In an interview, Lindsey Ford, the top US official managing defense ties with India, expressed optimism about the future of the US-India strategic partnership, highlighting the investment made in the relationship and the need to accelerate progress. She mentioned the breakthrough in defense technology co-production and the launch of INDUS-X as positive developments. Ford emphasized the strategic necessity of the US and India working together in the Indo-Pacific region. She dismissed concerns about India’s support in the event of a conflict with China and acknowledged that disagreements on specific policy issues are normal for partners with a broad agenda.
In the wake of Narendra Modi’s landmark state visit to Washington this past summer, the top US official managing defense ties between the two countries sounded a bullish note on the future of the US-India strategic partnership. Lindsey Ford, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, sat down with host Milan Vaishnav on the season premiere of Grand Tamasha, a weekly policy-focused podcast coproduced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ford dismissed concerns some analysts have voiced that India would not provide military support to the United States in the event China moved to occupy Taiwan (HT file)
“I think there’s a tremendous amount of investment that has been done in this relationship over the last couple decades that has laid a really solid foundation. Now we have to think about how we accelerate that and move forward faster,” said Ford, who is the principal advisor to the Pentagon’s senior leadership for all policy matters pertaining to South Asia. “I think the key thing we’re trying to do right now is: How do you get the rest of your bureaucracies—on both sides—to believe in this relationship in the way that those of us who have believed in this relationship for a long time do?”
Ford spoke of the breakthrough that had been achieved during the Biden-Modi summit on the co-production of defense technology, exemplified by the signing of a memorandum of understanding between General Electric (GE) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for the manufacture of GE jet engines in India. She also lauded the launch of INDUS-X, a network of universities, startups, industry majors, and think tanks that is meant to facilitate joint defense technology innovation and coproduction.
Asked about the ambitious defense agenda the two countries have drawn up, Ford argued that the two countries coming together was a strategic necessity. “We have to do this. It’s not simply that we want to. When we talk about the kind of future that the United States sees in the Indo Pacific…when we talk about the kind of a future that I think India as a growing global power wants for itself—there really isn’t a way we do this we do this without each other,” she explained.
Ford dismissed concerns some analysts have voiced that India would not provide military support to the United States in the event China moved to occupy Taiwan. “I believe that increasingly the way that the United States and India are looking at our strategic interests, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, are very aligned,” she noted. “Certainly, there are going to be some things where the United States may not have interests that are exactly aligned with India. And, in those cases, India may decide to work on certain issues on its own or with other partners. And vice versa for the United States.” But disagreements on discrete policy questions are normal for partners collaborating on such a broad, diverse agenda, she noted.
