ilateral ties between India and the United States (US) are currently under considerable stress over the harsh and punitive trade tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration on India, and the sharp fee hike related to H-1B visas has intensified the discord.
However, despite the trade-related estrangement, one strand of the bilateral relationship remains on track, specifically the progressive cooperation between the two nations in the maritime or naval domains. Whether this will also be “trumped” by the White House remains moot at this stage, but a brief review is instructive.
Recent developments in India-US naval cooperation include the April 2025 Exercise Tiger Triumph, discussions on aircraft carrier technology in May 2025, and ongoing Indo-Pacific maritime domain awareness efforts with US support in May 2025. India had also revived plans to acquire additional P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft worth almost $4 billion, though this deal is currently on hold pending a consensual resolution of the tariff issue.
Early thaw
The question that arises is: why, when and how did the US security strategic establishment identify the naval or maritime domain for engagement with a nation that was “estranged” from Washington, DC? Dennis Kux, former US ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire and author of the definitive tome on US-India relations (from Franklin Roosevelt to George Bush senior), titled his book Estranged Democracies, and identified the seemingly intractable divergence in each other’s security perceptions and prioritising of strategic interests as the casus belli for this deep and often bitter estrangement. He said that the nuclear nettle, wherein India refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, was the bone of contention in bilateral ties.
A broad recall of the India-US bilateral relationship suggests that the summit-level improvement in the bilateral relationship began with former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and US President Ronald Reagan in 1981-82. This was the beginning of the “defrost”, after bilateral ties froze during the tenures of US Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
One incident is noteworthy in the maritime domain. In November 1988, when India averted a coup by mercenaries in the Maldives, it was a remarkable military operation, given the tactical challenges pertaining to time, space, and distance.
The then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi displayed quiet political confidence and deployed India’s modest but credible trans-border military capability to quell the coup. Two Indian naval ships in the vicinity of the island nation were swiftly tasked to capture the coup leaders, and later, the Indian Air Force and Army landed there and restored normalcy in governance.
‘Security provider’
Operation “Cactus” (as it was called) burnished the Indian Navy’s profile as a prompt and effective security provider in the Indian Ocean region (IOR), and oral history notes that when the then US President Reagan was briefed about this operation after it had concluded, he was quite surprised that India had this kind of military capability and reportedly quipped: “Is India the new sheriff in the Indian Ocean?”
A decade later, in October 1999, in a dramatic high-seas chase in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard rescued a pirated merchant ship, the MV Alondra Rainbow, and highlighted India’s ability to respond to challenges in the IOR.
In another significant collaboration, the Navy provided escort services to US Navy (USN) vessels transiting the Strait of Malacca in 2001, as part of post-9/11 cooperation during Operation Enduring Freedom. This included surface ships like tankers and high-value USN assets, including submarines, thereby freeing up US platforms for other operational commitments.
Traditionally, the Navy has often acted as a security provider in the IOR since 1950, and has unobtrusively rendered assistance to the local governments of Sri Lanka, Burma, (now Myanmar) or Seychelles.
The most significant Indian humanitarian response to an emergency was the December 2004 tsunami that ravaged many nations in the IOR’s south-eastern part. The Navy was deployed within hours, and other navies (US, Japan, and Australia) joined a few weeks after, laying the foundation for the Quad that would follow in later years.
Anti-piracy and maritime security
In the 21st century, the Navy has performed various security provider roles, from anti-piracy operations off the Somalia coast and operations in West Asia to rescue stranded Indian nationals from conflict zones.
Operation Sukoon (2006) saw the Navy saving thousands of Indian, Sri Lankan, and Nepalese citizens who were forced to flee from war-torn Lebanon. Similarly, in Operation Raahat (2015), the Navy enabled the rescue of stranded nationals from Yemen, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Sagar (“security and growth for all in the region”).
Since 2008, the Indian Navy, along with other navies has conducted anti-piracy patrols off the Somali coast and in the Gulf of Aden to secure maritime trade routes, protecting Indian and international merchant ships from pirate attacks. Rotating patrols by Navy task forces have escorted over 3,440 vessels and neutralised numerous piracy attempts, such as the 2011 rescue of hostages from MV Suez and the 2017 liberation of MV Al Kausar, which involved coordinated naval operations.
Another feather was India’s ability to deliver COVID-19 relief to IOR nations in 2020–21, once again reinforcing its role as a first responder. To improve maritime domain awareness in the region and share this surveillance capability to monitor and curb illegal activities, India established the Information Fusion Centre-IOR (2018) in Gurugram to share real-time maritime intelligence with member nations.
