Foreign affairs 2019 09-10

The India Dividend

September/October 2019 177

past reluctance, supported the U.S. goal o‘ “ensuring freedom o‘ naviga-

tion and over Çight throughout the region, especially in the South China

Sea,” and agreed to a road map toward, among other things, bilateral

military cooperation in the Indo-Paci¿c region. Indian defense acquisi-

tions o‘ U.S. military equipment substantially increased, as well—from

none in 2000 to over $18 billion worth in 2018—as New Delhi began

shifting away from Russia, traditionally its principal arms supplier.

U.S.-Indian cooperation intensi¿ed in a number o‘ areas, including

counterterrorism, intelligence sharing, military-to-military relations,

and cybersecurity, as well as such sensitive ones as climate change and

nuclear security. For two countries that had been at loggerheads for

much o‘ the previous three decades, this was a remarkable achievement.

A STRING OF PEARLS

U.S. President Donald Trump has complicated this relationship. His

administration has shifted from strategic altruism to a narrower and more

self-centered conception o‘ U.S. national interests. Its “America ¿rst”

vision has upturned the post–World War II compact that the United

States would accept asymmetric burdens for its friends with the knowl-

edge that the collective success o‘ democratic states would serve Wash-

ington’s interests in its struggle against greater authoritarian threats.

India, o‘ course, had been a bene¿ciary o‘ this bargain since at least 2001.

In some ways, U.S.-Indian relations have changed less in the Trump

era than one might expect. There are several reasons for this continuity.

For one, New Delhi saw foreign policy opportunities in Trump’s vic-

Neighborhood watch: soldiers at the Sino-Indian border in the Himalayas, July 2006

GURINDER

OSAN

/ AP