From Indo-Pacific to Pacific: Delhi must prepare for strategic loneliness

A newspaper headline in 1975 said, “Ford to City: Drop Dead”, when POTUS Gerald Ford refused to bail out New York City during a financial crisis.

It appears to be more or less the same sentiment now with POTUS Donald Trump and India. The end of India’s fond hopes of a strategic alliance came not with a bang, but with a whimper: the Pentagon announcement, right in the middle of the G7 conclave in France, that the US has reverted its Indo-Pacific Command to the “Pacific Command”, which had been its name before Trump changed it in 2018.

What this means is clear: the US has turned its back on the Indian Ocean, on India, and on the vaunted “strategic partnership” that Indian policymakers had long assumed would be a corollary of that presumed bedrock of Indo-US relations: the mutual need to contain a rampaging China.

I am not surprised, to be honest: I wrote years ago that in an era of relative decline, it made sense for the US to downgrade its aspirations from sole hyperpower to one among equals: that is, a “G2 condominium” with China. This is, in principle, the same as the Vatican-brokered Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 that divided the world into Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence. Interestingly, that did not really end well for either party, but we shall let that pass.

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Let us connect the dots: there is a ‘Donroe Doctrine’ whereby the US is asserting its hegemony in the Americas, its sphere of influence. Trump has ejected China from Venezuela and is in the process of kicking it out of the Panama Canal zone; although the Pacific-to-Atlantic railway project in the Brazilian rainforest, and its terminus, the deep-water Port Chancay in Peru, remain.

The disastrous Trump foray into Iran was predicated on denying China easy access to that country’s hydrocarbons. But the MoU after 100 days of war suggests that the US has received a bloody nose and is withdrawing, retired hurt, if you will. The shrinking of ambitions away from the Indian Ocean, as reflected in the reversion to the ‘Pacific Command’, suggests that the US is ceding the continent, including West Asia, to China.

America-watchers have noticed this strange attitude to Asia before. Evan A. Feigenbaum, a former adviser to US Secretaries of State, wrote this on ‘X’: “For Washington, the problem is at once intellectual, strategic, and bureaucratic. Intellectually, the United States still has three separate foreign policies in Asia — one for East Asia, another for South Asia, and a third for Central Asia (which it scarcely regards as a part of Asia at all). As Asia reintegrates, then, the United States is too often stuck in an outdated mode of thinking … Asia is being reborn and remade. Yet, the United States is badly prepared for this momentous rebirth, which is at once stitching Asia back together and making the United States less relevant in each of Asia’s constituent parts. Asians are, in various ways, passing America by, restoring ancient ties and repairing long-broken strategic and economic links.”

Well, this is also the end of the “pivot to Asia”, even though it was probably half-hearted at the best of times. Former POTUS Barack Obama started using the term in 2011, but was himself guilty of ‘awarding’ “South Asia” to Chinese overlordship during a visit to that country. Now that the US is dumping its European allies, it should not be surprising, in view of the ‘Fortress America’ tone of the National Security Strategy of 2025, that India is also being thrown under the bus.

A US official, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, had said this bluntly in Delhi at the Raisina Dialogue 2026: India should understand that we’re not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying, oh, you know, we’re going to let you develop all these markets and then the next thing we know you’re beating us in a lot of commercial areas.

Landau is right from a short-term US perspective. The US blundered badly, presumably taken in by Chinese propaganda, and allowed itself to be stripped of its industrial prowess. They have learned a lesson: squash potential competitors when you can. In a way, this is a back-handed compliment, because it suggests that the US is aware that India can be a challenger and force the G2 to become a G3. India is literally the only power large enough to attain Great Power status; Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, etc, have too many problems.

No incumbent power wants an insurgent power to challenge its hegemony. The so-called “Thucydides Trap” predicts that the chances are they will go to war. Broadly speaking, it may be a kinetic war or an economic war. India is simultaneously being knee-capped by Thucydides Traps set by both the US and China, those G2 buddies. I wrote about this as an “Abhimanyu Syndrome” for India: splendid isolation. I hasten to add that though Abhimanyu died, his side did win convincingly.

So, it is time for India to be pragmatic and develop its own self-reliance, both in military power and in economic and trade power. The existing G2 are only looking for vassals, not allies. The equation between them is also interesting. It is clear that the US is in gentle relative decline; but it does have deep resources and can survive as a continental-sized economy, even if it turns its back on the rest of the world, as it has done several times in its short history. But Trump did kowtow to Xi on his May trip to China: he looked like a vassal paying tribute to the emperor.

China, if you look at its 3,000-year history, is volatile and unstable. A pattern repeats itself again and again: there are periods of prosperity and power under a strong imperial centre, followed by collapse and utter chaos. An unwinding of the Chinese empire, much like the implosion of the Soviet empire, is probably only a matter of time.

If you look at Indian history, the nation was mostly stable, though its prosperity invited invaders. As far back as 3,000 years ago, India was the centre of a lucrative Indian Ocean trade, based on Pax Indica in the region. With a deep-water navy, a massive manufacturing push, and self-reliance, India can regain its past glory. Military power breeds respect from others. Economic power makes others want to trade.

(The writer has been a conservative columnist for over 25 years. His academic interest is innovation. Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)