For New Delhi, India-us ties remain the best bet

The last American troops in Afghanistan have flown out, ending the longest war the United States (US) has ever engaged in. There was agreement in the international community that the withdrawal was incompetent, at best, and a disaster, at worst. The withdrawal also generated many claims that it heralded the unravelling of American empire. Given that any sentence containing the words “American” and “empire” is contested not just in the US’S policy community but also among historians, it would be more useful to ask if the end of America’s 20-year war is also the end of American leadership and dominance. There, the jury is still out. And it is far from clear that India must, as some have argued, rethink the India-us partnership.

How great powers decline is a question that many historians and political scientists have asked. One of the most famous exponents of the answer is Yale University historian Paul Kennedy. Kennedy’s book, withdrawal from and defeat in Vietnam. Not only were American casualties in Vietnam far higher (58,000 in Vietnam vs 2,400 in Afghanistan), but the Vietnam war bitterly divided Americans and American society. In contrast, the costs of the war in Afghanistan were borne by a small fraction of Americans. Moreover, in Vietnam’s case President Richard Nixon had no choice, but to withdraw. In Afghanistan, however, President Joe Biden chose to pull out rather than maintain a presence. Any predictions of US decline based on overreach, therefore, would have been far more pertinent in the 1970s than now.

If we apply the yardstick of domestic politics, technologies, or ideologies, we find that it is also not easy to pinpoint the end of American dominance. America’s democratic institutions were severely tested in the aftermath of the presidential elections but they held. Despite political polarisation, the checks and balances that are a hallmark of US democracy served to contain not just the riots but also defeat multiple electoral challenges to vote counts brought forward by Donald Trump’s team. The US struggled to contain the pandemic but the most effective vaccines to defeat the virus were manufactured within its borders in an astounding governmentprivate partnership. Finally, the Us-created post-world War II order, with its emphasis on multilateralism and alliances, does not show signs of decline. If anything, China is conforming to these norms to facilitate its own rise.

None of this means that China is not rising or its power relative to the US is not increasing. But it does mean that it is not yet the new leader in town, and perhaps won’t be for some time. For example, China has been rapidly investing and expanding through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but it stands the risk of over-extending its financial largesse — for instance, the Chinese-built Gwadar port has been called a white elephant. Not to mention that poorer recipients of Chinese loans and aid are also acutely conscious that, at any time, China may choose to call in the debt, making participation in BRI a risky proposition. Despite pouring money into research and development (R&D), China has also gained a negative reputation for dubious ethics and disregard for peer-reviewed scientific research. Nor has China yet offered a vision of order that is fundamentally different from the current Us-led one.

All of this means that, as far as New Delhi is concerned, the India-us partnership, in which it has invested over the past two decades, is still a sound bet that addresses its geopolitical concerns. The US no more wants a Chinadominated world than India does. The US sees a democratic India as its best bet for countering China’s influence in South Asia. And despite the US’S chaotic withdrawal at the expense of Afghani civilians, and the justifiable criticism that followed it, its reach will continue in South Asia and matter for India’s regional relationships, including the one with Pakistan.