Andrew Latham
For years, the idea of a U.S.-India alliance has hovered in the background of American strategic thinking—persistent, appealing, but ultimately illusory. Ever since the Bush-era civil nuclear deal, successive administrations have cast India as a natural partner: a fellow democracy, a counterweight to China, a potential pillar of a liberal international order that no longer exists. That illusion has now faded, replaced by something more durable and grounded: not alliance, but partnership. Strategic, yes. Deepening, yes. But bounded. And rooted not in shared ideology, but in converging interests.
India does not want to be an American ally. That has never changed. What has changed is that Washington finally seems to understand—and even accept—this. After two decades of costly post-Cold War overreach, American strategy is adjusting. What’s emerging in its place is a dense but flexible partnership, one that functions without treaty guarantees or formal blocs. It works precisely because it acknowledges difference, because it’s structured around mutual interest rather than illusions of alignment.
This is not a Cold War redux. It’s something far more fluid: the strategic landscape of multipolarity, in which states hedge, balance, and maneuver across multiple axes of power. In this world, India has adopted a strategy of deliberate multialignment—cooperating with several major powers, including rivals, to advance its own sovereign priorities. That’s not ideological drift. It’s strategic prudence.
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