Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington’s China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India–Pakistan war, one part of the U.S.–India relationship has held firm: bilateral defense cooperation. The two sides recently announced a new defense framework, are deepening links between their private sectors, and are boosting military-to-military ties.
To review the state of the U.S.-India defense relationship and to help unpack the secrets of its success, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sameer Lalwani. Sameer is a senior advisor with the Special Competitive Studies Project and a non-resident senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.
Sameer and Milan discuss how the U.S.-India defense partnership has survived the general tumult in the relationship, the significance of a recently signed defense framework agreement, and the future of defense co-production and co-development. Plus, the two discuss Inda’s lessons learned from Operation Sindoor and whether China still serves as the glue that keep these two powers together.
Watch this episode on YouTube.
Episode notes:
1. Sameer Lalwani, “Don’t Call it a Comeback: Why US-India Relations are Due for a Rebound,” Special Competitive Studies Project, November 20, 2025.
2. Sameer Lalwani and Vikram J. Singh, “How to Get the Most Out of the U.S.-Indian Defense Partnership,” War on the Rocks, February 11, 2025.
3. “Why Washington Is Wooing Pakistan (with Uzair Younus),” Grand Tamasha, October 1, 2025.
4. “From Convergence to Confrontation: Trump’s India Gambit (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, September 24, 2025.
5. “Can Europe be India's Plan B? (with James Crabtree),” Grand Tamasha, September 17, 2025.
6. “How This India-Pakistan Conflict Will Shape the Next One (with Joshua White),” Grand Tamasha, May 21, 2025.
7. “Operation Sindoor and South Asia’s Uncertain Future (with Christopher Clary),” Grand Tamasha, May 14, 2025.
Transcript
Note: this is an AI-generated transcript and may contain errors
Milan Vaishnav: Welcome to Grand Tamasha, a co-production of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Hindustan Times. I'm your host, Milan Vaishnav. Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington's China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India-Pakistan war, one part of the U.S.-India relationship has held firm. Namely: defense cooperation. The two sides recently announced a new defense framework, are deepening links between their private sectors, and are boosting military to military ties. To review the state of the U.S.-India defense relationship and to help unpack the secrets of its success, I'm joined on the show this week by Sameer Lalwani. Sameer is a senior advisor with the Special Competitive Studies Project and a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund. I'm pleased to welcome Samir back to Grand Tamasha. Sameer, so good to see you.
Sameer Lalwani: It's great to be back.
Milan Vaishnav: I want to start with a piece that you recently published with the Special Competitive Studies Project, and we'll link to that in our show notes. You talk about how, despite all of this turmoil in U.S.-India relations—and I'm sure we'll get more into that—when you isolate bilateral defense cooperation, you write that this has matured into the steadiest part of the strategic partnership. And I think where I want to start this conversation is by asking you, what do you think has allowed for the defense partnership specifically to, sort of, withstand all of the noise, all of the turmoil of the larger bilateral relationship?
Sameer Lalwani: Well, it's a good question. Thanks for diving right into it, because this is sort of what I feel quite passionate about, which is I think it's motivated by both sides seeing a sense of necessity between… for the mutual benefit of this relationship. I think both countries face really challenging adversarial environments. This was brought home to India again in May of this year. And so even while there's been friction in the political relationship and the trade relationship, maybe even some diminishment of trust that might have been there before, I think they both see their only path to security and their vision for grand strategy relies on working with one another in the defense space. So, I think first and foremost it's self-interest. But second of all, you know, there's something about what people in the previous administration would call, like, habits of cooperation or muscle memory. The more as, as you hear Lindsay Ford and Ely Ratner talk about, the more reps and sets that both countries engage with in terms of military exercises, planning activities, exchange like staff exchanges, tabletop exercises, the more they would learn from other one another, benefit from that, sharpen their own approach to security and assessments of their needs. And so I think it's just become, I wouldn't want to quite say addictive, but again, it's sort of just a central property of how our defense establishments are thinking about their environment and the security challenges that they face, that it's almost essential, right, that to carry this on even when we have some disputes over trade.
Milan Vaishnav: And I think you know, just to step back for a second, when you think about I don't know, the last ten, fifteen years, you and I have been around Washington thinking about this subject, it does seem like there has always kind of been a two-track approach, right? I mean, for instance, if you just think about the kind of defense strategic side of the relationship and the econ side of the relationship, government to government economic ties have always had turmoil, right? I mean, the private sector does its own thing, but in terms of, you know, remember the days of we talked about the bilateral investment treaty, obviously we haven't reached U.S.-India FTA yet, free trade agreement. To… still working on the nuclear deal. But when it comes to the defense and mil-to-mil side, you know, the progress hasn't necessarily been linear, but there has been that kind of divergence.
Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know, the language that we've been using for the last 10 plus years is the language of interoperability, and there's several components to that. Some of that is like, you know, technical in terms of information communications systems, but some of that is human, right? And that human interoperability, through the familiarity in terms of how you think about tactics, techniques, and procedures, or even command, that familiarity is just built through repetition of engagements. And so the more commanders and officers and service members who are, you know, doing joint sales together or joint P-8 patrols together, and then doing this the subject matter expert exchanges after that, diagnosing what sort of they did well, what they didn't do well, where they sort of expect, like, the adversaries to try to challenge them in certain ways. I mean, that that that repeat play, I think, has been a huge part of building that human interoperability and frankly that sort of interpersonal trust. And it's not just exercise. I mean, the other part that we should mention is that India is now part of a standing operational plan in the Indo-Pacific in, actually out of Fifth Fleet, but it's the combined maritime force. And once India joined that as a full member of the commitment combined maritime force, they could not only just participate in taskforces that are dedicated to maritime security, counter piracy, counter narcotics, but then lead them too. And I believe I think India's been the deputy lead of one of the taskforces this year. So, standing operations build that kind of repetitive, you know, iterative play and trust building.
Milan Vaishnav: So this October, not too long ago, the US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh, they signed what's called the 2025 framework for the US-India major defense partnership, which got a grandiose sort of title. Now, you know, for people who don't follow this stuff as closely as you, it seems like almost every year, the US and India kind of are touting some elevation of their defense ties. What makes this particular announcement, this framework significant in your view?
Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, I mean I think we have been renaming the relationship over and over again, as India does with other its other partners as well. But I think the specifics in this are also noteworthy. You know, to be honest, as far as I can tell, the full eight-page agreement is not out in the public yet. I've seen a link to it online, but I haven't been able to access it. But the fact sheet that they put out is also pretty substantial. And there's some really specific details that I thought were noteworthy and give this more, put more meat on the bone in this partnership. So, one of them is that we talk about deterrence explicitly. This is something that was not there in the 2015 agreement, certainly not in prior agreements. And deterrence requires frankly an adversary, or a target at the very least, to shape one's to shape that target's behavior. And so that means that we are getting pretty specific about how we shape that behavior, like what type of behavior we want to extract out of that target. And I think you know, as an Indian colleague would say, the headline doesn't say China, but the body copy is all China. And that's pretty clearly what we're talking about when we're talking about shaping, you know, deterrence environments in the Indo-Pacific. So, I think that specificity is a core part of that. The advanced domains that we're engaging on are another new element, new dimension to it. We would talk about, sort of, the three services because that's, you know, when you have two militaries working together, you just have to have like something for the army, something for the navy, something or air force, just for them to do something, right? Now we're talking about domains where we're still building out those forces, but we've decided that it's a necessity for our for mutual security and for individual security to have more training and thinking and capability development in space, in the cyber domain, and frankly in the maritime domain, but not just sort of like our conventional navies, but like thinking about specifically the underwater domain. And there I think you're again, without being explicit, you're getting more and more specific about what that adversary is. If we're worried about the underwater domain, there are not a whole lot of major adversaries traversing the underwater domain, but one of them is certainly China, and it's one that we're both concerned about. And the more you look at the public statements about joint exercises that we're doing, the US and India, sometimes with the Quad, sometimes just bilaterally, we're talking a lot about anti-submarine warfare, ASW, anti-submarine warfare. And that means we're trying to track Chinese submarines or preparing for the prospect of tracking and holding, you know, targeting solutions for Chinese submarines, to hold them at risk, to deter them from action that would, they would take against our ships, but also other equities of ours in in the region. So I think that level of specificity, the domains that we're sort of getting into, that to me is all new and it's really encouraging that we're saying this publicly because I think, you know, after 2015, we were certainly doing a lot of these things, but there is something you useful about the public statement. You know, deterrence works most effectively when it's not private and covert, but when it's when there's publicity to it.
Milan Vaishnav: So we I want to pick up on something I think it just kind of emphasize an important point you made, which is that for the first time in three decades, we have a US-India defense framework that uses explicitly the word deterrence as a kind of primary goal of this relationship. And I think, you know, all of us, kind of, understand that, you know, China to be the target of this deterrence objective, even if it's unsaid. But I guess what I want to ask you is we've seen in recent months the thaw in China-India relations. We've seen what I would describe as a bit of a kind of strategic muddle in Washington over what our China policy actually is. Is that shared convergence on the, kind of, need to deter China truly shared, or you think there's some cracks may be appearing?
