Beyond Asim Munir's White House luncheon: Unpacking complexities of India-US relationship
The luncheon invitation by the White House to the Pakistan Army Chief 'Field Marshal' Asim Munir on June 18, 2025, while he was on a five-day official visit to the US, resulted in concerns in India about the possibility of the US administration's changing allegiance. This was because the US is majorly seen by Indians as a powerful country and a friendly partner, which has been mindful of India's needs and sensitivities in the past, even while it pursues its own agenda to retain its unique status as the sole superpower of the world.
Concerns arose primarily because Asim Munir, the invitee, is seen by most Indians as the architect of the gruesome massacre of 26 Indian tourists about a month earlier, on 22 April, at Pahalgam in the north Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, which had raised immense anger, and had subsequently, on May 07, triggered a four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan. It was reported at that time that the invitation was in response to Munir's public praise for President Donald Trump and call for the latter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the ceasefire between the conflicting sides, on May 10.
However, the concern may have been allayed subsequently, at least partially, when it was reported in the media that the luncheon meeting, which was also attended by Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, was primarily an effort by President Trump to get former Pakistani PM Imran Khan released from jail in Pakistan, at the behest of the latter's supporters among the Pakistani-American diaspora, to whom President Trump reportedly may have made a promise to this effect during his election campaign. Not that the meeting had any visible effect, as the harsh measures by Munir against Imran Khan and his supporters have continued even thereafter without any let-up.
This incident only goes to show the level of sensitivity inherent in the India-US relationship, more so because the invitation to Munir was extended in the backdrop of recent perceptions that the US was once again 're-hyphenating' India and Pakistan. This term, denoting their treatment as equals, is clearly an unfavourable change in approach towards India, that is reminiscent of the Cold War era and its immediate aftermath, unmindful of Pakistan's role as a hub of regional terrorism. In fact, it was President Trump himself, who in 2018, during his first term, had cut off all US aid to Pakistan in response to the latter's duplicitous behaviour of using funds from US aid to finance terror attacks against US troops in Afghanistan.
But then, is the India-US partnership so fragile that it can be turned on its head just by a luncheon invitation to an errant Field Marshal?
India-US relations: The defining partnership of the 21st Century?
It is a well known fact that the relationship between India, the world's largest democracy, and the United States, the world's oldest democracy, has been on an upswing since the last two decades or so, and has even been described by many in the free world as 'the world's most defining partnership of the 21st century'. Though both India and the US, due to common democratic values, would have been considered natural partners ever since the Indian nation was born in 1947, yet, it took more than 50 years before the US would reach out to India, to commence the cementing of a strong and strategic partnership, based on mutual respect and genuine cooperation on security issues.
It took a Republican President, George W. Bush, and his erudite Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to undo the damage done more than 30 years earlier during the India-Pakistan War of 1971 by another Republican President, Richard Nixon, and his enigmatic National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, before the relationship could take a turn for the better.
The turning point was the announcement in 2005 of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative, which subsequently resulted, in 2008, in signing of the India-US Nuclear Agreement, also known as the 123 Agreement.
Around the same time, in 2007, India joined the US, Australia and Japan as part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), to address security issues in the Indo-Pacific, and also started participating in the Malabar series of mutual exercises by the navies of the two countries. Though the QUAD in its earlier form was disbanded after Australia pulled out in 2008, it was revived during President Donald Trump's first presidency in 2017, setting the stage for a more robust relationship between its members.
The signing of the nuclear agreement in 2008 was indicative of much more than just an initiative by the US to facilitate cooperation with India on civil nuclear issues. It put to rest the recriminations of the Clinton era after India had conducted nuclear tests in 1998, which had bedivilled India's relations with the US and its allies. More importantly, the changed outlook was about recognition of India as a close strategic partner for the future, a possible associate to counter the rise of authoritarian China, seen as an assertive hegemon and a future challenger to US global interests in the Indo-Pacific region and the world. This assessment was also complemented by the fact that India and China were plagued by an acrimonious relationship over their seemingly intractable border disputes.
Foundational agreements and military exercises between India and the US
The General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), to facilitate intelligence sharing, was the first foundational agreement signed between India and the US in 2002, signalling the newfound confidence in dealing with each other. Subsequently, the 123 Nuclear Agreement of 2008 was signed, followed by three more 'foundational' military agreements, to deepen military cooperation, interoperability and logistics. These were the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), the Logistic Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) and Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), which contributed to taking military-to-military relations to a higher plane.
The annual military exercises—Yudh Abhyas between the Armies, Cope India between the Air Forces, Vajra Prahar between the Special Forces, Tiger Triumph for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and Malabar between the Navies—have contributed significantly to confidence-buiding as well as enhancing training standards and interoperability.