Thus, the Navy’s pedigree, professionalism, and proven competence as a reliable security provider in the IOR were noted by the US, and this arguably allowed for the first US-Indian naval exercise under the Malabar banner in 1992. This came four years after the Maldives operation and the end of the Cold War in December 1991, and strategically, the bilateral relationship was still “estranged”.
The other factor contributing to the US engagement with India in the maritime domain is classical geopolitics and post-Cold War politics.
China’s naval rise
The enormity of the September 11, 2001, terror attack on the US led the then George W. Bush administration to a simple but powerful strategic determination: for the country to be able to deal with the China challenge more effectively, India had to be included in the global nuclear tent.
The US began to frame the extended maritime arc from Japan to the oil-rich Persian Gulf and the Suez linkage as the Indo-Pacific continuum, and here a rising China posed an emerging challenge. In this calculus, both Japan and India, with their distinctive geography and proven naval competence, had a critical strategic salience in the larger US blueprint.
Subsequently, the resolve of US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh provided the political heft for the 2008 US-India civilian nuclear agreement, and India was no longer an estranged interlocutor for the US.
From 2009 to 2024, during the White House tenures of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the India-US military partnership grew in quantity and quality, and the maritime sector has been relatively more substantive. Meanwhile, China also enhanced its presence in the IOR, beginning with the first anti-piracy patrol of its People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in December 2008.
Over the last two decades, the PLAN has expanded in size and combat capability, and this dramatic transformation of the Chinese navy has significant implications for both India and the US. The PLAN’s expansion and modernisation in the last two decades is unprecedented and the numbers are stark.
This has been enabled by a sizeable fiscal allocation. The Chinese defence budget increased steadily from approximately $35 billion in 2005 to $246 billion in 2025. Naval modernisation accounts for a significant portion of this allocation, and it is estimated that $1.4 trillion has been budgeted for the army’s upgrades from 2024–2028, with a focus on joint trans-border combat capability. The Chinese shipbuilding capacity has surged in the last two decades, with the country producing more warships annually than the rest of the world combined. As of 2025, the PLAN operates over 370 major surface combatants and submarines, surpassing the US Navy in hull count but trailing in qualitative metrics like global basing, combat proficiency, and carrier experience.
Compared with the PLAN, the Indian Navy operates approximately 150 active ships and submarines, reflecting a balanced mix of indigenous and foreign-origin vessels designed for blue-water operations in the IOR. However, India’s defence allocation in 2025 is under $80 billion, and the naval component is the lowest in relation to the army and air force. India's composite combat capability is of a lower order than that of China, though it holds an immutable geographical advantage in the IOR.
While the PLAN has increased its footprint in the IOR with a military base in Djibouti and a string of port-related investments in the littoral as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, maritime geography and energy dependency do not favour China in the Indo-Pacific.
Therefore, China has an inherent vulnerability in the maritime domain, referred to as the “Malacca dilemma” (China's strategic vulnerability due to its reliance on the Strait of Malacca, the choke point connecting the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea) by the then Chinese President Hu Jintao. Thus, this boils down to China’s sea lines of communication vulnerability, as its vast trade and energy flow from the oil-rich Persian Gulf has to transit the Arabian Sea, go around the Indian peninsula and then cross the Malacca Strait into the Pacific Ocean.
Quad and Indo-Pacific strategy
In 2022, former US President Joe Biden arrived at a determination that while China represented a “pacing challenge” as a strategic competitor to US interests, the naval or maritime engagement with India was to be bolstered. The abiding logic that underpinned US policy in this regard was that, whatever the US’ grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific, having India as a partner would be desirable to advance its interests.
Hence, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad, comprising US, Japan, Australia, and India) was elevated to a summit level during the last year of the Biden tenure, and the next summit is expected to be hosted by India in late 2025. However, the big change during the Trump administration was that China is no longer the geopolitical challenger, which it was regarded as by previous US presidents, and a “deal” is possible to stabilise the US-China relationship.
If this policy gains traction, then one of the assumptions about India’s relevance in the US strategic calculus apropos China would become invalid. The litmus test would be the Quad summit that India is to host, and whether or not President Trump will attend. At present, this appears to be a low probability, and the Quad will likely become dormant.
If the bilateral relationship with the US continues to be roiled during the Trump years, India will have to sail alone in the IOR, as it did in the past and internalise the ekla chalo (the Bengali saying for forging your own path with courage and self-reliance) spirit of Rabindranath Tagore.
However, as sailors know all too well, a sturdy ship will ride the storm, however tempestuous. India must continuously engage with the US in the maritime domain to nurture their abiding strategic interests.
 "Trump 2.0 offers litmus test for India-US naval ties")
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