Sameer Lalwani: Well, you're right, to point out the, you know, before our own strategic muddle, which I think has a lot more to do with trade and export controls and, you know, H-20 chips. The United States instituted some guardrails with the Chinese in, you know, fall of 2023, I believe, where we basically wanted to make sure that we were, you know, even if we were competing intensely and furiously, we were not going to fall into the trap of accidental war and escalation. And I think the Indians tried to do some—followed suit in 2024, even before the change in administration where they wanted to have some degree of stability on their border with China and found it useful to have a thaw and a slight pullback of troops from, sort of, the just like, almost near direct face off of those troops. And there was, it was self-interest again at play there. It was about reducing the stress on the Indian armed forces that were forward deployed in elevations of 17,000 feet or higher. It was burning a lot of fuel and logistics and, you know, frankly, sort of, manpower material. So, there were reasons for that pullback that were not about capitulation to the Chinese in any way. And I do think you're right to point out that there was a little bit of, there some consternation in Delhi about sort of what US policy is towards China right now. And I'd say frankly, sitting in Washington, sometimes I'm a little confused by the different signals that we issue from different agencies. But I think for the most part, my sense is that the Pentagon is still pretty consistent about what its pacing threat is. We don't have the national defense strategy out yet. When we do, I imagine we will see a lot more clarity that still kind of elevates the challenge that China poses to the Indo-Pacific and to the U.S. homeland. And we'll talk about that U.S. homeland, I'm sure, in the in the National Defense Strategy. But you know, when we're talking about Golden Dome, which is the sort of penultimate defense of the U.S. homeland, what are we defending against? We're talking about you know, hypersonic missiles and fobs, bombardments and ballistic capabilities that only a few adversaries on the other side of the Indo-Pacific have. So, I think we're still talking about China; there's some clarity there. On the Indian side, you know, there have, even while they fought this war with Pakistan in May, and we can debate whether it's a war or a battle or whatever it is, but it was very clear to the Indians, and I was there a few months after, that China was a very active combatant in this conflict. And I don't choose; I don't say that word accidentally. I think it was an over-the-horizon combatant in working with Pakistan for inter intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, for targeting, for repositioning radars, and certainly you know, the Pakistani munitions that relied on GPS guidance and, you know, satellite updates in their trajectories relying on sort of a steady stream of Chinese electrons enabling them to reach their targets or attempt to reach their targets. So, I think that was eye opening for India. It's kind of, like, really shocking. You see like right in June a whole lot of discussion in the Indian intelligentsia strategic community debating whether they're now dealing with like a really robust two front or a single front between China and Pakistan. So that alone to me sort of speaks that like I think India will see clearly Pak-…China's an adversary just through its relationship with Pakistan. But then that's not to, you know, forget that for the last five years they've been imposing significant costs on India on the border and have not really relented in that position. I mean the subsequent stages of de-escalation and de-induction of forces still haven't happened on that border even though they were speculated to take place a few weeks after the first the first drawdown. So, I think they're facing that threat on their border. They're seeing it more and more in the Indian Ocean. I mean while even during this war with Pakistan in May, the story that really grabbed everyone's attention a few days after that the ceasefire went into effect was that there were Chinese surveillance vessels operating on both sides of Indian coasts. Some that had entered into the Indian Ocean, some that were already lingering there. And so, I think the pressure that China brings onto India's maritime approaches is another stress point. And this is not to say anything of just like competing for influence in South Asia and the Global South as a whole, whether it's economic or technology stacks, things like that. So, for all those reasons, I certainly think we are locked into competitive relationships, both India and United States with China. And I think more and more, it's clear that we're in adversarial relationships.
Milan Vaishnav: So maybe I could just pick up on this point for a second, the kind of broader point about kind of Operation Sindhoor. One of the things that you noted during your most recent visit to Delhi is that India's brief, very hot war with Pakistan in May of this year produced a lot of kind of introspection about both Indian and Pakistani capabilities. And you mentioned one of one of the pieces of the introspection/reflection, which is you know the idea that India was actually fighting two adversaries simultaneously, both Pakistan as well as China. What are the two or three other major findings or takeaways you think this introspection has produced on the Indian side in terms of changes that they need to contemplate moving forward in terms of their approach, their strategies, their hardware, and so on?
