6 ms·

That the US and India aren't each other's closest ally confuses me. It's the 2 biggest democracies, both are on uneasy terms with China, there's an enormous Des

That the US and India aren't each other's closest ally confuses me. It's the 2 biggest democracies, both are on uneasy terms with China, there's an enormous Desi diaspora here. Both are heavy into high-tech with struggling manufacturing bases. Both have a history of trouble with Islamic terrorism, both ardent allies of Israel. Each is the largest country in their region. Hell, we speak the same language (kinda, I know it's a lingua franca etc)! So why are we allies with Pakistan, a country that openly hates us, instead of India?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> the US and India aren't each other's closest ally confuses me We increasingly are. > why are we allies with Pakistan, a country that openly hates us, instead of India? India openly allied with the Soviets, so we took the other side. Also, India was an immature democracy through the 70s, when it flirted with outright authoritarianism. It isn’t until recently that it has become a middle-income democracy with a high-income upper-middle class and cosmopolitan elite.
- ra7 3y ago
  > India openly allied with the Soviets, so we took the other side. I’m afraid you have it backwards. India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty only after the US sent its seventh fleet towards India during the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict. US supported Pakistan in the war and India had no choice but to align with the Soviets to deter them.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty only after the US sent its seventh fleet towards India during the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict New Delhi and Moscow were transferring technology in “steel, defense, railways, construction equipment, metal & mining [and] petrochemicals” by the time “Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union supported India's stance on the Kashmir conflict against Pakistan and over Portuguese coastal enclaves such as Goa” in 1955 [1]. The MiG-21 was co-produced in India in the 1960s. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Soviet_Union_relations#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Soviet_Union_relations...
    - ra7 3y ago
      Technology transfer and verbal support is nothing like coming to a country’s rescue during a war. An official treaty was only signed during the events of 1971 war. US-Pakistan mutual defense treaty dates back to 1954.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Technology transfer and verbal support is nothing like coming to a country’s rescue during a war Co-producing warplanes is as good as a treaty. Right in front of leaders visiting each others’ capitals. Bottom line is India never courted the West. Pakistan did. Neither drove the other into anyone’s arms; American relations in Pakistan were focussed on the Middle East, India’s in the Soviets with China. When the theatre shifted to India v Pakistan, the table was already set and everyone assumed their places.
        ra7 3y ago
        > Co-producing warplanes is as good as a treaty. Not really, no. One is a financial commitment, the other is a military commitment. They're very different. India never courted the West because Pakistan already had close relations with them. The order matters since your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union. US had its own motivations (obviously) around curtailing Soviet influence in Afghanistan.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > One is a financial commitment, the other is a military commitment. They're very different. The U.S. co-producing nuclear submarines with Australia isn’t a military commitment? > your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union This was never said? We didn’t ally with India because it was allied with the Soviets. We have no problem allying with both sides of a regional spat e.g. Israel & Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Greece and Japan & Korea.
        3y ago
- ryloric 3y ago
  This is the usual American lack of any historical knowledge concerning their own actions on display. US took Pakistan's side first, we only made the Indo-Soviet friendship deal in 71 because we had no other choice, or just accept being obliterated by US Navy while intervening in Bangladesh. We were one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned movement of third world countries and one of the leaders of that group. We did not want to be involved in cold war between the west and USSR and took no sides until we were forced to for survival. Can you imagine that? The world's strongest and second-strongest democracies aiming their guns at the world's largest on behalf of an Islamist-Military dictatorship that was committing a genocide. As usual, Americans forget all of this or don't even bother to read about it in the first place.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    This is a weaker version of someone else’s argument [1]. Read that thread, because they argue your point better than you do. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38380982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38380982
    - ryloric 3y ago
      That doesn't say anything about how ignorant you are. Read my comment again.
- lenkite 3y ago
  Sorry, but I suggest you educate yourself on the correct timeline of events. Also, kindly read Nixon's declassified statements and the 1971 tapes. The kind of racist bigotry he regularly espoused would break several HN guidelines - so I cannot post his statements here - please look them up online. He had an unnerving, extremely rabid, irrational hate-on for Indian people.
bobobob420 3y ago
New World Order is a paradigm where US runs the show for everyone else. The world’s largest democracy is a threat to this. One of the worlds largest economies is also a viable economic opportunity. + Military / Geopolitics. These are all factors in play at the same time
