounter in the future. I concur with that.”
Current conquest
The alliance has been put to its most extreme test by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. India’s failure to condemn Moscow’s conflict has greatly troubled New Delhi’s European partners and raised some eyebrows in Washington and other Western capitals. The US was happy with the formulation and its public expression on September 16 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi informed President Vladimir Putin that “today’s period is not about war.”
“This is not an age and this is not the time for war, as he (Modi) emphasised. We couldn’t be more in agreement, Blinken remarked. “The conflict will end if Russia quits fighting. Ukraine will cease to exist if the war ceases, thus President Putin must act.
India has been purchasing more oil from Russia than it did in the past, which has angered the US. India contends that it is necessary to shield its populace from the war’s inflationary effects.
Washington briefed New Delhi about the F-16 programme, portraying it as a continuation of the previous programme rather than a new one and arguing that Pakistan needed it to fight terrorism, but South Block objected with both its optics and content.
“Reflecting on the benefits of this relationship (with Pakistan) and what they get from it is ultimately up to the United States now… When someone claims they are doing something because it is entirely anti-terrorism-related and you bring up an aircraft like the F-16, where everyone is aware of both their deployment and usage, By stating these things, you are not deceiving anyone, Jaishankar remarked on his visit.
The resumption of military cooperation between the US and Pakistan is seen by some observers in New Delhi as a criticism of that country’s “issue-based alignment” policy. Furthermore, although senior US officials such Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Assistant Secretary Donald Lu have paid visits to New Delhi, relations have suffered from the lack of a permanent ambassador 20 months after the Biden Administration assumed office.
Charged with business As President Biden’s choice for Ambassador, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, is still awaiting confirmation by the Senate, Patricia A. Lacina has been holding down the fort at the US Embassy in New Delhi. Since 1950, the US hasn’t gone this long without having a permanent representative in New Delhi. In January 2021, Kenneth Juster resigned from the job.
Having a permanent US representative in New Delhi is crucial for conveying essential messages to Washington, DC. From South Block’s standpoint, the envoy must be able to call someone in the US capital’s political system, and the higher up, the better.
Both India and the US view China as the largest danger and foe, notwithstanding the small instability in their relationship caused by the Ukraine war. Up until roughly 2011, when President Obama began to discuss a “pivot” to the East, US administrations had ignored the warning indications that Beijing was becoming a more assertive and quickly rising power. However, it took the Trump administration to see China as a competition and geopolitical concern.
Under Biden, this narrative has persisted. However, as the US has withdrawn from Afghanistan, Beijing’s influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan has grown. India has requested a waiver from US sanctions on the S-400 Russian air defence system in this situation.
Irritations in the US-India relationship create potential weak points, especially in light of the new “no-limits” connections between Russia and China. There has never been a better time to accommodate and invest in the relationship since every leader since Vajpayee has considered the countries as “natural friends.”
