The India DividendSeptember/October 2019 179
aairs o Asia, solve the problems o Asia, and uphold the security o
Asia”—a security vision for the region that excludes the United States.
Buoyed by its hope that Washington will continue to serve as a stead-
fast security guarantor in Asia, India has begun to take a much tougher
stance against China. It has condemned China’s claims to and militariza-
tion o islands in the South China Sea and its eorts to undermine the
unity o the Association o Southeast Asian Nations, emphasizing the
importance o “¬¤¬£ centrality” in its own Indo-Paci¿c policy. New
Delhi has also begun to engage more in the Quadrilateral Security Dia-
logue, an informal group in which Australia, India, Japan, and the United
States discuss how to protect the Indo-Paci¿c region in the face o Chi-
nese ascendancy. And New Delhi has doubled down on its opposition to
Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative by collaborating with Japan on infra-
structure investments in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
Most important, India began, in the last years o the Obama adminis-
tration, quietly cooperating with the U.S. military through intelligence
sharing, while continuing to expand its military exercises with the United
States. The Trump administration, for its part, has started to resolutely
confront China, much to New Delhi’s satisfaction. It has also articulated
both a South Asia strategy and an Indo-Paci¿c strategy that stress India’s
pivotal role in the region, has allowed India to buy drones and other ad-
vanced weapons systems, and has put India on a par with £¬¡¢ allies in
terms o trade in sensitive technologies. Other defense projects, such as
India’s acquisition o advanced military technologies to counteract the
expanding Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean, are still in the plan-
ning stage, but they nonetheless are noteworthy for a country that long
preached the value o nonalignment.
A RELATIONSHIP ADRIFT?
Still, U.S.-Indian relations have hardly been spared from the fallout from
the Trump administration’s disruptive and often counterproductive for-
eign policy. Indian leaders want Washington to sustain the traditional
strategic altruism displayed toward New Delhi while doing whatever is
necessary to protect a liberal international order that will be open to a
rising India. On both counts, Trump’s actions have left them jittery.
Trump has questioned the value o U.S. alliances and raised doubts
about whether the United States would defend its £¬¡¢ allies against
a Russian attack, leaving even staunch pro-U.S. stalwarts such as
Modi wondering whether India could ever count on the United States