Beyond US-China rivalry

WHAT happens if the strategic assumptions that have guided India-US relations for the past decade begin to change? The question has acquired new relevance as American strategy undergoes a subtle but significant shift. As China's power expanded, Washington increasingly viewed India as an indispensable partner in maintaining a favourable balance of power in Asia. The emergence of the Indo-Pacific framework, the revival of Quad, and the growing defence and technology cooperation, all reflected this convergence of interests. In New Delhi, a broad assumption gradually took hold: that the intensification of the US-China rivalry would continue to enhance India's strategic significance.Recent shifts in US strategic thinking suggest that this assumption may warrant a closer scrutiny.The publication of the Trump Administration's National Security Strategy (NSS) in 2025 and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) in 2026 points to an evolving US approach to international politics. Rather than emphasising ideological coalitions, democracy promotion, or expansive strategic partnerships, both documents stress sovereignty, national interest, burden-sharing, and what the NSS explicitly calls 'flexible realism.' The shift is subtle but significant: geopolitical convergence is increasingly being supplemented - and in some cases superseded - by a more transactional assessment of interests and capabilities.Flexible realism represents a shift away from the belief that the US should organise global politics around broad normative coalitions. Instead, it suggests a more transactional approach in which relationships are evaluated according to their concrete contribution to US interests. The NDS reinforces this logic by emphasising that allies and partners must assume greater responsibility for their own regional security while the US concentrates on its highest priorities. The result is not US disengagement, but a recalibration of expectations regarding what partners are expected to contribute.The India-US partnership is unlikely to disappear, nor is Washington likely to abandon cooperation with New Delhi. Yet a more transactional US may be less inclined to overlook differences simply because broader strategic interests converge. For nearly two decades, concerns about China pushed India and the US closer together despite disagreements on trade, climate policy, sanctions, and Russia. In a framework shaped by reciprocity and burden-sharing, such differences may become harder to set aside.For India, this represents a subtle but important change. During the height of Indo-Pacific enthusiasm, New Delhi was often portrayed as a pivotal actor in a broader coalition designed to balance China's rise. Today, Washington appears increasingly focussed on regional powers acting as net security providers in their own right. India's growing maritime role is therefore likely to be valued less as a contribution to a US-led strategy and more as evidence of its ability to shoulder regional responsibilities independently.The renaming of the US Indo-Pacific Command as the US Pacific Command reflects changing US priorities. It underscores a broader reality: strategic relevance derived from another country's rivalry is rarely a durable foundation for national strategy. Its significance lies less in nomenclature than in changing US priorities. The deeper issue is not whether the US is abandoning India. Rather, it is whether India has become overly accustomed to viewing its China policy through the lens of US-China competition.Worsening US-China relations created strategic opportunities for India. Yet India's long-term interests cannot be permanently tied to the trajectory of great-power rivalry. Great powers routinely adjust their policies in response to changing circumstances. A strategy built primarily on the expectation of sustained confrontation between Washington and Beijing risks leaving India vulnerable to shifts over which it has little control.The future of India-China relations should be determined by endogenous rather than exogenous factors. In recent years, the trajectory of India-China relations has often been discussed through the prism of US-China competition rather than on its own terms. Yet the relationship between Asia's two largest countries is shaped by a far broader set of considerations: an unresolved boundary dispute, economic interdependence, regional influence, maritime competition, climate governance, multilateral institutions, and the wider question of Asian order.This does not mean overlooking differences with China or the lessons of Galwan. Nor does it imply strategic trust where none exists. Rather, it means recognising that India's China policy should be anchored primarily in India's own assessment of its interests rather than in assumptions about Washington's future relationship with Beijing.Strategic autonomy was never intended to mean equidistance among major powers. It was designed to maximise India's room for manoeuvre in an uncertain international environment. Ironically, a more transactional US may reinforce rather than weaken the relevance of that principle. As Washington reassesses its commitments and expects greater burden-sharing from partners, New Delhi will increasingly need to rely on its own judgement in managing competition and cooperation with all major powers, including China.The real lesson of America's emerging flexible realism is not that the India-US partnership is weakening, but that the assumptions underpinning it are changing. India can no longer assume that geopolitical convergence alone will generate strategic dividends. Strategic autonomy ultimately begins with independent strategic judgment. In a world shaped by flexible realism, India must ensure that its approach to China is guided less by shifts in Washington and more by its own assessment of the balance between competition, coexistence and national interest.

Beyond US-China rivalry

India's policy should be anchored in its own assessment of its interests

G Venkat Raman

Beyond US-China rivalry

India's policy should be anchored in its own assessment of its interests

G Venkat Raman

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