As of 2025, despite apprehensions in India concerning trade tariffs under possible imposition by the US, and concurrent concerns in the US about diminishing values like freedom and pluralism in India, it can be said that the multi-faceted India-US partnership has grown from strength to strength in the past two decades, and could well become the most defining partnership of the 21st century.
Brief history Of the relationship
On India's independence in 1947, the US saw India as a potential democratic ally in Asia. However, India chose non-alignment, resisting Cold War bloc politics, which frustrated US expectations. Consequently, the US leaned towards Pakistan, India's problematic neighbour, which joined the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) and South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), two US-led strategic alliances in Asia, while India chose not to do so. Nonetheless, during this period, the US provided critical food aid to India through its PL-480 scheme.
The period after 1962 saw some rapprochement, after the US supported India militarily and provided emergency assistance during the China-India war of 1962. But India's relationship with the Soviet Union, America's Cold War rival, also started improving, and the latter started supplying heavier military equipment like tanks and fighter aircraft.
Notably, in 1970, the US started using Pakistan to make overtures to China as part of the Cold War politics of that period. Thus, it started favouring the Pakistani military government in West Pakistan during the period of civil strife in East Pakistan, following the victory of Awami League, a Bengali party from East Pakistan, in the Pakistani elections that year. The ensuing brutal crackdown by the Pakistani military against the hapless people of East Pakistan, described by many as a genocide, triggered a mass displacement of more than a million Bengalis into India, causing a crisis situation for the Indian government.
1971: The worst period in India-US relations
The Indian government had no option but to intervene militarily in East Pakistan to resolve the growing humanitarian crisis. President Nixon and his NSA Kissinger held out threats to the Indian government and even went to the extent of trying to motivate the Chinese government to intervene militarily to support the Pakistan Army. The secret diplomacy between Kissinger and Chinese PM Zhou Enlai raised fears of Chinese intervention, resulting in the perceived need in India for a strategic counterweight. Consequently, India fell back on the Soviet Union for support, resulting in signing a mutual security pact called the 'Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation', aimed at blocking the Chinese military.
Subsequently, on December 3, 1971, India launched Operation Cactus Lily, a military operation to support Bengali freedom fighters in their quest to liberate East Pakistan from the tyrannical rule of West Pakistan. The Soviet veto blocked anti-India resolutions sponsored by Western countries in the UN Security Council, while the Soviet Navy reportedly deployed submarines and warships in the Indian Ocean as a possible counter to the US and British naval fleets. Once it became obvious that the Indian military's multi-pronged ground attacks were making progress towards Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, President Nixon issued orders to move the Pacific-based US Seventh Fleet, led by the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal. But this intimidatory tactic could not prevent the defeat of the Pakistani military and the liberation of East Pakistan.
This episode of December 1971, where use of US military force was threatened against India, when the latter intervened to prevent the perpetuation of a genocide against the tormented Bengali people of East Pakistan, with whom many Indians shared ethnicity, religion and language, lowered trust in the US government and soured mutual relations. The desultory relationship continued during the decade of the 1980s when the US, supported by Pakistan and some other Islamic countries, conducted military operations in Afghanistan to dislodge the Soviet occupation, of which India was muted in its criticism.
It would take at least a decade thereafter, around 1991, for economic reforms in India to commence, thus setting the stage for the mutual relationship to start changing for the better. But this was also the period that Pakistan insidiously helped trigger the insurgency in India's northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, with the aid of the so-called 'global mujahideen' from Afghanistan alongwith the assets left behind and the experience gained from the CIA's war against the Soviet occupation. Many terror attacks were carried out against official institutions and the common people in Kashmir. A prominent manifestation of this cross-border terrorism was the attack by Pakistani terrorists on Chhittisinghpura, a village in Anantnag district of Kashmir, on March 20, 2000, during the visit of President Clinton to India, in which 36 innocent Sikh villagers were lined up and shot dead.
However, today, thanks to the sustained efforts by both sides over the past two decades and more, India-US relations are at a historic high, marked by strategic alignment, deepening cooperation in the realms of technology and defence, as well as growing economic and people-to-people ties. Despite some legacy irritants, both nations are increasingly converging across multiple sectors, driven by shared interests in a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment. Significantly, the institutional process called 2 + 2 Ministerial Dialogues, which brings together India's external affairs minister and defence minister, and their US counterparts, are still ongoing.
Why does India need the US?
The US is currently the leader of the free world and the sole superpower—the global leader in economy, technology and military—and is likely to hold on to this position in the foreseeable future. As India seeks to rise as a major global power of the 21st Century, a close partnership with the US offers critical support across multiple domains where domestic capabilities are still evolving or constrained. Equally important, US support is critical to balance China's assertiveness—politically, militarily and regionally.
Further, the US is the global leader in semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, biotech, defence technology and space sytems. India cannot fully indigenise in these high-tech sectors without external partnerships with countries like the US. Economically, the US is a key destination for US exports - IT, pharmaceuticals and textiles. The US is also a major source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). American firms are top investors in Indian start-ups, clean energy, digital infrastructure, semiconductors and defence manufacturing. Moreover, the US is a gateway for integrating with global supply chains.
