The India-US relationship is among the two most consequential ones for India’s national security, the other being its relations with China.
The transformation of India’s relations with the United States ever since the ice-breaking visit of Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 has been a story of a remarkable turnaround in mutual perceptions, interests, expectations and ambitions. Today there is scarcely an area in which the two nations do not cooperate.
For India, the question is how does it shape its relations with the world’s pre-eminent power as it rises as a civilizational state and power in its own right. For the United States, the question is how does it deal with a country which seeks to define its own rules of engagement at a time when major powers are in search of friends, partners and allies to deal with profound geopolitical uncertainties and sharpening strategic competition not seen since the end of the Cold War.
In the run up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to the US in June 2023 at this pivotal point in time, his first under the Biden Presidency, NatStrat carries a special feature on Indo-US relations containing essays by eminent experts on the political and strategic, military and defense and trade and economic aspects of the relationship as well as an exclusive view from Washington DC.
