Conventional wisdom says Republicans are good for India and Democrats are a problem. The former are stubborn realists, while the latter tend to be clumsy liberals, concerned with issues like human rights.
That is largely a folk tale. When the going gets tough, the Democrats, from John Kennedy to Barack Obama, have been just as good for India as the Republicans, from Dwight Eisenhower to Donald Trump. That’s because, like all US presidents, they have largely followed their perception of their national interests. There have been presidents like Richard Nixon who have allowed personal viewpoints to sway their approach, or Trump who made things seem outrageous with his shared penchant for rallies with Narendra Modi. But what has driven US policy in his administration has been the same thing that brought Obama to India on Republic Day 2015 to sign the declaration on the joint US-India strategic vision on Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean. .
If Trump overlooked issues like human rights, or the Modi government’s attempts to marginalize and demonize Muslims, it is because he did the same when it came to those he considered “friends”: Jair Bolsanaro, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and even Kim Jong. United Nations.
To understand the realistic perspective in which Biden’s policy will unfold, we need to measure the Indo-US relationship in the context of China. Contrary to what many believe, the United States does not trust India to take on China in the Indo-Pacific. India’s military capacity is low and its reach does not go beyond its immediate vicinity. The size of India’s economy may one day kick in, but it’s decades away. Whether in the western Pacific or the Indian Ocean, the Americans are by far the greatest military power and will remain so for at least the next two decades.
The US aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), the Akizuki-class destroyer of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force JS Fuyuzuki (DD-118) transits alongside the Indian Deepak-class fleet tanker INS Shakti (A 57) during a replenishment at sea exercise. Photo: US Navy
Therefore, India plays a kind of symbolic role here: a respected regional power with important diplomatic values in the Indian Ocean (IOR) region and South Asia. His voice is heard around the world and, given its size and potential, adds weight to the organized coalition against Beijing, not to wage war, but to push it in the direction of playing by American rules.
From the American point of view, it has been a long-term project to have India as part of its global partnership system. Again, this is not about war, but about deterrence and stability that America needs to maintain its global primacy. Policy consistency means the United States doesn’t have to worry about Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Myanmar going up in smoke – India can do the job. Over the past two decades, that project has advanced at a rate inversely proportional to the rate at which the gap in comprehensive national power in India and China is increasing.
India needs the United States
At this stage, India clearly needs the United States. Its economy is stagnant and it has hit a dead end with its military modernization. Propaganda may convince you that five Rafale jets can tip the balance against China, but the reality, according to defense finance expert Amit Cowshish, is that “no improvement in disbursement will be enough” to cope with the tangled modernization of the defense of India. As for the reform, banning foreign alcoholic beverages in canteens, raising the retirement age of officers, or cutting the pensions of officers who retire prematurely is whistling in the dark.
Then there is the Chinese challenge: at our borders, in our South Asian region and the IOR. In August, Biden made a point of saying he would back India against “border threats” without specifying China. But the United States is unwilling to fight our battles for us, and we don’t expect them to. It’s more about taking on the 1,000-pound gorilla called China, again, not militarily, but on issues like technology, connectivity, infrastructure development, etc. And this will be done through coalition building, with the leadership of the United States and countries such as Japan, Australia, Singapore and, increasingly, the European Union, playing their part. The key feature of Biden-Harris’ foreign policy will be the emphasis on multilateralism, rather than Trump’s chaotic ‘America first’ policy.
The Biden administration is unlikely to go for the erratic policies that alternated between making deals and breaking deals with China. Their approach will be more systematic and an effort will be made to develop consensus with friends and allies, especially Japan and South Korea, and perhaps rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On the other hand, the United States under Biden may also not be confrontational enough for India’s taste, especially in our current Royal Line of Control situation. Despite Trump, the US still has a dense relationship with Beijing with a trade in goods and services that exceeded $ 634 billion in 2019. Trump started the dissociation process, but the Biden administration is likely to do less of it. Conflicting and more systematic, a process encouraged by the COVID-19 experience, to modify supply chains to ensure there is no over-reliance on a particular region or country. Much more than Trump, Biden also realizes that the United States lives in the same world as China. There are major world order issues (climate change, trade rules, proliferation, terrorism) where you need cooperation from China, regardless of the current competition between the United States and China.
Chinese and US flags fly near the Bund in Shanghai, China, July 30, 2019. Photo: REUTERS / Aly Song
No free ride
When it comes to India’s internal affairs, the Modi government will not get the free ride it has gotten so far, even if the Biden administration will not allow its activist impulses to override America’s strategic interests. As a Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination, Kamala Harris had declared in October 2019 that the people of Kashmir were not alone in the world and that it was necessary “to intervene if the situation demands it.” He also supported his colleague in Congress, Premila Jayapal, when the latter was not invited to a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, S. Jaishankar. Biden himself has stated that he was “disappointed” with the Modi government’s actions related to the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). But in an electoral campaign many things are said that are later ignored.
The fact is that the United States and India have the basic structure of a more or less firm solid strategic relationship. India has signed the four fundamental agreements that facilitate defense cooperation. The two countries are part of the Quad and coordinate policies on China, they have institutionalized the ‘2 + 2’ dialogue at the level of their respective ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs, which allows a better synchronization of policies.
But the real impetus in the relationship will come from selected officials in key positions: the undersecretary of state for Central and South Asia, or the counterpart dealing with India in the Defense Department. Alice Wells has been serving at the State Department as Under Secretary in 2017. When it comes to Defense, it’s hard to find an official who has the kind of interest and commitment to a good relationship like former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
Biden himself has had a considerable interest in American foreign policy, having served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee at various points in the 2000s when the Indo-US nuclear deal emerged. According to Foreign policy, Biden had a formidable informal team of advisers for his campaign. They are made up of 49 task forces and two former State Department officials, Sumona Guha and Tom West, lead the group on South Asia. Some of these advisers may appear at various levels in the new administration.
As for Kamala Harris, her views on foreign policy are close to Biden’s and she has appointed Native American Sabrina Singh as her press secretary. Sabrina is the granddaughter of the legendary JJ Singh, who founded the Indian League of America in the 1940s. At the August 2020 event featuring “South Asians for Biden”, Harris invoked Mahatma Gandhi and said that the fight for the freedom of India he spoke of values such as tolerance, pluralism and diversity. ”It is likely that none of this contributes to a comfortable relationship with the current administration in New Delhi.
Much will depend on how the new president and vice president divide their work. One may choose to focus on pressing domestic issues, while the other deals with foreign policy. This in itself could make a difference in the tone and tenor of American policy toward India.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
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