India, underneath Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has spent the final decade telling the world a narrative about itself: that it’s the Indo-Pacific’s decisive energy, a civilisational state rising to problem China and a pure associate of the United States in main the “free world”. Modi has invested huge political capital into choreographed diasporic spectacles, G20 extravagance and the idea {that a} new US-India alignment is each historic and inevitable. Yet Washington’s National Security Strategy, launched in November, offers India barely a passing point out. In a blueprint that reorders American international coverage priorities, India seems solely as a supporting actor, generally whilst an issue for the US president to repair.
The harsh fact is that India is just not central to the strategic worldview expressed in America’s National Security Strategy. It is just not seen as essential to US safety, nor does it fulfill the political or financial standards that now information American coverage. Europe occupies centre stage as a civilisational ally whose id the US claims should be saved; West Asia is widely known as a theatre of private US diplomatic victories; China is the defining adversary shaping each army and financial calculation.
India, in the meantime, is talked about primarily as a celebration to be managed, particularly in conflicts with its neighbours. The doc boasts that Trump “negotiated peace… between Pakistan and India” as one in an inventory of eight conflicts solved by means of his private diplomacy. India is just not portrayed because the world’s subsequent nice energy, however as yet one more dispute-prone state requiring American intervention.
Even when India seems within the Asia part, it’s framed narrowly as a instrument to assist Washington counter China, not as an indispensable strategic pillar. The National Security Strategy states that the United States will proceed quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and India to encourage New Delhi to contribute extra to Indo-Pacific safety. There isn’t any suggestion that India’s unbiased rise is crucial to the worldwide stability of energy. Instead, India is one amongst many potential contributors to a US-led anti-China structure. Strategic autonomy, Modi’s core precept, is just not admired; it’s tolerated solely as long as it doesn’t get in the way in which of American priorities.
New Delhi’s assumption that geopolitical flattery from Washington was equal to mutual dependence has been uncovered as wishful considering. India has by no means been indispensable to US protection ensures. The American imaginative and prescient for the Indo-Pacific, articulated clearly on this National Security Strategy, revolves round maritime chokepoints, naval bases and high-end technological benefit. India brings none of those to the desk at scale.
The US requires carriers within the First Island Chain, deterrence over Taiwan and management of transport routes by means of the South China Sea, a area by means of which one-third of worldwide transport passes yearly and the place China’s dominance may hurt the US economic system. India can’t contribute meaningfully to any of those core missions. Its naval modernisation lags behind its rhetoric and its reluctance to signal defence-access agreements makes it a troublesome associate in any coordinated regional technique.
Modi’s authorities has usually acted as if symbolic politics, addressing joint periods of the US Congress, stadium rallies with American presidents, lavish diaspora occasions, may substitute for the structural necessities of an actual alliance. Instead of reforming its defence sector, India continues to rely closely on Russian programs. Instead of liberalising its economic system to draw secure international funding, it engages in blatant cronyism and erratic protectionism.
Instead of strengthening democratic establishments to align with Western values, it more and more undermines judicial independence, journalistic freedom, and minority protections. These traits erode India’s credibility as a associate in any challenge introduced as defending liberty or worldwide order.
The National Security Strategy lays out clear filters for figuring out American international priorities: the aim of international coverage is the safety of core nationwide pursuits. By that measure, India fails the take a look at. The United States is just not obligated to safe India’s borders. It doesn’t rely upon Indian manufacturing for essential provide chains. It doesn’t depend on Indian markets to maintain its financial dominance. And in contrast to Japan, South Korea or Germany, India doesn’t host US forces or combine its army planning with NATO-like frameworks.
Washington’s cooling enthusiasm additionally displays ideological divergence. The National Security Strategy speaks of a mission to rescue Europe from civilisational erasure pushed by immigration and declining birthrates, arguing that Europe should regain its cultural self-confidence. The ideological vitality of this international coverage is invested not in defending international democracy however in defending what Trump believes, Western cultural id.
India, multireligious, multilinguistic, post-colonial can’t be made a part of this imagined civilisational West. Even Modi’s Hindu-nationalist politics, which a few of Trump’s political allies rejoice domestically, doesn’t translate into strategic centrality. It solely confirms that India has its personal civilisational anxieties and priorities, which hardly ever align neatly with Washington’s.
Furthermore, Trump’s worldview sees immigration as a nationwide safety menace. India, as soon as a serious supply of high-skilled immigration the US actively prized, not sits naturally inside America’s strategic self-image. A Modi authorities lobbying for extra visas is more and more at odds with a United States that portrays international staff as undermining American jobs and cultural cohesion.
Even the place India has tried to align with US pursuits, by signing the Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement for cooperation between the armed forces of the 2 nations, banning Chinese apps, becoming a member of the Quad, participating in army workouts, its dedication stays slim and reversible. Modi proudly hosts Russian President Vladimir Putin, refuses to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hesitates to take part in sanctions, and prioritises low cost Russian oil over Western geopolitical considerations. This reinforces the notion in Washington that India seeks most acquire with minimal strategic danger.
The National Security Strategy emphasises equity and burden-sharing: allies should assume main accountability for his or her areas fairly than count on the US to prop up your entire world order like Atlas. India’s reluctance to shoulder safety danger past its instant borders, locations it outdoors the brand new burden-sharing membership.
There can also be a extra uncomfortable fact: India is just not essential for what Washington wants. American technique underneath Trump is pushed by solvable emergencies and transactional beneficial properties. Europe faces what the National Security Strategy calls an existential wrestle over id. West Asia presents deliverable diplomatic wins that the doc celebrates repeatedly, calling the area a spot of partnership, friendship, and funding. China is the paramount menace. India continues to be unimportant and too sophisticated to do Washington’s bidding.
Modi’s so-called international coverage successes, due to this fact, have been misinterpreted and misreported at dwelling. What India seen as recognition of its inevitable rise was, for Washington, a short lived comfort formed by China’s ascent and America’s want for symbolic help in its rhetoric across the Indo-Pacific. The new National Security Strategy makes clear that the United States is reorganising the world right into a civilisational West, a militarised Asia outlined by China and a transactional West Asia. India matches totally into none of those classes.
What this second calls for is humility in New Delhi. India’s rise is just not assured as a result of speeches in Washington are heat or as a result of American presidents attend Namaste Trump rallies and name Modi on his seventy fifth birthday. Power should be constructed by functionality, belief, and alignment, not pageantry and self-congratulation. A international coverage that avoids commitments could protect flexibility, however it additionally ensures marginality.
For a nation that aspires to form the longer term world order, being a footnote in America’s strategic imaginative and prescient ought to function a wake-up name.
Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and battle analysis at Uppsala University, Sweden.