Sameer Lalwani: Okay. So, I mean, my colleagues and I have a poll piece coming on this soon, and maybe it'll make it out there in time for the show notes; we'll see. But I think there's a lot that's going on just in the area of advanced technologies that India is trying to develop or integrate or, you know, make greater use of in their warfighting capabilities. So I think number one is still space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, the ability to see your adversary and see deep into their territory, their movements, and not just space-based ISR for tracking things on the ground, but also tracking other things in the air to track you know, Chinese or Pakistani fighter jets, missiles. This is the same kind of architecture that the United States is trying to build with Golden Dome. And so, I think India is more and more convinced that they need this. They also have the—let’s say—the raw materials to do it. They have a burgeoning space industry with capabilities for launch, for satellite, you know, advanced communications and then all kinds of advanced sensors for sensing and detecting, you know, the adversarial behavior or threats. The other one I think that was clear to India is air defense, in a wide range of types of air defense. I mean, certainly there was a lot of chest beating, I think, after the war, about how effective India was with its S-400, long-range interceptors, and sort of long-range radar detection, it's Barak-8 missiles that co-developed with Israelis, its Akash missiles, which are domestic indigenous. But I heard a conversation also happening about the problems of unmanned UAVs and the insufficient counter-UAV, counter-UAS capabilities that India would need against a really challenging threat. So, I mean, maybe Pakistan was launching salvos of hundreds of drones at India. A lot of them might have been cheap dummy you know, sort of missile sinks to, like, absorb or detect or probe Indian air defenses or just suck up their interceptors. And not a lot of them were actually going to deal a lot of damage to India. But nevertheless, if that confuses your air defense system and you start expending really exquisite and expensive interceptors on a $2,000 drone, you're on the wrong side of the cost curve. And I think that's kind of where I heard the conversation that India really needs to get on the right side of the cost curve when it comes to the sort of the air defense, you know, missile and drone warfare that's now a central part of not just India-Pakistan competition, but of any war. We're seeing it a lot in obviously in in Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran, and now this is going to be a sort of central part of Indian strategy. So, getting their air defense and their counter UAS systems right and cost efficient, that is sort of going to be another major challenge. The third, I think was electronic warfare. I mean, the amount of jamming and spoofing that they encountered again with a with an adversary that's supposed to be like one tenth of India's capability, I think was a surprise and a challenge. [It] certainly disrupts your ability to conduct strikes, to detect things. That was another area where I think India's going to start to invest more in both its own electronic warfare capabilities, but also the countermeasures to it. And then the last that came out, I think very early and is still something that is sitting within the Indian system is systems integration and sort of like fully integrated architectures of whether it's air defense or sensors to shooters, and basically what we're talking about is like rapid data fusion, dissemination, and decision making. A lot of that can be enabled by more induction of artificial intelligence into all these nodes from, like, edge computing to data fusion to sort of decision support for commanders. And a lot of it can be automated or automatic target recognition, things like that. But I think one of the challenges that still it's not clear to me exactly precisely what this is, but there were there were deficiencies in systems integration, and that could be different sourcing, different systems from different countries. It could be that the architecture of integrating your air force and your army who own different assets, air defense versus air prosecution assets, were not fully integrated. And so there was at least a degree of latency that was noticeable that they that, I think, Indian policymakers and strategists and military officers noticed that Pakistan was not facing that problem. They had a much more integrated system. Their decision… their reaction times, decision speed was faster. And it's speculated that's because they're operating all Chinese equipment from satellites to AWACS to, you know, fighter jets to ground air defense systems, they were all on a single network backed by Chinese electrons that made them a lot more seamless. And I think that's something where I think India's going to work a lot harder on correcting.
Milan Vaishnav: I mean, it it it's kind of like one of the downsides of multi-alignment, right? Which is that like you're also multi-aligned in how you source your defense material and that creates problems with systems integration when you're actually, you know, trying to prosecute a war. This is, I think, a nice segue to something I wanted to ask you, also a subject of your recent trip to Delhi. You attended this workshop, helped put together this workshop on Indus X, which is this facilitator of private sector partnerships among US and Indian companies, investors, researchers, and so on and so forth in the defense base. This was seen as a, kind of, Biden administration initiative as launched in 2023, but it's kind of, you know, it's lasted or survived the presidential transition. What do you see or what did you learn about the progress this kind of new platform has made, right? I mean, or maybe even starting before that, what do you think the core objective of IndusX is and how do you evaluate the progress towards that objective?
