Skidding Down the Strategic Slope

While Modi's recent visit to the United States locks India in a tight strategic embrace with the US, the Chinese will not take kindly to India embracing US policy in the South and East China seas. India's inability to make headway with China will exacerbate the costs of furthering this misshapen relationship. A clear and open debate is imperative to weigh the costs and benefits of Indo-US relations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to the United States (US) has been lauded at home as a major step forward in Indo–US relations. This is true inasmuch as Modi has gone further and faster than any of his predecessors in locking India in a tight strategic embrace with the US. The real question, of course, is whether and to what extent such a relationship is beneficial to India. The desirability of such ties is regarded as so axiomatic to many in our strategic community that even raising a question invites the charge of being wedded to old paradigms, outmoded thinking, and so forth. Such tawdry rhetoric aside, it is imperative that we have a clear and open debate on where we are headed with the US. Not least because the government wants us to “keep calm and carry on.”

‘Freedom of Navigation’