Why does the US need India?
The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) report of December 2012 titled 'Global Trends Report 2030: Alternative Worlds' described India as a "swing-state" in the evolving international order—a country that could tilt the global balance based on its strategic choices. Even before that, for about a decade, American think-tanks like Brookings and Carnegie had been using this term to highlight how important the India relationship was for the US, in its quest to counter the strategic challenge from a rising China and a resurgent Russia.
Strategic convergence in the Indo-Pacific is the hallmark of the Indo-US relationship, motivated by shared commitment to a free, open and rules-based order, and marked by strong cooperation with other members of the QUAD—in terms of joint naval patrols and intelligence sharing—to keep an eye and act as a check on China's assertiveness in the Indo Pacific, more specifically in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
There is deepening cooperation in the realms of cyber security, intelligence sharing, special forces' training as well as defence modernisation and indigenisation. India is now one of the top buyers of US manufactured defence equipment, including Apache attack helicopters, P-81 maritime surveillance aircraft, C-130J and C-17 transport aircraft, MQ-9B Reaper drones, CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters, MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters, M777 ultra-light howitzers as well as GE F414 jet engines for India's indigenous LCA Tejas and AMCA fighter programs.
Further, thanks to having signed foundational agreements like BECA and COMCASA, India now receives geospatial data and precision targeting assistance and also has access to secure encrypted communications and shared intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms.
Maturing of the Indian diaspora
A very significant development for India-US relations during the last fifty years is the maturing of the Indian-American diaspora. A very large number of educated Indians have been migrating to the US since the 1960s, and currently, the next generation of Indian-American technocrats are holding powerful positions in American industry, IT and health sectors, while the third generation of the community is entering the job market. Many Indians continue to seek access to colleges in the US for higher studies and to pick up jobs thereafter. The Indian diaspora is well respected for its responsible behaviour, industry and enterprise. They are also, per capita, the most wealthy among all diasporas in the US. This implies that, while the quantum of dollar remittances from the US to India has been steadily increasing, the influence of Indians in all possible spheres in the US, even in economy, technology, politics and governance has been on the rise. Thus, it is no surprise that there are a number of Indian-Americans in the US Congress as well as holding other important political appointments.
Irritants in the relationship: Perceived by India
Despite the apparent bonhomie, there are a number of irritants on both sides. India believes the US tends to be soft on Pakistani terror networks due to geopolitical compulsions. Relatedly, India is deeply concerned about renewed US military and financial aid to Pakistan, especially post the 2025 thaw. Frequent post-election swings in foreign policy between administrations create uncertainty for India. India also feels the US is slow or reluctant to share critical defence technologies despite India being labelled as a 'major defence partner'. Differences in trade policy and the US contention that Indian import duties on agricultural products, medical devices, automobiles and ICT equipment are high are sticking points in matters of economics. India feels the US revoking, in 2019, of India's eligibility for duty-free exports under Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) was unjustified. There are also disagreements on market access, agricultural subsidies, regulatory norms and digital governance, where India insists that source code access are necessary for ensuring cyber security and transparency, and that digital taxes as an equilisation levy on global digital giants are justified. Also, the Indian government resents US criticism on allegations like dilution of democratic values, religious freedom, human rights etc, viewing these as 'interference in sovereign matters.'
Irritants in the relationship: Perceived by the US
The US is often frustrated by India's reluctance to take a clear stand against Russia and China and the fact that India prefers 'multi-alignment' over being part of any formal bloc. India has often taken a neutral position or abstained on US-sponsored resolutions in the UN for condemnation of Russia or support for Israel. Continued purchase of Russian weapon systems like Su-30 fighter aircraft and S-400 air defence systems irritate the US, especially amid US sanctions on Russia. Also, the US wants India to do more with the QUAD militarily, whereas India prefers to keep it mostly diplomatic and economic. Further, US lawmakers and think tanks often perceive that religious freedom, press freedom and democratic standards are being undermined in India, which is actively refuted by official Indian sources.
Conclusion
Despite the above, India, as the world's largest democracy—which practices values like freedom, pluralism, equality and respect for human rights—is generally perceived by the US as a valuable partner and a counterweight to authoritarian countries like China. India, as the world's fifth-largest economy, with the fourth-largest military, and a wealth of empowered human resources, is ideally placed to partner with the US in Asia and provide it the collaborative heft to retain leadership status at the global level. Irritants are likely in every relationship, so also occasionally in the US-India partnership. It would be wise on both sides to be mindful of each other's concerns and sensitivities so that the overarching strategic relationship can grow from strength to strength, and continue to merit recognition as 'the most defining partnership of the 21st century.'
The writer was Vice Chief of the Indian Army.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
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