Analysis | Toward a free and open Indo-Pacific: Areas for expansion within the U.S.-India bilateral security relationship
A roadmap to strengthen joint U.S.-India maritime exercises, counterterrorism operations, and defense industrial cooperation
Frank Hoffman
Both India and the United States have expressed growing concern with China’s increasingly expansionist and destabilizing influence in the Indo-Pacific. The joint meeting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden concluded on June 23, with the leaders reaffirming shared commitments to a free and open Indo-Pacific. Yet, despite an advance in defense ties, the U.S.-India bilateral security relationship is one of the most underdeveloped partnerships in the region. This results in large part from India’s historical commitment to non-alignment and the two governments’ divergent viewpoints on a security framework for the region. However, given their desire to counterbalance China and curtail regional terrorism, the United States and India ought to strengthen their relationship in three key domains: maritime security, counterterrorism, and defense industrial cooperation.
The maritime domain
The waters of the Indo-Pacific are strategically vital for both the United States and India. The U.S. national security framework and economy are heavily dependent on unimpaired access to overseas bases and trading partners in the Indo-Pacific. India, for its part, has its entire coastline situated in the Indo-Pacific and relies on maritime commerce for a staggering 40 percent of its GDP. China’s growing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean has been a cause for common concern, and the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) blue-water naval capabilities as well as access to regional ports are growing rapidly.
Whereas the United States and India already maintain significant multilateral naval ties, through groups such as the Quad, the bilateral relationship between the two countries is insufficient to deter PLAN operations. There are significant barriers to effective bilateral cooperation, including large gaps between geographic definitions of the theater, command-and-control obstacles (such as discordant chokepoints and operational boundaries), and friction in attempting to plan and execute joint naval operations. This friction results from a lack of high-level fleet-to-fleet exchanges, liaison officers, and channels of communication within their respective command structures.
To enhance regional security, the United States and India must start by unifying their strategic outlook in the maritime domain. After establishing a shared framework, the two governments ought to expand joint domain awareness capabilities through enhanced naval intelligence sharing. Finally, they can increase military-to-military operational cohesiveness by restarting bilateral maritime exercises and expanding shared commitments to Quad multilateral operations.
Counterterrorism
Border violence is an omnipresent source of insecurity for India. In recent years, Indian troops have actively engaged People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces in skirmishes on their joint border; Pakistani militant groups continue to attack Indian assets; and the Islamic State, though degraded in the Middle East, has found renewed operational capacity in East Asia and the Pacific Islands. Consequently, the United States and India have a shared strategic interest in enhancing regional security.
Although the two countries’ diplomatic ties have warmed since the Cold War era, India still guards its independence on the international stage and will not allow itself to function as a counterbalance to the PLA without significant strategic benefits. Both the United States and India have a shared national security priority in counterterrorism; therefore, it is an excellent starting point for enhanced military coordination. However, significant operational barriers restrict further U.S.-India security cooperation. As in the maritime domain, the governments have different parameters for regional security. As a result of threats on its Pakistani border, India narrowly scopes its counterterrorism operations at the regional level, whereas the United States has a broader focus on multinational operations. These differences have created confusion and mistrust in joint operations in the past.
By unifying — or, at the very least, accommodating one another’s — regional strategic priorities, the United States and India can pave the way for enhanced intelligence sharing and military-to-military coordination. Once a unified threat picture is established, they could start to conduct joint anti-terror operations in the region.
The potential benefits and room for further expansion are clear. India has serious concerns related to border region stability and territorial incursion from both China and Pakistan. The United States desires to expand ground-force deterrence against China to disincentive any aggressive action elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific. For both countries, conventional military cooperation could stabilize India’s borders while establishing a significant ground-based counterbalance to the PLA on its western flank.
Defense industrial cooperation
The U.S. defense supply chain is highly vulnerable to disruption. As the Defense Logistics Agency has recently assessed, the U.S. industrial base could not meet demand in response to a potential crisis — particularly if supply chains with China are impaired — due to a decades-long shift away from manufacturing.
