One of the major criticisms of former US President Donald Trump by Joe Biden’s campaign managers was that Trump had pursued a policy of US withdrawal from world affairs while chasing his ‘America First’ policy. In the past year in office, President Biden has found himself greatly concerned with the pandemic, domestic policies, and America’s internal social divides. Trump’s “trade war” with China has been scaled down, at least in rhetoric, and presently the White House is busy predicting, for the umpteenth time, the date, time and place of the Russian attack on Ukraine. But even as one thought that the US may have amended its adversaries list and returned to the familiar ground of the US-Soviet Cold War, the White House came out with a 12-page factsheet on the Indo-Pacific and India’s seminal role in the region.
The document recognises India’s salience in the evolving concept of Indo-Pacific, prominently flashing lines from Biden’s September 2021 speech during the Quad meeting. “The future of each of our nations -- and indeed the world --depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead”, he had said. The Quad meeting was strongly opposed by Beijing, which railed against the US attitude to the Indo-Pacific as “a reflection of outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception that would intensify regional arms race”. The sudden announcement ahead of the Quad meeting of the formation of the Australia-United Kingdom-US (AUKUS) security grouping and the supply of nuclear submarines to Australia, intended to take on Chinese naval might in the South China Sea, had shocked and surprised Beijing.
Washington seemed keen to clearly signal to Beijing that the Biden-Xi bonhomie of the past was over, at least for now. Yet, Biden has not moved any closer to forming a global anti-China alliance.
Delhi has every reason to feel satisfied about the US State Department’s new Indo-Pacific document. Patting Delhi on the back, the document promises to continue to build a strategic partnership in which the United States and India will work together and through regional groupings to promote stability in South Asia; collaborate in new domains such as health, space, and cyber space; deepen economic and technology cooperation; and contribute to a free and open Indo-Pacific. Going by this, the US continues to recognise India as a like-minded partner and leader in South Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Now, the India-US strategic partnership has been a work in progress for over two decades. Yet. there are very few instances when the US has done anything that would substantially address India’s security concerns. Less said the better as far as its Afghanistan and Pakistan policies are concerned. The Kicklighter Proposals” of 1991 and the foundational agreements signed since 2002, starting with the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), have been either forgotten or put in the cold storage. Obama’s initial cosying up to China and the subsequent ‘Pivot to Asia’ ended up enabling China’s enormous rise and massive military build-up rather than contain it. It was only after the US realised its folly that the Asia-Pacific was reconceptualised as Indo-Pacific, recognising the centrality of India.
The Indo-Pacific narrative is not limited to India-China relations or America’s need to effect course correction in its South Asia policy. Claiming to be an Indo-Pacific power, the document mentions the US’ entry into a consequential new period of American foreign policy that demands greater presence of the US in the Indo-Pacific than at any time since Second World War. The US still wants to play the leadership role in diplomacy, security, economics in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to assure regional allies of the same. What Washington should remember is that the Indo-Pacific has many stakeholders with much higher stakes in its security and economic architecture than the US.
The Liberal International Order (LIO) that the US advocated and presided over since the end of the Second World War turned into ‘liberal international hegemony’ post-Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But with that global threat gone and the threat of nuclear annihilation diminished, the US interest in Asia seemed to wane for a period, until 9/11. The last two decades have changed the dynamics of geopolitics in the region, while the US was caught up in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the pronounced rise of China and attempts at re-assertion by Putin’s Russia.
In such a changed scenario, the regional dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region and the implications of ‘authoritarian hegemony’ challenges the established global order, calling for collective leadership, a coalition of democracies, to maintain it.
India’s strategic interests extend to the Indian Ocean Rim and to the extended neighbourhood of the Indo-Pacific as also the energy-rich Central Africa. The Indo-Pacific involves the interests of India, Japan, Australia and many other emerging economies in the East. Japan has every reason to proactively pursue its strategic goals as it is very much part of the security architecture in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, South China Sea and East China Sea, and resource-rich Africa. The maritime security issues of Japan and Australia cannot be overlooked, nor can they be treated as subordinate to US interests under the Quad, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific arrangements.
India is in an advantageous position to rise to the helm of the collective leadership structure of the Indo-Pacific region -- provided the domestic economy is able to grasp the post-pandemic growth and manufacturing opportunities through bolder economic policies and Union Budgets. To begin with, a multi-ministerial special purpose vehicle can be set up in the Prime Minister’s office to provide a visionary and futuristic blueprint for action.
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