>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives, I'm David Dumke.

Toda we are joined by the UCF India Center director and an endowed chair, Dr. Yogesh Joshi.

Thank you for joining us today.

>>Thank you David.

It's always a pleasure.

>>So we wanted to talk to you today a little about the state of U.S. Indian relations.

And as you know, the last two decades, the US and Indi have grown closer in many ways.

Trade has more than doubled a lot of coordination on security issues as well, and other diplomatic issues.

Where are things today?

>>Things are a little difficult at the moment.

International relations or even bilateral relations are man a times forged in crises, right?

But let me put it like this.

There is no fundamenta clash of interest between India and the US.

There are significant convergences of long term interests between India and the US.

So I am not very pessimisti about the India-US relationship.

But as of now, in the first si months of Trump administration, President Trump's administration, we saw a significant high with Prime Minister Modi visiting Washington, DC.

The joint statement, which was very emphatic on more an more cooperation on technology, on strategy, on economics, and the present law.

Well, India is being tariff at almost 50%.

So it's been, a year of highs and lows.

But let me paint the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that unlike China, unlike Russia, unlike Iran or North Korea, India and US have no fundamental conflict of interest.

There is no US allies India is threatening.

So there is no territoria conflict, or for that matter, an alliance conflict with the US.

There is no ideological conflict too as you would see with Russia or North Korea, Iran for that matter.

So if those two major long term, dissonance are missing, then our relationship is poised to grow.

But there are significant convergences.

As India rises, it becomes a major pivot for the US and the entire Indo-Pacific.

US is was, one of the most important element in India's rise.

If you actually look India's rise, it happened in a unipolar moment.

There are convergences on technology there, convergences on economics.

But most importantly, the India US relationship is often said to be based on three pillars the defense relationship, the strategic relationshi and the economic relationship.

But I would say that the main foundation of India, US relationshi has been a societal foundation, which was laid dow by the Indian-American diaspora.

This came much before India, US relations started picking up pac after the end of the Cold War, and that remains as vibrant as ever.

>>And this diaspora is about 8 million, I believe something something like that.

>>5 to 6 million at this point in time.

But the impac it has had not across sectors.

But it's one of the most wealthy diasporas too.

So in terms of education, in terms of firepower, of wealth, capability, skills that Indian-American diaspora would, you know, create the edifice and lay down those strong foundations of India, U.S. relations.

>>Let's let's step back a little before we talk about Prime Minister Modi and President Trump's relationship and kind of where things are at this very moment and all the convergences you're you're talking about, the history of the relationship hasn't always been smooth since India's independence.

And, you know, one one could contend Washington has always seen India kind of as how it plays in the global context for its own purposes, but not look at it through India's eyes.

So that kind of explain during the Cold War, of course, why India was part of the nonaligned movement.

And Washington largely viewed India as kind of are you favorin Russia or are you favoring us?

And that that kind of caused some friction and there's always been an aversion in Indian foreign policy of having formal alliances, which has somehow been misunderstood by Washington, through time.

>>Right.

So again, there are deeper issues involved here.

So first of all, let me talk about the Indian perspective.

India is not like any other alliance partner of the US, in the Indo-Pacific or in Europe.

It's a it's the seventh largest country in the world.

Population wise it's the bigges even was in some sense in 1947.

But the Indian decision makers always thought about India's manifest destiny.

The same thought which inspired or continues to inspire American foreign policy.

So status issues would always come into some kind of conflict when you're talking about not only material factor between these two great nations, but also their eventual ambitions.

Having said so, let me also say that India and the U have significant convergences.

There is always an element of individual leadership.

There's always an element of immediate interests.

But what you see after the Cold War is that India itself realized that if it has to become the rising power it wants to, it needs U.S. support.

And the empirical facts, play that out if you can.

One can just, you know, draw a graph and see India's rise after 1991.

As I said earlier, it happened under US hegemony because US acted as a benign hegemon for India and accepted India as a rising power.

And that is something which is not lost on India.

But status concerns will always come in when you're looking at these two, these two very big countries in some sense.

As I said, India is very different, not only because it' part of the Eurasian continent, it's also a nuclear power, right?

It doesn't really need the US in the way Japan, Australia, Philippines or European countries might need, which is both a good thing as well because when it comes to China, India can also stand on its own.