India’s rapidly expanding economy, coupled with its geographic position, renders it an ideal new home for the U.S. defense manufacturing base. Unlike other alternatives such as Vietnam or Mexico, India’s large population and industrial capacity could accommodate U.S. demand during a period of increased operational tempo.
U.S.-India defense industrial cooperation is a rapidly expanding area of the bilateral security relationship. However, there are implementable changes that could spur even further growth. Both governments must incentivize public-private collaboration, ease trade protectionism, and continue to eliminate regulatory barriers, particularly in the sphere of sophisticated and dual-use technology imports and exports. Both of them stand to benefit from further enhancing the defense industrial aspect of their partnership. The United States can secure its vulnerable supply chains while India could gain a significant influx of foreign capital investment to continue to sustain its economic rise. This proposed defense supply chain would effectively complement expanded maritime security cooperation. Not only could a true joint naval partnership defend these lines of supply against the PLAN in a war with China, but both India and the United States would have strong economic and national security incentives to ensure that bilateral maritime security cooperation remains strong.
The challenges and risks of deeper security cooperation
India and the United States might encounter notable challenges with a deeper bilateral security relationship, but they are both predictable and manageable.
China opposes any expanded U.S. security involvement in the Indo-Pacific. Notwithstanding the U.S. “pushing [Taiwan] into an abyss of disaster” by providing defense assistance, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has loudly decried U.S. trilateral cooperation with Japan and South Korea as well as declared partnerships with the Philippines and Palau as being disruptive to Indo-Pacific regional security. Although India does have loose existing peace treaties with China aimed at ensuring the stability of the Indo-Sino border, New Delhi has consistently dismissed Beijing’s efforts to dissuade security cooperation with the United States. It recently rebuffed China for attempting to veto the joint U.S.-India 2022 “Yudh Abhyas” exercise. Accordingly, while China might condemn an enhanced U.S.-India security partnership, its response has typically begun and ended at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ press conference bully pulpit. Beijing is ultimately not prepared to go to war to prevent deeper U.S.-India security ties.
The potential Pakistani response to expanded U.S.-India security ties, given the context of Indo-Pakistani tensions, warrants a more calculated consideration. Pakistan has established limited multilateral engagement with India on counterterrorism operations. Washington enjoys a cordial relationship with Islamabad, and the presence of a mutual friend in Indian counterterrorism efforts may help to assuage Pakistanis’ fear that such efforts are preparations for an invasion or a threat to territorial sovereignty. As the U.S. Institute of Peace phrased it, “U.S.-Pakistan relations will stand or fall based on whether they benefit the Pakistani nation.”
While Pakistan may not celebrate the involvement of India in enhanced counterterrorism operations, Islamabad would likely tolerate it should the new partnership be correctly framed. China, Pakistan’s closest strategic partner, has actively pressed Islamabad to do more to counter violent extremist groups, but Beijing has not offered its own troops to help resolve the issue. Pakistan and the United States already engage in bilateral counterrorism cooperation. Efforts involving India might receive begrudging Pakistani consent, given that it has incentives to reign in its domestic terror issue. The United States can also bring preexisting channels of communication to a potential trilateral arrangement with India.
Toward a free and open Indo-Pacific
The U.S.-India multilateral security partnership, in groups such as the Quad, is rapidly expanding and is at its healthiest point in history. However, the U.S.-India bilateral security partnership remains underutilized. Despite a shared interest in balancing against China and countering regional terrorism, the U.S.-India security relationship has not yet reached its full potential. In the near-future, the primary barriers toward enhancing the U.S.-India security partnership are diplomatic and strategic.
By prioritizing preexisting, rapidly implementable, and mutually beneficial areas of security cooperation, including maritime exercises, counterterrorism, and defense industrial ties, the United States and India are poised to expand their bilateral relationship. Ultimately, such a move not only would benefit both countries but also would construct perhaps the most vital pillar in a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Frank Hoffman is a first-year candidate for the MPS in applied intelligence at Georgetown University. He holds an MA in international politics and military affairs from The Citadel Military College of South Carolina. A U.S. Army veteran, Frank spent a significant portion of his military career in the Indo-Pacific.
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