The Indo-Pacific and India-U.S. Strategic Convergence: An Assessment

Executive summary

This article examines Indian and U.S. perceptions of the Indo-Pacific, the extent of their strategic convergence and cooperation in this region, and the manner in which key states in the region have responded to this seeming convergence.

Main argument

The strategic basis of the Indo-Pacific is constructed, to a significant degree, on the apparent strategic convergence between India and the U.S. According to several accounts, this strategic convergence is driven to a large extent by the two countries' shared concerns about China's growing geostrategic ambitions across both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The reactions of certain key states in the region, including China, Japan, Australia, and Indonesia, are often cited as evidence that the Indo-Pacific is a key site for India-U.S. strategic convergence. However, such assessments do not pay enough attention to several significant divergences between India and the U.S. in relation to the region. Most fundamentally, India and the U.S. have differing geographic conceptions of the Indo-Pacific with important implications for broader strategic convergence between the two states.

Policy implications

• • Differences over the geographic scope of the Indo-Pacific reveal differences in strategic priorities between India and the U.S., potentially undermining broader policy convergence.

• • Managing China's rise within seemingly more inclusive institutions and processes appears vital for obtaining greater policy convergence from other key Indo-Pacific states.

• • The U.S. and India do not demonstrate strong common positions on key issue areas vis-à-vis China in the Indo-Pacific, presenting obstacles for coordinating military and diplomatic strategies.

There is a sizeable literature on the genesis of the "Indo-Pacific" as a geostrategic moniker. Within this literature, growing strategic convergence between the United States and India is cited as a key driver for the emergence of the Indo-Pacific as a new geostrategic space. The term "Indo-Pacific" can be understood as representing two different geographies. Taking the "Indo" to signify India alone, the region stretches from India, or more specifically from the eastern Indian Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean.¹ However, if "Indo" is taken to represent the Indian Ocean instead of India alone, the region extends from the southern tip of Africa and the Gulf of Aden to the Pacific Ocean.²

There is some contestation between the United States and India about which of these two geographies reflects the ambit of the Indo-Pacific region.³ The U.S. view approximates the Indo-Pacific Command area of operations, extending from the west coast of India in the Indian Ocean to the west coast of the United States in the Pacific Ocean. India, by contrast, regards the "Indo" to denote the whole of the Indian Ocean, stretching from South Africa to Australia. This divergence in strategic mapping is significant because it signals certain differences in perceptions and strategies between the two countries.

There are three broad justifications for the strategic salience of the Indo-Pacific. The first is India's emergence as a key strategic actor in global affairs in the last two decades. China's rise as the main challenger to global U.S. economic and military power has rendered East Asia as one of the leading sites for great-power competition, and India's involvement in East Asia is viewed as both inevitable and positive in the longer term according to one section of opinion.⁴ The Indo-Pacific, in this rendition, encapsulates much more clearly the central theater of contemporary geopolitics than the Asia-Pacific, which leaves out India.⁵ The second justification is the growing military ambition and strength of the Chinese military beyond East Asia into the Indian Ocean. China's logistics and evacuation base in Djibouti is viewed as evidence of its desire to play a larger role within the Indian Ocean region. In this context, China's challenge to U.S. military and economic supremacy stretches beyond the primary locus in East Asia and extends into the Indian Ocean.⁶ The Asia-Pacific, therefore...