Unlike inviting US troops to fight for the Indians.

But it also means because it has that much autonomy, it will also pla a significantly independent role compared to other who are much more dependent upon the US for their security.

>>So.

So one of the points of friction there's been several over the years.

One is kind of just the orientation kind of India, India's destiny, which you just you just mentioned.

Another is the nature of the US Pakistani relationship.

And some of that was also a legacy of the Cold War.

And kind of since that era.

You're talking about, US Egyptian, Indian relationship strengthening the consideration of Pakistan in the context of the Cold War has faded completely.

So so that's that's one issue.

That being said, Indi and Pakistan fought this year.

So earlier this year they had a military clash.

Explain a little how that relationship play into the US Indian relationship.

>>Right.

Let me begin by saying that I always think small states are far more smarter, right?

Because they have less margin of error, whether it is Singapore or Pakistan and I will give it to the Pakistani decision makers that they understand how important US is.

And as when we were discussing, they are playing a weak hand, right?

What happened?

One needs to also understand the arc of history.

Again, I'm not going to back to 1947 how Pakista allied itself against communism, in support of US policies and all of that.

But after 1991, the real material factors started playing out, which was India's inevitable rise.

And Pakistan's you know, determinative, trajectory as bringing real material assets to the US Pakistan relationship, so to say what we saw, especially after the 1999 Kargil war, was us taking a definitive stand, with India vis a vis Pakistan, especially Pakistan's risk taking in the subcontinent and being a small state.

That's the strategy it would follow, right?

So even that is perfectl militarily, strategically sound.

But, when it came to issues like terrorism, when it came to ris taking under the nuclear shadow, that did not sit very well, with Washington DC.

So not only it was part of American policy, but the other side was the growing India US relationship.

And we saw a secular growth in India, US relationship, irrespective of whomsoever would come to power in Washington DC or in the white House.

No other state has received as much bipartisan support in the Congress and in the Senate in the last 20, 30 years as India.

But U.S was also instrumental in constraining India to use military force against Pakistan, even when there were several provocations, like the parliament attack in 2001, the Mumbai 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

But there are 2 or 3 things which have changed in India.

One is that there is generally less tolerance today in the masses for acts of terrorism than it was in the 1990s.

We have to acknowledge that India has been a victim of terroris for the longest period of time.

The second is as nations rise, they also use their power.

It's very natural.

Why would you accumulate powe if you are not going to use it?

So use of force will increasingly become a modest operandi for a rising state.

And that's very natural to India as well.

And the third factor is also at the level of individuals, different decision makers bring different attitudes to power.

And we have seen that a combination of these three things, in the last decade or so, India is far less tolerant of support of terrorism and proxies by Pakistan.

And there is now a institutionalized use of force.

When you starting from the surgica strikes in 2016 to the Balakot airstrikes in 2019 to the recent, much bigger engagement in May 2025.

What we are seeing is that Indi is escalating to higher levels every single time, both in the hope to increase punishment on Pakistani decision makers.

And there's a strategic logic to it.

The logic is that if you do not do anything, you are allowing the Pakistani army to support terrorism on the cheap.

But if there is a threat of escalation, even generals in Rawalpindi have to think- >>It's a deterrent and a cost.

>>Have to think about 5 to 6 steps ahead not just the terrorist attack.

That's the idea, but again, right.

Escalation is difficult to control.

The other factor, which I would like to point over here, and this is a factor which is also applicable to other theaters of conflict, is the rise of stand off weapons, precision weapons, which does not really involve individual lives at stake.

That allows decision makers a lot more leeway for escalation compared to when you really have to send in troops, because there is two very different cost calculus over there.

So even the emergence of new technology will, in my opinion, lead to greater escalation.

>>But it's still a danger when you have, for example, India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers.

>>Absolutely.

>>And so there is always the risk of miscalculation.

>>Yes.

So for a long period of time in Indian strategic thinking, the idea was that nuclear weapons have somehow put India into a self deterrence mode, that you are yourself deterred much more than you are deterring the other side, because Pakistan could easily resort to sub conventional warfare, and Indian strategists and Indian decision makers didn't had an answer to that.

Because of the risk taking and nuclear rhetoric from the other side.

What what they are now trying to do is to check the red lines for Pakistan every single instance from 2016 to 2019 to 2025 is motivated by the idea that we have to call out this nuclear bluff.

