Two weeks on from the extended summit between President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi we have the opportunity for thinking about the meeting with the benefit of some perspective.
In the most optimistic view, the visit confirmed an increasingly broad economic, technology, and defense relationship between India and Washington, albeit at the expense of an absence of human rights discussion. In the most pessimistic, India and Washington continue the same awkward dance that they have performed since 1947, potentially adding another layer of disappointment to relations between the world’s two largest democracies.
Agreements
The meeting paid real dividends. The agreements are a big deal, including cooperation on the transfer of drones, the development of new semiconductors, and additional frameworks for the joint development of technology between the two countries. One particularly notable area of cooperation came with India’s accession to the Artemis Accords, a set of rules and guidelines for the commercial use of space that the United States has offered as a way of managing national conflicts in the space domain. Space, technology, and defense cooperation are key issues for Washington, and Modi demonstrated considerable flexibility in dealmaking. Technological issues loomed particularly large given the rising tide of techno-protectionism around the world, yet Modi and Biden nevertheless managed to come to concrete accords that point the way towards increased cooperation down the road.
Human Rights
Notably, and to considerable criticism from his own party, Joe Biden was wary of mentioning Modi’s increasingly grim human rights record. The record is at the core of the electoral appeal of the BJP, and as such it’s quite difficult to imagine Modi discarding or even modifying his domestic approach at the behest of the United States. The timing is particularly awkward given the Biden administration’s emphasis on democratic solidarity in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Of course, Indian democracy has faced challenges in the past and has (mostly) endured, and Modi’s electoral fortunes may change in the future. Nevertheless, there have always been costs associated with the gap between US foreign policy practice and US human rights advocacy, and India is very likely to represent such a gap moving forward.
Long Term
India is enormously important to the US vision of the Indo-Pacific, and indeed to America’s overall strategic approach. There is little reason to believe that the long-term tensions between India and China are resolvable, although they may be manageable. And there are surely tensions to exploit. Russia’s capacity to continue to contribute to the Indian defense industrial base looks starkly limited, both because of Russia’s distraction with Ukraine and because of the diminishing competitiveness of Russian technology. Delhi knows that Moscow’s increasing dependence on China will also force Moscow to make difficult choices. But Beijing will not indefinitely endure a Moscow that arms one of China’s chief rivals. Detaching Russia from India and attaching it to the Trans-Western defense industrial base that stretches from Seoul to Warsaw could surely work to the benefit of both India and the United States.
But India has its own interests, its own problems, and has historically been disinclined to attach itself tightly to an alliance partner. A common thread in India’s long-term foreign policy approach has been to reject hegemonic orders, whether socialist or post-colonial or liberal international, that place India in the second rank of world powers. Moreover, India faces significant issues in its neighborhood (primarily Pakistan) that distract from the kind of geostrategic planning represented by the Quad. Indeed, the fundamental souring of the US relationship with Pakistan is one of the factors that has enabled this shift.
What’s Next?
Washington needs to appreciate that there are limits on how far the relationship with India can go. India does not share the American vision for a liberal international order that the rest of the Quad has determined to accede to. In some ways, India’s vision of the future is much more similar to the mutli-polar world of regional hegemons that China and Russia prefer. But that world necessarily includes dramatic conflicts of interest in the borderlands, and India and China have clashed not only over their remote border outposts but also over China’s increasingly close relationship with Pakistan. The multipolar vision of the world does not allow for a hegemon that provides collective goods and resolves local conflicts, and China is in any case not yet powerful enough to play such a role.
The issues are sufficiently difficult that they will require careful diplomatic practice, on both sides, for the duration of the relationship. Yet there are structural, interest-based reasons for a mutually productive relationship between India and the United States, a relationship that could create profound problems for Russia and China.
A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
