Keeping India-US ties out of the Pakistan trap
It is essential to approach a relationship with realism and recognise both its limits and opportunities, especially when the world is in flux
There is understandable rage and dismay in India — and joy in Pakistan —at multiple aspects of President Donald Trump’s repeated remarks, including during his visit to the Gulf, a sensitive region for us. We could attribute these to eagerness for instant personal successes, especially given others he set out to achieve still elude him; or, otherwise, to his aversion for war. Yet, it should not be a surprise, given his remarks after the Balakot strike in 2019 and his meetings with Pakistani leaders, the appreciation for Pakistan’s counter-terrorism cooperation in the State of the Union address in January, or the transactional, rather than geopolitical, approach to relations with India.
Indian disappointment comes from what appears as America’s amoral and insensitive position on our Pahalgam response. It also arises from public perception of the relationship shaped by the hyperbolic American projection of India-US relations as the “defining partnership of the 21st century”, the narrative of the global framework of relations, the warm optics of the bilateral and Quad summits, and, equally, the saturation media and think tank attention in India on this relationship to the exclusion of almost every other. President Trump’s victory was, perhaps, more welcomed in India than elsewhere.
Trump’s statements also reflect an American institutional approach to India-Pakistan relations that has endured through the transformation of India-US relations since the turn of the century. As written before in these columns, cross-border terrorism is contextualised in the context of India-Pakistan relations and the “Kashmir dispute”; terrorism is replaced by focus on conflict prevention with nuclear risks; the aggressor and the victim are equated; and, India and Pakistan are lumped together in a South Asian context. Each episode of this nature injects strain in India-US ties. However, on each occasion, we have also navigated past it to focus on the positive agenda of the relationship, bypassing the perceived hyphenation because of the vast asymmetry between India and Pakistan and the two bilateral relations.
Ironically, it was President Bill Clinton’s acknowledgement of the role of “elements within the Pakistan government” in acts of violence in Jammu & Kashmir and his asking Pakistan not to support it during his March 2000 visit — a significant shift in the US position — that helped warm India to Washington after the post-Pokhran chill.
{{/usCountry}}Ironically, it was President Bill Clinton’s acknowledgement of the role of “elements within the Pakistan government” in acts of violence in Jammu & Kashmir and his asking Pakistan not to support it during his March 2000 visit — a significant shift in the US position — that helped warm India to Washington after the post-Pokhran chill.
{{/usCountry}}The attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001 and the Kaluchak massacre of May 2002 saw hectic US shuttle-diplomacy between Islamabad and New Delhi, fuelled additionally by the re-emergence of Pakistan as a “key ally” in the war on terror in Afghanistan. However, India shifted the overwhelming focus of India-US engagement from Pakistan and Kashmir to the removal of post-Pokhran restrictions and the broader dual-use-technology denial regime, the defence cooperation framework, the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, and, eventually, the civil nuclear agreement. President Barack Obama assumed office in Washington in January 2009, just weeks after the Mumbai terror attack, with the belief that the road to peace in Kabul ran through New Delhi and Islamabad. He wanted to mandate special representative Richard Holbrooke to cover all three countries, but backed off when New Delhi conveyed that this would grievously damage the relationship. When Obama came to India in November 2010, terrorism from Pakistan and its duplicity in Afghanistan were high on our agenda but it had no significant impact on US policy. But the bilateral ambition had moved successfully to trade, investment, climate, the first US articulation of support for India’s permanent membership of the UNSC and membership of the four export control regimes, and the broader developments in what was later to be called the Indo-Pacific region.
{{/usCountry}}The attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001 and the Kaluchak massacre of May 2002 saw hectic US shuttle-diplomacy between Islamabad and New Delhi, fuelled additionally by the re-emergence of Pakistan as a “key ally” in the war on terror in Afghanistan. However, India shifted the overwhelming focus of India-US engagement from Pakistan and Kashmir to the removal of post-Pokhran restrictions and the broader dual-use-technology denial regime, the defence cooperation framework, the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, and, eventually, the civil nuclear agreement. President Barack Obama assumed office in Washington in January 2009, just weeks after the Mumbai terror attack, with the belief that the road to peace in Kabul ran through New Delhi and Islamabad. He wanted to mandate special representative Richard Holbrooke to cover all three countries, but backed off when New Delhi conveyed that this would grievously damage the relationship. When Obama came to India in November 2010, terrorism from Pakistan and its duplicity in Afghanistan were high on our agenda but it had no significant impact on US policy. But the bilateral ambition had moved successfully to trade, investment, climate, the first US articulation of support for India’s permanent membership of the UNSC and membership of the four export control regimes, and the broader developments in what was later to be called the Indo-Pacific region.
{{/usCountry}}Recent history does not need repetition. Through the second Obama, the first Trump, and the Biden administrations, we have sought to insulate the relationship from the alarmist India-Pakistan trap and move ahead on perceived opportunities of a broader strategic partnership, including on Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology. It, however, works till a major terrorist attack raises fresh prospects of an India-Pakistan conflict and triggers a familiar US response that clouds the relationship. This will happen again in the future.
Rhetoric has a place in public diplomacy. But it is essential to approach a relationship with realism and recognise both its limits and opportunities. The US — even Quad — will not be a strategic shield for India. It will not fight our wars, not even against China, just as we will not join them in their wars or endorse their policies around the world. Concerns and priorities overlap, but they are not identical. While the US has sought to build an informal alliance, including India, for the Indo-Pacific region, the US also sees value in Pakistan and will not abandon its ‘friend-on-friend’ policy that keeps Pakistan out of the framework of India-US security cooperation. Equally, we have to guard against mis-signalling to our adversaries or letting our vulnerability against one become a vulnerability towards another.
In addition, the transformation of the relations was framed in a different global order. It no longer exists. President Trump has only hastened an ongoing transition. The US is now seeking to reorganise itself internally and reframe the terms of its responsibility and engagement abroad. A political change in the US will not materially alter the course. President Trump may fundamentally change the way he deals with the Indo-Pacific region. Its impact down the line could be a shift from a China-plus-One orientation to US-plus-One.
India also cannot extrapolate the assumptions of the past into the future. A world in the flux of a yet-unsolved set of simultaneous equations requires the widest possible attention to, and investments in, relationships — from our immediate neighbourhood to the wider world. India’s interests, circumstances, and conception of itself require that.
The US, however, will remain essential for our national transformation in pursuit of Viksit Bharat. That means access to markets, technology, finance, resources, materials; cooperation in education, skills, research and mobility that enriches our intellectual capital; engagement in energy, from fossil fuels to renewables to nuclear; cooperation in the building blocks of the AI age and the industries of the future; and, with clear limitations, on defence capabilities, given the US policy, regulations and history. External engagement will deliver the most when the domestic economic and social environment is conducive to it. We need major internal reforms in policy and practice, but also a deeper analysis of how we negotiate a fair balance of interests that outlasts any one Presidency. If the US is serious about the relations, it should also see the perpetually reappearing shadow on the relationship.
Jawed Ashraf is a retired Indian diplomat. The views expressed are personal
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