Now, there are both and strategic gain in it.

If you can do it because you are expanding the window of escalation.

But there's always an inherent danger.

>>Of course.

>>You know, and that is a very fine balancing line.

>>Let me shift a little away from Pakistan, because you were talking about some of the the turbulence in the relationship overall and the tariff, obviously imposing a 50% tariffs across the board on most goods between, US and India has has obviously caused a strain and probably a shock to India in many ways.

How do how does India respond to that.

And of course we should.

We should also preface that some of the reason for that tariff, at least how it was, has been explained by the Trump administration, is that India has ongoing relationships with Russia.

So again, it's through a different relationship.

>>Right.

>>So we're talking about, you know, India, Pakistan, India, Russia, India, China in some ways when is the US calculation basing US India solely?

>>Right.

So let me let me put it like this.

Right.

I, I would say that the economic reforms which happened in 1991 were not carried through.

So there are major problems with the Indian economy of not embracing fully the reforms which Indian economy should embrace, even when it has grown to be the fourth largest economy in nominal GDP terms and the third largest economy in purchasing power parity, it still levies a significant tariff on American products, and most of them are agricultural goods, which is a major interest group for President Trump.

And one of the reasons the trade talks which were very, very positive, India was the first country slashing tariffs on Harley-Davidson to, you know, whiskeys and everything coming from the US as early as the third or the fourth week of Trump administration.

But the agricultural sector in India is highly protected because farmers have a major say.

>>And this is particularly hit on dairy issues.

>>Yes.

Dairy issues, as well as crops and you know, other farm products.

No Indian decision maker, just because it is a democratic country can not, you know, allow those interests to be taken care of.

So there is a fundamental problem here, but I also believe that Indian economy has to open up and this is also an opportunity.

The second issue over here is and let me say this right, India does not have the same leverage over the US, particularly because it has to protect its farm sector.

China, on the other hand, has fared much better because it can open up, you know, its econom for American agricultural goods.

So that's why when, you know when we started, we saw US-China trade war heating up.

But China had more leverage than India.

There is a question of Russian oil.

The estimates are that India has anyways gained anywhere between $10 billion to $25 billion in the last 2 to 3 years of Russian-Ukrainian war.

The argument at that point in time was that a lot of Middle Eastern oil, when the Ukraine war started, was being diverted to Europe, and given that India imports 80 to 90% of its energy needs, it needed to have an alternative source.

And obviously it was much cheaper.

So there is an argument there that India has actually benefited.

But whatever India refined also went to Europe.

So Europe was buying it from India because they could not buy directly from Russia because of the sanctions.

And it's very interesting that Biden administration understood this, right.

There was a lot of, you know, the it they they did not welcome it internally, but externally.

They understood this dynamic-- >>India had to make this-- >>Yes, yes.

And it was neve that displeasure was never made as public as it is today.

You know, today, diplomacy often is done for the masses rather than, you know, for, in closed doors in some sense.

But India has to take care of, of that aspect.

It has benefited from it.

But then there is also when you're looking at the Indian Indian grand strategy, Russia always plays a major role because unlike Japan, unlike Australia, unlike Southeast Asia, which are one removed from the Eurasian landmass, which is defined by three major powers Russia, China and India, India still remains a continental power.

And from the very beginning, in Indian mind, the point was that if you have to have a balance in Eurasia, you cannot have Russia and China together.

So weaning Russi away from China is fundamental to Indian foreign policy.

The problem for decision makers in Delhi is that are intentions not always translate into outcomes.

It might be that Delhi did not want Russia to be closer to China, but that's a decision which Moscow has.

>>And of course, these these things don't happe overnight either.

>>Absolutely.

>>So so one of the areas you mentioned, along the same lines one of the mentioned areas you mentioned is one of the pillars of security cooperation.

And one of the ways that's manifested, not the only way, but one of the ways is increase, defense sales between U.S. and India, I think 20 billion over the last ten years, at least, which is which is huge.

So how are these tariffs?

Are they jeopardizing any, any of that security cooperation in terms of arms sales?

And then the other is another area of cooperation between the U.S. and India is in emerging technologies is it jeopardizing either of those sectors?

>>So we don't have an conclusive evidence of that yet.

But if we can, we want to put ourselves in the footsteps of decision makers in Delhi.

