The United States and India took significant steps toward a stronger defense partnership in recent weeks, but major challenges still lie ahead.
The United States and India took significant steps toward a stronger defense partnership in recent weeks, but major challenges still lie ahead.
January is an important month in India-U.S. relations, with the arrival of a new U.S. ambassador, a visit by Secretary of State John Kerry to the country, and a meeting in New Delhi between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama.
In a piece on Foreign Policy’s website the other week, Tim Roemer, the immediate past U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, urged Washington officials to pay closer attention to India as a geopolitical and economic partner. In his view, the country needs to be at the center of the U.S. strategic pivot to Asia and both capitals must, among […]
The U.S.-India relationship is enveloped these days by grand rhetoric. But for a reality check on the state of bilateral affairs, look no further than the summit meeting between President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh two weeks ago. The get-together was designed to inject new energy into a partnership that just a few […]
I have a commentary piece in today’s San Jose Mercury News that argues: Much of the focus since Nina Davuluri’s crowning as this year’s Miss America has been on the racist attacks on social media directed at this impressive woman who is the pageant’s first winner of Indian heritage. But the real story here is […]
Joe Biden is in India this week, the latest effort in the Obama administration’s three-year effort to enlist New Delhi in a closer strategic partnership aimed at hedging against a rising China. Indeed before departing Washington, Biden declared that the United States welcomes New Delhi’s emergence as “a force for security and growth in Southeast Asia and […]
This year’s session of the annual U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue, which brought Secretary of State John Kerry to New Delhi two weeks ago, produced few headlines. The gathering was preceded by low expectations as well as talk (here and here) about how bilateral affairs have plateaued in the years since the nuclear cooperation agreement between President George W. […]
Secretary of State John F. Kerry is in New Delhi for the annual U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue. He’s receiving plenty of good advice (examples here, here and here) on what he and Salman Khurshid, the Indian foreign minister, can do to energize the nascent strategic partnership that just a few years ago looked so promising but which now is stuck […]
Economic doldrums mean that India is not much of a destination for global investors nowadays and the flight of foreign capital is depressing the rupee’s value to record lows vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar. Even domestic investorsprefer to put their money elsewhere. The country was the toast of the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, with “India Everywhere” […]
According to a new Gallup survey, more than two-thirds of the U.S. public has a positive impression of India, a score that even edges out Israel’s traditionally high favorability rating. This is the latest indicator of how decisively American perceptions about the country have changed. Not too long ago, India was regarded as the very […]
New Delhi is being wooed by both Washington and Beijing, though its ultimate choice is becoming increasingly clearer A previous post focused on the unexpected improvement in India’s strategic position in its own neighborhood. Events this week brought evidence of how New Delhi is emerging as an important pivot point on Asia’s broader geopolitical stage. […]
Washington grumbles about the Indian relationship with Iran, but the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves New Delhi little choice The striking juxtaposition this week in New Delhi is a nice illustration of how Tehran has become a complicating factor in U.S.-India relations. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in town to exhort Prime Minister […]
The state visit to New Delhi by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2010 focused on the potential for mutual economic cooperation. Wen arrived with a large business delegation that promptly signed some $16 billion worth of deals. The two governments also pledged to take their $60-billion trade relationship to the $100-billion level by 2015. […]
The year was filled with missed opportunities but also promising developments in U.S.-India relations. 2012 is shaping up to be the same. President Obama’s state visit to India in early November 2010 appeared to impart new dynamism to a bilateral relationship that had been listless since his inauguration. The trip offered an effective tonic for […]
The respective security roles that the United States and India traditionally play in East Asia seemed to switch last week. By deciding not to supply Taiwan with the new fighter aircraft it has requested, the U.S. appeared to defer to China, which had cautioned that the sale was a “red line” that must not be […]