US Sutra | India-US relationship is still our Number 1 challenge

First of all, it is not US President Donald J. Trump who called India a “hellhole”. It was a man called Michael Savage. And he called both India and China “hellholes”. Some would even go so far as to say that hyphenating India and China, albeit negatively, is a net positive.

Of course, no proud and nationalistic Indian would go so far. But let us, at the very least, face facts. Savage made these remarks on a podcast criticising US birthright citizenship. President Trump quoted a section of the transcript of that podcast. Savage, the son of Jewish immigrants, was known as Michael Weiner in his pre-radio avatar. He wrote books on herbal medicine and homeopathy before his ‘bestseller’ Savage Nation (2002), which he still promotes, brought him some degree of fame in addition to notoriety.

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Savage, who called immigrants “gangsters with laptops”, is obviously wrong, in addition to being sensationalist. India’s Ministry of External Affairs rightly called out his remarks as “uninformed and inappropriate”. But, sadly, our US-hating intellectuals went to town with it. Never mind that the children of many of them, not to speak of our top cabinet ministers, are US persons.

We Indians love to hate America. True that there are no permanent friends or enemies when it comes to our national interests. But for the most part of our over three-quarters of a century of existence as an independent nation, we have, without question, had two permanent enemies — Pakistan and China. Which one of these two is more dangerous? The answer is too obvious to be spelled out.

China occupies Indian territory greater in size than Switzerland. Not only that, it claims all of Arunachal Pradesh as its own as part of South Tibet. Never mind that its occupation of Tibet is itself disputed. Our trade deficit with China is over $110 billion — and growing! Of course, China is nowhere as undiplomatic as the US under President Trump. But does that change our reality or the threat from our Western or North-Eastern neighbours?

No.

If we follow Kautilya, we would make friends with our enemy’s enemy. Of course, the United States, still the world’s leading superpower, is friends with one of our enemies, Pakistan. But that friendship, as I have argued in the previous column [https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/us-sutra-trump-modi-rapport-still-holds-india-us-relations-after-iran-conflict-14001112.html] is not friendship at all. It is, instead, the use of a subordinate and, some would go so far as to say, a hireling — I need not resort to the “d” word that our EAM used.

But, when it comes to China, the US cannot be our enemy’s friend. In fact, the US and China are locked in a serious, thankfully not yet deadly, conflict which goes by the moniker Cold War 2.0. Ergo, our enemy’s enemy should be our friend. The US and India are, in addition, natural allies as the world’s largest democracies. What is more, India’s diaspora, Savage insults retweeted by POTUS notwithstanding, is highly regarded not only in American society, but in his own administration.

Let us, therefore, not be overly sensitive.

Instead, we must look more critically at our own transactionalism which goes by much more lofty names such as non-alignment, multilateralism, or strategic autonomy. The truth is that in a world already well into Cold War 2.0, the costs of such outdated, not to mention preachy and sanctimonious, doctrines are now impossible to ignore. Ambiguity or worse, hypocrisy, is no longer clever; it is self-sabotage.

On one side stands the non-authoritarian free world: the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and yes, our best buddy, Israel. All populous and vibrant democracies that still command the heights of finance, technology, and military innovation. On the other hand, is a fracturing authoritarian axis: an economically strained China, a Russia bogged down in Ukraine, a volatile North Korea, and Iran, until recently, an exporter of terror, now unravelling before our eyes.

Though the Gulf war is far from over, the massive and combined firepower of the US and Israel has changed everything. Tehran’s proxies have been dismantled, its nuclear infrastructure degraded, and its energy exports crippled. Venezuela’s regime has collapsed under sustained US pressure. Cuba economically adrift, is about to capitulate. The US has taken back its control of the Panama Canal and reasserted its might—I shall go so far as to say right—in Americas, North and South, as per the Donroe Doctrine.

Thus, in the space of a few months, the “Axis of Resistance” lies in ruins. The post-Iran landscape is no longer a balanced bipolar contest. It is a lopsided one in which the free-world bloc is likely to wield decisive structural advantages. This is precisely why the post-Iran new world order hands India a historic third chance.

Nearer home, the security arithmetic in our region has also shifted. China’s 2020 Galwan aggression and repeated border incursions have it made clear that Beijing views India as a rival to be contained, not a partner. Russia, once a reliable arms supplier, is now a junior partner to China and increasingly unable to deliver advanced systems on time or without strings.

The United States and its democratic allies, by contrast, have offered co-development of jet engines, quantum sensors, and next-generation semiconductors. Precisely the capabilities India needs to become a developed economy by 2047.

Before I am called out as a “US toady”, let me state quite unequivocally that I do not advocate India's playing second-fiddle, let alone lackey, to US power. Indeed, the most populous nation in the world, in addition to an economic powerhouse and ancient civilisation, does not need, in fact cannot, to do that.

Indeed, alignment with the non-authoritarian free world does not mean vassalage. It means pragmatic recognition that India’s long-term interests are secure: safer borders, technological leapfrogging, export-led growth, and energy security. This works very well for India, converging decisively with partnerships with Tokyo, Seoul and the EU. Japan’s $75 billion commitment to India’s infrastructure, South Korea’s semiconductor investments, and the “mother of all” free trade agreements with the EU — all of these already point the way.

India once again stands at a crossroads. It can cling to a defunct doctrine forged for a world that no longer exists. Or it can seize the post-Iran moment, step decisively into the democratic camp of Cold War 2.0, and claim its rightful place as a pole in the free-world order.

The choice is no longer abstract. History is watching. The door is wide open, perhaps for a short time. Because, if we do not act fast, this opportunity may end up being as narrow as the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

(Concluded)

(The writer, currently Sri Aurobindo Chair (Hon.) at Vedere University, is an author and columnist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)