Sergio Gor may not even read this edit, nor take it seriously were he to, but the way he functions as the US envoy to India once confirmed by the US Senate may make all the difference in the outcome of Cold War 2.0. The new Cold War between China and the US is being fought across the globe, being fought across the world in the way the earlier Cold War fought between the US and the Soviet Union was. President Trump is justified in renaming the Department of Defense as the War Department, for the US is indeed at war with China. Such a war is not being fought kinetically thus far, exactly the way Cold War 1.0 was. Despite some anxious moments such as the Berlin airlift during 1946-49 or the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
The Cuban crisis came close to a kinetic war, and it was as a consequence of the Cuban crisis filling the minds of the US public and policymaking communities that CCP Chairman Mao Zedong felt emboldened that the US would not intervene were the PLA to invade India, which they did during October-November 1962. Bruce Riedel, a brilliant classical strategist wrote a book called “The Forgotten War” majorly about the Sino-Indian border conflict. Judging by some of his remarks and actions in recent weeks about India, it would appear that President Trump has forgotten about the importance to the US itself in having India as a partner in the ongoing Cold War 2.0. MAGA enthusiasts, among whom are many exceptional and admirable policymakers in the present dispensation, would be wise to take heed of the need for Washington to revive the de facto security alliance that had been crafted by the US and India through PM Modi through the signing of four foundation defence agreements viz Logistics Supply Agreement (LSA), General Security of Military Information (GSOMIA), Communications and Interoperability and Security Memorandum (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Geospatial Cooperation Memorandum (BECA). These are agreements signed between the US and a military partner. India also joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (commonly referred to as the Quad). All since PM Modi took office in 2014.
It was a surprise welcomed publicly in China when the defence relationship between the US and India seems publicly to have been tossed out of the window by President Trump. Ensuring unassailable kinetic superiority of the democracies in the Indo-Pacific makes it imperative for President Trump to not treat India as though the hybrid war now being fought by the US in Cold War 2.0 is between the two largest democracies in the world. There are multiple books written on Cold War 2.0, including by the present writer, and in each, the US and India working not as adversaries but as partners has been underlined.
That President Trump is sincere about his post on “deepest, darkest China” is beyond doubt. His stellar Cabinet and policymaking choices make that obvious. Yet why is he putting the same brush on India and China, including by calling on the EU to levy punitive tariffs on India, advice that the EU has ignored? Presidential Ambassador nominee Sergio Gor needs to work overtime using direct India-US flights and communications to convince policymakers in Washington that such a change in policy that so derails US security as well should be given up.
A few Russophobes still wedded to Cold War 1.0 policies are forgetting that Candidate Trump spoke with prescience about detaching Russia from China through use of US policy. Because India has a good relationship with Russia is no reason to try and cudgel India into abandoning a relationship with Moscow that has lasted since the 1960s. Quite the opposite, for India could be invaluable in ensuring that Trump succeeds in his own declared mission during the US Presidential elections of 2024 of delinking Moscow from Beijing. Instead, he is through some of his present stances seeking to delink New Delhi from Washington and link it with Beijing instead.
India has more than thirty million youths who have been trained in army combat, besides a powerful navy and air force. Indeed, soon after President Trump hosted President Putin in Alaska, the state witnessed several Indians arriving for conducting their annual military exercises. An obsession with punishing India with tariffs has the effect of seeking to upend the military and other relationships between India and the US especially since PM Modi took over in 2014. The Real Donald Trump must stand up, and getting him to do so needs to be the initial primary task of the White House nominee for the Ambassadorship of India. Once confirmed as US envoy to India, Sergio Gor needs to ensure his success in such a task.
Not just India but friendly regions of both countries such as within ASEAN or the GCC, not to forget China, will be keenly watching if President Trump walks away from the manner in which some of his appointees are seeking to help China by alienating India and the US. Nominee Gor, there is much more at stake where the US embassy in New Delhi is concerned than you would now believe possible.
