Optimising India–US Maritime-Strategic Convergence

The current trajectory of India–US relations is encouraging, but needs to be sustained by optimising their maritime-strategic convergence. In the maritime-configured Indo-Pacific region, the two countries could undertake substantive ‘transactions’ in the domain of geopolitics and military-strategic cooperation. In this context, the article examines four key aspects: the ‘restrictiveness’ and ‘permissiveness’ of India’s cornerstone policy of ‘strategic autonomy’; the emerging imperative for their navies to go beyond ‘combined exercises’ to ‘combined operations’; their joint efforts to uphold established norms and tenets of international law, while also recognising their nuanced differences on the interpretation of the law; and to progress defence trade and defence-industry cooperation. The article concludes with specific recommendations on each of these key aspects.