The obvious thing for them to do is to issue linkage defense sales with tariffs.

And we might se some of the ongoing negotiations as well as already signed deals getting delayed because India would use it as a leverage, including the Reaper drone deals for $3.5 billion.

The additional P8-Is additional Chinooks, additional Apaches.

There are infantry fighting vehicles which India is looking for.

India is a huge defense market.

But the other thing, which I thin is very important to understand is that over a period of time, Indian defense economy is changing.

The involvement of Russia in Indians, India's defense was not only a product of Cold War, it was also that Indian political economy closed door economy aligned well with Soviet closed door economy.

Today, India's economy, which is bubbling up with numerous startups which actually look to the US for their mentors, and from Lockheed Martin to Raytheo to Microsoft to General Atomics, they are actually mentoring these very interesting startups in India.

And that is that you know, that that energy from bottom up, that raw, intensity of private initiative is what I feel will drive a lot of India U defense relationship in future.

>>So and you're also talking about Russian articles.

Of course it takes a long time to replace if your defense systems are mostly in Russian, you still have to maintain those while you're gradually getting different equipment or diversifying.

>>You're spot on, right?

There is a legacy issue.

So depending upon the platforms, the age of the platforms, you know, the age of a ship would be far mor than the age of a tank, right?

So these legacy issues will pertain.

But then the other thing is also at this, Russia has been forthcoming in transferring and cooperating with India on top of the line defense equipment, the BrahMos cruise missile, which was very effectively used by Indi during the India-Pakistan crisis and is now being exporte to countries like Philippines.

There are talks with Vietnam and Indonesia was a product of Russia, India, defense cooperation.

Russia has helped India an its nuclear submarine program.

So there has been some high level-- >>That that being said-- >>Right.

>>How has has Delhi responded to the Trump administration's insistence on you need to limit relations with Russia, cool them off to a certain extent.

>>Publicly it can only be defiant, right?

Because of its own interest groups, as well as Modi being third time prime minister, one of the most powerful prime ministers of, I would say, equally powerful as Indira Gandhi cannot show weakness eve when it comes from, from the US so publicly, it would it is quite defiant.

>>So given that and given the fact that, you know, the Trump administration during the first term had good relations and pretty smooth relations with India and particularly good relations between the Prime Minister and the president could that personal relationship actually lead to some easing of the tension that we're seeing right now on tariffs and some of the other periphery issues?

>>Right.

So, you know, individuals matter a lot, in international relations, but with strong leaders it can be a double edged sword if they go well together.

You know, that the relationship can be very smooth and very tough decisions can be taken.

Such was the case with Manmohan Singh and George W Bush.

No one in the US bureaucracy would have accommodated a nuclear India.

You know, except from a diktat in some sense from George W Bush.

>>So we just have to have time for one more question.

I want to go back to where you started.

You're talking about the rise of this relationship.

Really, in the modern era has been since in a unipolar world where the US was clearly that the the hegemon.

Right now you're entering a phase where order is, global order is being shifted again, and there are multiple polars, maybe not of all the same kind of weight, but there's a lot of uncertainty out there.

So in this unipolar world, the US or Indian relationship strengthened.

Does it apply still and is it still going to go on that positive trajectory in a new multiple world, or is this something that we have to wait to see?

>>Right.

So this is a question staring the decision makers in Delhi, right?

Let me put it historically.

India has never experienced a multipolar world order.

We became independent.

India became independent in a bipolar world order.

It transitioned to a unipolar world order through a crisis, both in its foreign policy and in its economy.

It has no experience of a multipolar world order, but from the very beginning, India's manifest destiny as its decision maker thought about, was being a pole among the great powers.

And that's a major challenge for India.

But I think it is far more important for Indian decision maker not to think about global multi polarity, but Asia multi polarity, Chinese hegemony is fundamentally far more problematic than US hegemonic in the Indo-Pacific.

The goal of Indian decision makers, irrespective of the rhetoric of multi polarity, would be to hav multiple authority in Asia first and being a major pole in Asia and the Indo Pacific.

The new terminology for it.

Then think about global multi polarity.

I would end with that.

>>Thank you very much for that perspective.

The UCF Chair of India Center, Dr. Yogesh Joshi, thank you very much.

>>Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be-- >>Look forward to having you on again soon.

>>Thank you so much.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.