Towards a deeper partnership: Balaji Chandramohan discusses US grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific region and the convergence of US and Indian interests.

• Author: Chandramohan, Balaji

In January 2015 President Obama visited India for the second time, and was a chief guest at India's Republic Day ceremony. This followed a successful visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the United States in the previous September. These visits reflected the deepening ties between the two countries, as they confront the reality of China's rising power. India has the reach in both Eurasia and the wider Asia-Pacific region to become Washington's defining partner or even an ally in the new US strategic calculus. US support for India's admission to the global nuclear non-proliferation and export control regimes is a further reflection of warming US-India ties.

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As the United States comes to terms with the shifting geo-politics of the 21st century, it is looking for strategic partnership or allies in the Asia-Pacific region. As an emerging great power, India provides a counter-weight to both Russia and China. With the second largest population in the world, a growing economy and occupying a strategic crossroad, India provides Washington with a natural partner or even a strategic ally.

The three-day state visit of US President Barack Obama to India, which culminated with India's Republic Day celebrations in January 2015, was the start of a new chapter in the Indo-United States relationship. Its wider implications across the globe could alter the world order.

To start with, Obama's visit as chief guest at the India's Republic Day function was a diplomatic coup for the newly resurgent Indian government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was the first time a US president had been invited to attend India's Republic Day ceremony as a chief guest. Obama became the first US president to visit India twice during his presidency.

The visit was in fact a continuation of earlier moves towards a closer relationship between India and the United States. It was an extension of the new vision inked during Modi's state visit to the United States in September 2014. The rock star welcome accorded to Modi during that visit and his subsequent visits to countries like Australia and Fiji convinced the US establishment of the need to push for a closer diplomatic, economic and military partnership in the newly emerging world order.

Geo-political imperative

After emerging from the Cold War as the pre-eminent superpower, the United States was distracted by two land wars in the hinterlands of Asia. China, which was an ally of Washington for the second part of the Cold War from the 1970s, decided to increase its stature in the international system by actively spreading its influence from the Asia-Pacific region to Africa, Europe and Latin America, thereby challenging Washington's pre-eminence.

As it stands in 2015, there is no doubt among strategic observers in Washington that US pre-eminence in the global power game depends very much on its ability to control the sea lanes of communication that connect the rest of the world to the western hemisphere and on its ability to prevent any single major power's rise to dominance in the Eurasian heartland.

During the Cold War, the United States was able to control the world oceans with its unchallenged naval supremacy. With allies such as Germany, Great Britain...