President Joe Biden will host a state visit for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week in Washington, DC, which could further solidify India’s role as the ordnance factory of the US.
Memo 1/of 2, re Biden-Modi summit next week:
America is in danger. It urgently needs an ordnance factory. Modi visit could seal landmark deal.
President Joe Biden will host a state visit for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week in Washington, DC. It is expected that good progress will be made on several fronts contributing to the continued trend of deepening and widening of US-India relations, and some deals will be signed that both leaders can take home as wins for their domestic audiences.
Dear Reader, your author will not go into any of the above. Rather, in this memo I zero down to the pain point that is the top worry of the US in the fast moving and dangerous world order of today. Then I describe how India can reduce this pain of America.
- India needs many things from the US. An understanding and trusting partner, trade and investments, defence weapons and technology transfer, myriad other. But the reality is that India is the junior partner in this relationship. Plainly speaking, India is dependent upon the “goodwill” and strategic calculus of the US.
- The US also needs much from India—to access and sell to the world’s largest market, including defence, to stop oil and weapons from Russia, to contribute more to the anti-China axis that the US is building, and access to the world’s largest market.
- Given the power-equation between the US and India, the needs of India will not move the needle in the US. It is only when America will face a severe pain point, danger to its own national security, and if India brings any solution to that problem, that the United States will make a grand move with India.
- Otherwise, India’s concerns, existential worries will get only sympathetic, empathetic response, and some deals by America, but nowhere close to a situation wherein the United States feels itself threatened and calculates that India could help it and will therefore act with urgency.
So, what is the biggest threat and pain for America, today?
According to a report by The New York Times, the West sent Ukraine broken weapons, citing documents provided by Ukrainian officials on the condition of anonymity.