US and India Strengthen Strategic Ties: What Has Changed? The Answer is China

The Financial Times (F.T.) in the first quarter of 2019 stated that the world is now living in the "Asian Century." The F.T. goes onto mark that the times have moved from a Western to an Asian model becoming the cornerstone for the remainder of the century. The former U.S. administration realized this reality years earlier, when it made a policy decision to "Pivot to Asia."

Now the current U.S. administration is continuing this pivot by wrapping up the first ever joint U.S.-India military drills, involving live-fire drills and search-and-seizure training. The exercise, dubbed "Tiger Triumph," "brought together 500 American Marines and sailors, and about 1,200 Indian soldiers, sailors and air force personnel to train side-by-side for nine days." At one point during the exercise and ocean drills, an Indian helicopter landed on an American naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal. The main goal of this nine-day exercise was "to coordinate more ambitiously on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region."

The two countries signed a mutual defense pact in 2018. This pact allows for exercises and "transfer of advanced (U.S.) weaponry and communication systems to India." This type of nation-state partnership is out of the norm for India. Historically, India doesn't partner this publicly with the U.S., or other Western powers such as NATO, or the European Union (E.U.). This non-alignment with Western powers is confirmed when Russia is the only other country India has completed military exercises with that involved all three branches of its armed forces.

During the Cold War, India was closer to the former Soviet Union than it was to the U.S., NATO, the E.U., or other Asian countries that are under the Western security umbrella. Alyssa Ayres, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said about this new Western tilt:

QUESTION: If India is no longer hearkening back to a Cold War stance, then what has changed?

The answer is China. The U.S. and E.U. view China no longer as a partner in global and international relations, but as a possible foe that has stolen technology, military hardware, and intellectual property. Strategic realism and balance of power are being used again as soft-power diplomatic tools against China, hence the pivot to India for the U.S.

Security challenges abound in the Asian hemisphere for Washington: China's economic might, military preparedness, entrenchment in the South China Sea, and technological prowess present issues for the U.S.-led Asia-Pacific region. This tilt toward India that is a continuation of the pivot to Asia has led U.S. officials to coordinate high-level diplomatic visits for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia to the White House.

India is the linchpin for the new U.S. strategy, but the Trump administration has disparaged Asian allies for not paying their fair share to house American troops. India is the key to realist balancing and a level geopolitical playing field in Asia, and that gives India wide latitude. Only India has the population, possible economic dynamism, and ability to counteract China's bedevilment of U.S. strategy in the region.

As totalitarian, communist China becomes more and more powerful and dangerous, the evil Democrat Party--in an obscene attempt to consolidate its grip on power, after its failed attempt to stage a coup d'état in the USA and seize control of America's wealth and power and subvert them to its own interests--is in overdrive trying to sabotage the President of the USA and render the USA ineffective.

So filled with hatred are the Democrats, so furious are they that President Trump foiled their plans for coup d'état, and so anti-American are they in their sentiments, that they will gladly destroy America to exact revenge--and certainly to maintain their grip on power.

So the Democrats cripple the USA and give Communist China the strategic advantage? No problem for them! They would like nothing better than to overthrow the government of the USA and replace it with a totalitarian regime, like China's, with themselves in control of course!

That's been their dream all along!

That's the Democrat Dream, in contrast to the American Dream!

If India is no longer hearkening back to a Cold War stance, then what has changed?

Thanks, in large part, to Bill Clinton giving China billions of dollars worth of advanced Loral and Hughes technology for a few hundred thousand in campaign contributions.

For those of you who were around for that scandal, we all knew it would be trouble in 20 years. Well, its been 20 years.

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