As the US initiated a range of country-specific measures to give a new thrust to its defence relationship with India, a top Pentagon official has said that America benefits from a strong and capable Indian military.
“In the long run, the United States benefits from an Indian military with all the capabilities it needs to meet its growing regional security responsibilities,” said the outgoing Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter. Carter, considered to be architect of the new India-US defence policy along with the National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, wrote in an op-ed in the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine.
To step up defence cooperation with India, the US has taken measures, including relaxation in export control measures and offers of exclusive co-development and co-production of hi-tech military hardware. “Even as we face budget turmoil and political gridlock at home, working toward this goal — quietly, patiently, but ultimately effectively — is what the rebalance is all about,” Carter said as he listed out a series of steps that the Obama Administration has taken in recent months to give a new thrust to the India-US defence relationship.