leveraging US administration's strategic assessment of Indian power is vital
After approximately a year in office, the Trump Administration on Tuesday unveiled its first National Security Strategy (NSS) that proceeded to set the cat among the pigeons in the global strategic community. Well done, Donald J, and dhanyawaad! The document delineates in some detail the very welcome assessment of India as a vital ally in the US scheme of things, characterising India as a leading global power while identifying Islamism, China and Russia as the main threats. Well, two out of three is not bad at all when looking for convergence in the national interests of both countries; actually, given Moscow's single-minded pursuit of its interests and preoccupation with reclaiming the Soviet Union's place at the global high table at the cost of engaging with interests inimical to India, something we could learn from perhaps, it may actually be closer three out three. Incidentally, the stated strategic objective of the Indian Government under Narendra Modi has been to enhance India's standing globally from being a ‘balancing power' to a ‘leading power'.
The fact that the NSS drew very sharp reactions from Pakistan, China and Russia is possibly the biggest giveaway of just how pivotal a role has been envisaged for India by the American security and strategic establishment. Pakistan was bluntly told that the US-Pakistan partnership cannot survive that country's continued support for terrorists. The absolutist Chinese state and its expansionist designs, including its attempts to undermine the sovereignty of South Asian countries, has been called out with the US pledging to work closely with Japan, India and Australia in quadrilateral cooperation across the Asia-Pacific region to contain Beijing's bullying ambitions. Russia's military power, especially its nuclear arsenal on the basis of which it retains muscle-flexing ability as was recently seen in Syria, was flagged as a clear existential threat to the US. But there was a marked difference in the American tone in dealing with Russia when compared to its assessment of the other threats mentioned, with cooperation with Moscow in many areas including exchange of security information also highlighted which is an excellent development from the Indian point of view as Russia, though no longer an all-weather ally, is still a friendly nation which helps balance out US overreach. Unexceptionably, a war on jehadi safe havens and Islamism has been identified as a US priority.
This, then, would be an opportune moment to remind India's foreign policy and strategic-security establishment where a visceral anti-Americanism is still deeply embedded despite efforts in recent years to evolve a new idiom of diplomacy that is not derivative and recognises India's exceptionalism when it comes to promoting its interests in a world where the major Abrahamic/Semitic religions' midwifed nation-states are dominant, that Trump is good for India. Especially, as this instinctively anti-US cabal is often supported by naysayers who owe ideological allegiance to that effete-liberal, discredited and inimical-to-national-interest nonsense known as an ethical foreign policy when it comes to a closer embrace with the US. That sections of this establishment including the media are beholden to US East Coast liberal institutions for their legitimacy and maintenance of inter-generational privilege means the surround sound they create in favour of bad-for-India, mainly Democratic, US administrations while mocking an allegedly ‘gauche' Trump or 'cowboy' George W Bush must also be countered.
Naturally, none of this mean we should jump into bed with the Americans without taking precautions, especially as changes in American administrations in the past have often been accompanied by radical shifts in US strategic/security thinking and foreign policy. But it would be near-criminal of New Delhi not to leverage the current, unprecedented convergence of views between the US and India.