India and the United States: The Contours of an Asian Partnership

This special issue of Asia Policy scrutinizes the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership by examining the prospects for bilateral cooperation in Asia. Although peacetime foreign policy collaboration between major powers is a rarity, China’s rapid rise in the international system appears to have forced the United States and India into unprecedentedly close consultation on regional security issues. Will this consultation mature into active cooperation? To answer this question, this introductory essay first examines the concept of strategic partnerships—a nebulous type of political relationship that have proliferated since the end of the Cold War. It then highlights the obstacles to peacetime cooperation between major powers in other regions of the world. Following this, attention turns to the articles in this special issue which examine the history of Indo-U.S. cooperation in various sub-regions of Asia. Collectively, these pieces challenge misperceptions and misunderstandings of each country’s policies and past behavior, as well as identify the differing understandings of both the bilateral relationship and the region held by each party. Taken together, these articles provide a clearer sense of the geopolitical scope and depth, as well as the important limitations, of the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership. The article concludes by identifying the key insights that come from this collection and offers some thoughts the overall trajectory of U.S.-India relations.