- _8j50 3y ago
  How would EU be different? It is not a country but as an economy it has similar population as the US, geographical proximity to asia and africa and many well established economic powerhouses. If the US should feel threatned it would be by the EU. The reason the US does not like China is not because of their economy but their politics and military ambitions. Both China and India have nukes so they can defend their territory against the US just fine. China wants to expand into taiwan, the south china see and even some west china territory India controls and who knows what else. If you think about it, being wealtheir than the US does not affect the US much so long as the US is still a competing consumer economy and the dollar is the global currency (kind of like english being lingua franca, unless the world trusts China more than the US to pay its bills, RMB will never displace the dollar ) what changes for the US? So long as GDP is the same and the US does not rely on exports for survival it can still maintain the most powerful military. The problem is with China using their wealth to compete with the US military similar to USSR which might lead to a world war 3 situation. India on the other hand, no doubt will improve its military but I don't see India spending 100B+ a year on military or foreign bases and multiple aircraft carrier strike force groups and all that. The only real conflict opportunity for India are pakistan and China but if India is allied with the US then the US and NATO countries will be a deterrent. Much of why India is neutral on ukraine and won't publicly be closer to the US is a result of economic dependencies such as oil and trade routes. A prosperous india might be able to break free from those shackles and equally compete with EU and the US as well as with China.
  - anon291 3y ago
    > If the US should feel threatned it would be by the EU. The EU is a society that is winding down. Americans are sensible and realize the future of innovation and progress lies in countries that have young people. A bunch of old Europeans are not a threat. Europe is utterly feckless anyway and is unlikely to ever be able to field a large enough army to actually be a threat
ReptileMan 3y ago
India is just too big to be obedient client state. US have no allies.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > India is just too big Only in population, which is irrelevant, since nobody is contemplating a land war. Economically [1] and militarily [2], America has bigger allies. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... [2] https://power.lowyinstitute.org/data/military-capability/signature-capabilities/long-range-maritime-force-projection/ https://power.lowyinstitute.org/data/military-capability/sig...
ra7 3y ago
Modi, for all his faults, has made a huge pivot towards America like no other PM before him. India and US are closer than ever before, even in the backdrop of India’s neutrality stance in Russia-Ukraine conflict. There are multiple defense agreements between the countries, including intelligence sharing, at levels we have not seen before. But India hates playing the second fiddle, so they don’t want be a traditional “ally” that the US can push around at will. They want to be more like “partners”.
nradov 3y ago
The relationship with Pakistan is mostly historical as it provided access to Afghanistan and acted to counter Soviet/Russian influence in the region. India, although officially neutral, was in practice a semi-ally of the USSR and then Russia for a mix of ideological and economic reasons. But those relationships are likely to reverse over the next few years for the reasons you suggest. Pakistan no longer has anything of value to offer to the USA; their only card to play is threatening to form an alliance with China.
anon291 3y ago
India follows a policy of neutrality and the us wants a country in the region who will allow it to have a military presence. Pakistan is okay with giving up sovereignty of American military bases. India is not. Thus the US nominally allies with Pakistan and India steers clear because of that. Although as others have said, India clearly favors the US these days
- greedo 3y ago
  The US doesn't have any military bases in Pakistan...
  - anon291 3y ago
    During the War on Terror, Ameria did operate at Pakistani military facilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%E2%80%93United_States_military_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%E2%80%93United_States...
vkou 3y ago
Because the US got in bed with China because China was opposed to the Russians. It's also why the US was down with Cambodia (they, together with China opposed Vietnam, who the US opposed because it decided to intervene in the losing side of a failed French colonial conflict.)
callalex 3y ago
Until relatively recently, the population of the USA considered running a country as a religious ethno-state to be a bad thing.
ryloric 3y ago
Natural allies really. But it's not all good though, there's been a hard and strangely growing anti-western sentiment for a while now. It's big enough to become a problem in the near future. Also, western governments pay very little attention to understanding India, it's all colonial era stereotypes for the most part. Even the largest and most well known newspapers rarely send anyone with a deep understanding of the country to cover it, and they give a very shallow lopsided, uni-dimensional impressions of the country to their audience.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> the US and India aren't each other's closest ally confuses me We increasingly are. > why are we allies with Pakistan, a country that openly hates us, instead of India? India openly allied with the Soviets, so we took the other side. Also, India was an immature democracy through the 70s, when it flirted with outright authoritarianism. It isn’t until recently that it has become a middle-income democracy with a high-income upper-middle class and cosmopolitan elite.

