No country can ensure balance of power in Asia, India’s role indispensable: US official

The United States has stated that its goal is to cooperate with India to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, indicating that its relationship with India will be more transactional and interest-driven, and that this peace and stability will not be based on naive or “vague abstractions” such as a rules-based international order, but on strength, rationality, and pragmatic cooperation. No single country can maintain a stable balance of power in Asia, Elbridge Colby, Under Secretary of War for Policy, said on Tuesday while outlining the U.S. approach to relations with India in the geopolitical and defense fields.

Instead, he said stability will depend on the collective contribution of capable countries that share a common interest in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. It is worth noting that although Colby emphasized that India plays an “indispensable” role in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, he did not mention the “Quad” initiative, the US Indo-Pacific flagship initiative restarted by the first Trump administration, in his speech. However, after the president returned to the White House, the mechanism appeared to have lost some of its salience in Washington as the U.S. focus shifted from soft power initiatives to mutual security outcomes and burden-sharing. America’s top official speaks at an event at the Ananta Center. With no word yet on whether Trump will visit India for the Quad summit this year, hopes for a leaders’ meeting now rest on the G7 summit in France in June, where leaders of all Quad countries are likely to attend. Corby took a swipe at Europe, stressing that the United States remains a rising power under Trump, but the same cannot be said for some of Washington’s traditional partners despite U.S. urging for them to revitalize. He said India was very different as a “waxing power”. “The United States therefore believes that India will play a central role in ensuring a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. In this context, a strong and confident India is not only beneficial to the people of India. It’s also good for Americans,” said Colby, who was in India to discuss the implementation of the U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership Framework. The official said the United States may not be interested in framing the relationship as one based solely on shared democratic values, as he said the India-US partnership is rooted in practicality. “Consistent with this, the U.S. approach to strategic partnerships is interest-based, realistic, and influenced by geopolitics and incentives, rather than empty aspirations or detached idealism,” Colby said, adding that Washington wants to build partnerships with dynamic, confident countries rather than relying on dependent countries. Colby also backed External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s remarks that a nationalist foreign policy outlook might lead to a more confident and realistic approach to the world, saying this approach resonated with the United States. Colby stressed the importance of “strategic candor” in relationships, saying strong partnerships benefited from honesty, respect and strategic clarity. As bilateral relations show signs of recovery after one of their worst periods in recent times, Colby also said the United States and India do not need to agree on everything to cooperate effectively, as long as their interests and goals increasingly converge on the most basic issues. Differences and even disputes are fully compatible with deepening strategic alignment and cooperation. The official also emphasized the strategic centrality of military power to a stable balance in the region and the importance of defense industrial cooperation between India and the United States.