By Michael Kugelmann & Raymond E. Vickery Jr.
Under Modi, India has gone from merely “looking east” to acting east, and that’s good news for Indo-U.S. relations.
The United States has long urged India to play a more active strategic role in world affairs—a role commensurate with the image India likes to project of itself as a powerful democracy, and with its leaders’ proclamations of their country as a “natural partner” of the United States.
By and large, New Delhi has resisted this American request on the grounds that its interests are better served by non-alignment, non-interference, and, when it comes down to it, close relations with U.S. adversaries such as Iran and Russia.
And yet for Washington, urging India to play a more active global role may actually amount to a proverbial case of kicking in an open door.
Indeed, there are increasing signs that India is in fact beginning to play a bigger role in the world—or at least in Asia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spearheading a substantive shift in India’s approach to strategic affairs—one that the U.S. media has failed to highlight, including during Modi’s recent trip to the United States. And yet the conversion of the previous Indian administration’s “Look East” policy to Modi’s “Act East” mantra may ultimately prove to be a major boon for the U.S.-India strategic relationship.
Read the full story at The Diplomat