Last Monday, the Trump administration released its first National Security Strategy (NSS) to the public. The document dubbed China and Russia as “revisionist powers”: threats to the United States and its security goals. China, in particular, was singled out. As a senior Trump administration official noted, “China is seen as a strategic competitor because China competes effectively across the political, economic, military, and informational domains in ways probably not duplicated by our other competitors.”
According to noted international relations scholar Paul Kennedy last month, in addition to the United States, there are three other great powers. While Russia and China are seen as potentially hostile to American interests, there are any opportunities to be found in the document for India, the fourth great power, to enhance its relations with the United States.
Geopolitically, the NSS places the greatest emphasis for American interests on the Indo-Pacific region, an area that includes India. It is interesting to note that the NSS uses this term, instead of Asia-Pacific, indicating that the United States has as deep an interest in South Asia as it does in East Asia. The document explicitly includes India in its definition of the Indo-Pacific, which stretches “from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States, [and is]the most populous and economically dynamic part of the world.” In fact, about half of the world’s population lives within this Indo-Pacific region.