US support is central to Indian ambitions

India needs to build its capabilities quickly. And the US can, partly, help with each of Delhi's key needs. That's the real import of the PM's visit

- Prashant Jha

Here is a historical fact. Except the Soviet Union (and we know how that story played out), Washington DC’s support has been a necessary, though not sufficient, pre-requisite in enabling the rise of all major powers after World War II.

The Marshall plan helped western Europe recover from the ravages of the war and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization gave the region security cover, eventually enabling the European Union to become a power in its own right. While the United States (US)’s sin in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never be forgotten or forgiven, Tokyo’s political, strategic and economic integration with Washington DC, New York and San Francisco positioned Japan as Asia’s leading power for decades. The Vietnam war was Washington’s biggest mistake, a criminal one at that, during the Cold War, but it was also the US security umbrella and economic presence in what is today called the Indo-Pacific that helped the East Asian tigers emerge and spread prosperity.

And the Richard Nixon-Mao Zedong diplomatic opening in 1972, and the subsequent American economic and technological embrace of China for the last three decades, has, today, given Xi Jinping the capabilities to challenge Joe Biden for global supremacy and become the big bully in his neighbourhood and beyond.