ra7 3y ago
> India openly allied with the Soviets, so we took the other side. I’m afraid you have it backwards. India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty only after the US sent its seventh fleet towards India during the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict. US supported Pakistan in the war and India had no choice but to align with the Soviets to deter them.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty only after the US sent its seventh fleet towards India during the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict New Delhi and Moscow were transferring technology in “steel, defense, railways, construction equipment, metal & mining [and] petrochemicals” by the time “Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union supported India's stance on the Kashmir conflict against Pakistan and over Portuguese coastal enclaves such as Goa” in 1955 [1]. The MiG-21 was co-produced in India in the 1960s. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Soviet_Union_relations#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Soviet_Union_relations...
  - ra7 3y ago
    Technology transfer and verbal support is nothing like coming to a country’s rescue during a war. An official treaty was only signed during the events of 1971 war. US-Pakistan mutual defense treaty dates back to 1954.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Technology transfer and verbal support is nothing like coming to a country’s rescue during a war Co-producing warplanes is as good as a treaty. Right in front of leaders visiting each others’ capitals. Bottom line is India never courted the West. Pakistan did. Neither drove the other into anyone’s arms; American relations in Pakistan were focussed on the Middle East, India’s in the Soviets with China. When the theatre shifted to India v Pakistan, the table was already set and everyone assumed their places.
      - ra7 3y ago
        > Co-producing warplanes is as good as a treaty. Not really, no. One is a financial commitment, the other is a military commitment. They're very different. India never courted the West because Pakistan already had close relations with them. The order matters since your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union. US had its own motivations (obviously) around curtailing Soviet influence in Afghanistan.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > One is a financial commitment, the other is a military commitment. They're very different. The U.S. co-producing nuclear submarines with Australia isn’t a military commitment? > your argument is US aligned with Pakistan only because India aligned with Soviet Union This was never said? We didn’t ally with India because it was allied with the Soviets. We have no problem allying with both sides of a regional spat e.g. Israel & Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Greece and Japan & Korea.
        3y ago
ryloric 3y ago
This is the usual American lack of any historical knowledge concerning their own actions on display. US took Pakistan's side first, we only made the Indo-Soviet friendship deal in 71 because we had no other choice, or just accept being obliterated by US Navy while intervening in Bangladesh. We were one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned movement of third world countries and one of the leaders of that group. We did not want to be involved in cold war between the west and USSR and took no sides until we were forced to for survival. Can you imagine that? The world's strongest and second-strongest democracies aiming their guns at the world's largest on behalf of an Islamist-Military dictatorship that was committing a genocide. As usual, Americans forget all of this or don't even bother to read about it in the first place.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  This is a weaker version of someone else’s argument [1]. Read that thread, because they argue your point better than you do. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38380982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38380982
  - ryloric 3y ago
    That doesn't say anything about how ignorant you are. Read my comment again.
lenkite 3y ago
Sorry, but I suggest you educate yourself on the correct timeline of events. Also, kindly read Nixon's declassified statements and the 1971 tapes. The kind of racist bigotry he regularly espoused would break several HN guidelines - so I cannot post his statements here - please look them up online. He had an unnerving, extremely rabid, irrational hate-on for Indian people.

bobobob420 3y ago

New World Order is a paradigm where US runs the show for everyone else. The world’s largest democracy is a threat to this. One of the worlds largest economies is also a viable economic opportunity. + Military / Geopolitics. These are all factors in play at the same time

_8j50 3y ago
How would EU be different? It is not a country but as an economy it has similar population as the US, geographical proximity to asia and africa and many well established economic powerhouses. If the US should feel threatned it would be by the EU. The reason the US does not like China is not because of their economy but their politics and military ambitions. Both China and India have nukes so they can defend their territory against the US just fine. China wants to expand into taiwan, the south china see and even some west china territory India controls and who knows what else. If you think about it, being wealtheir than the US does not affect the US much so long as the US is still a competing consumer economy and the dollar is the global currency (kind of like english being lingua franca, unless the world trusts China more than the US to pay its bills, RMB will never displace the dollar ) what changes for the US? So long as GDP is the same and the US does not rely on exports for survival it can still maintain the most powerful military. The problem is with China using their wealth to compete with the US military similar to USSR which might lead to a world war 3 situation. India on the other hand, no doubt will improve its military but I don't see India spending 100B+ a year on military or foreign bases and multiple aircraft carrier strike force groups and all that. The only real conflict opportunity for India are pakistan and China but if India is allied with the US then the US and NATO countries will be a deterrent. Much of why India is neutral on ukraine and won't publicly be closer to the US is a result of economic dependencies such as oil and trade routes. A prosperous india might be able to break free from those shackles and equally compete with EU and the US as well as with China.
- anon291 3y ago
  > If the US should feel threatned it would be by the EU. The EU is a society that is winding down. Americans are sensible and realize the future of innovation and progress lies in countries that have young people. A bunch of old Europeans are not a threat. Europe is utterly feckless anyway and is unlikely to ever be able to field a large enough army to actually be a threat

ReptileMan 3y ago

India is just too big to be obedient client state. US have no allies.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> India is just too big Only in population, which is irrelevant, since nobody is contemplating a land war. Economically [1] and militarily [2], America has bigger allies. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... [2] https://power.lowyinstitute.org/data/military-capability/signature-capabilities/long-range-maritime-force-projection/ https://power.lowyinstitute.org/data/military-capability/sig...

ra7 3y ago

Modi, for all his faults, has made a huge pivot towards America like no other PM before him. India and US are closer than ever before, even in the backdrop of India’s neutrality stance in Russia-Ukraine conflict. There are multiple defense agreements between the countries, including intelligence sharing, at levels we have not seen before. But India hates playing the second fiddle, so they don’t want be a traditional “ally” that the US can push around at will. They want to be more like “partners”.

nradov 3y ago

The relationship with Pakistan is mostly historical as it provided access to Afghanistan and acted to counter Soviet/Russian influence in the region. India, although officially neutral, was in practice a semi-ally of the USSR and then Russia for a mix of ideological and economic reasons. But those relationships are likely to reverse over the next few years for the reasons you suggest. Pakistan no longer has anything of value to offer to the USA; their only card to play is threatening to form an alliance with China.

anon291 3y ago

India follows a policy of neutrality and the us wants a country in the region who will allow it to have a military presence. Pakistan is okay with giving up sovereignty of American military bases. India is not. Thus the US nominally allies with Pakistan and India steers clear because of that. Although as others have said, India clearly favors the US these days

greedo 3y ago
The US doesn't have any military bases in Pakistan...
- anon291 3y ago
  During the War on Terror, Ameria did operate at Pakistani military facilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%E2%80%93United_States_military_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%E2%80%93United_States...

vkou 3y ago

Because the US got in bed with China because China was opposed to the Russians. It's also why the US was down with Cambodia (they, together with China opposed Vietnam, who the US opposed because it decided to intervene in the losing side of a failed French colonial conflict.)

callalex 3y ago

Until relatively recently, the population of the USA considered running a country as a religious ethno-state to be a bad thing.

ryloric 3y ago

Natural allies really. But it's not all good though, there's been a hard and strangely growing anti-western sentiment for a while now. It's big enough to become a problem in the near future. Also, western governments pay very little attention to understanding India, it's all colonial era stereotypes for the most part. Even the largest and most well known newspapers rarely send anyone with a deep understanding of the country to cover it, and they give a very shallow lopsided, uni-dimensional impressions of the country to their audience.