Sameer Lalwani: So I think the thirty-thousand-foot objective of Indus X is co-producing capabilities to co-produce deterrence. I mean, it's very integrated between a capability development process that has a specific outcome of shaping your, you know, shaping Chinese behavior in the Indo Pacific. We'll be specific about that. And so now we can sort of work down from that the way to sort of get to co-production of capabilities and co-development is some of that is networking different industries together. I'm kind of astonished that like it's some really basic things, like lowering the sale of asymmetric information; so if we want to if we the United States want to procure things and India wants to sell or Indian industry wants to sort of get into our, you know, our acquisition process or you know, we want to source some subsystems from them, like there's just procedures and regulations and pathways that need to be illuminated. And sometimes and that's a difficult thing, it requires special expertise. And so, the function of Indus X, I think was to lower that information barrier by just talking to each other more regularly, having export controllers in engagements and discussions with Indian industry to explain this is how you actually apply for a license. This is the timeline you can expect. These are the challenges that will be posed depending on whether you have an exposure in your cap table by you know Chinese investors, but this is a way that things couldn't possibly move faster, here’s your templates for it. So it's, I think it's sort of breaking down the information process. It's actively fostering networks. And again, networks not meaning like passing business cards, but getting startups and established industry and, you know, large sort of OEMs, into a room and talking about what their capabilities are and maybe there's opportunities for them to partner with each other. A startup builds an optic sensor that might be really useful on a large platform that this OEM is building and selling to the Indian government or selling to the US government. And so, it's sort of that natural process of business development that takes place when you're exposed to other companies that make things that you want, or you want to sell them sort of components that you think would be useful to them. So, that's the horizontal or—that’s the that's sort of the vertical network building, but then the horizontal one was like while we do this in our US ecosystem and India does it in its own ecosystem, we were never really cross-pollinating these two streams. There was an occasionally when, you know, a US company was going to sell a large platform to India, they'd have some offset requirements that'd have to go find some sort of producers of things in India and and set up some work share there. But as we try to move up the value chain, now we have companies like General Atomics selling an MQ9 to India, but then sourcing targeting chips and AI algorithms from Indian startups that will go into those MQ9s that will then be employed by the Indian Navy to prosecute targets that we both, you know, believe are sort of in our security interests. So it's that tying all those things together and building kind of like a, I don't want to sort of make this like leap here, but like I think the ideal state would be a more integrated defense industrial base over time, certainly an innovation basis that we can all, that both countries can draw from and source from to build capabilities for their militaries. So, then the third part of this, I mean so I would say information networks and the third part that we talk about a lot is reducing some of the regulatory friction. And some of that is just about sort of like making illuminating like processes and nothing actually needs to be changed. It's just about sort of clarifying how things work. But sometimes there are things that need to be changed. Maybe decisions need to be sped up so that we have shorter timelines for licensing decisions or technology assistance agreements. Maybe there are some things that can be re-categor[ized], tech capabilities that can move from the ICAR list to the EAR list so they can just sort of be applied for with a license that takes a shorter review time or maybe is actually there's a presumption of sale as opposed to a presumption of denial. So, there are some regulatory pieces that can also be shifted around, but I frankly think there's already a lot of opportunity for business to be had or business exchanges and transactions we have between our US and Indian defense ecosystems. It's just a matter of building those networks and those information nodes.
Milan Vaishnav: So I feel like, Sameer, in this conversation, we’ve been, kind of, inching towards this idea which we haven't yet spoken about, but maybe we should speak about now, which is this idea of coalition warfare. And it reminds me of a piece that you wrote with Vikram Singh a while back at the start of the year, which we'll link to, and I just want to quote something you guys wrote in that piece. You said that, “the array of strategic bilateral engagements between the US and India, which have also grown very candid about the threat from China, have yet to lead to plans to fight together should the need ever arise.” The question I want to put to you now is: do you see coalition warfare, the US and India actually jointly fighting some kind of battle or mission somewhere, as completely off the table in light of the recent turmoil? Or do you think this is something that is in the realm of the possible?
Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, so I look, I guess basically I would say I think it is in the realm of the possible. And I'll make the case for it. There's obviously a political decision that is made by any government whether to enter a conflict or take certain actions that would make them exposed to conflict or retribution or something like that. And that I can't really—I don't think anyone can forecast that sort of political decision making in the moment of conflict or crisis. But what I can say is that I think the things that we are doing with India and India is doing with the United States are building the latent capacity to fight wars together or fight, you know, conduct operations together.
Milan Vaishnav: Maybe conduct operations is a better way of putting it. Not necessarily fighting wars, right?
Sameer Lalwani: We don't have to call what happened in May between India and Pakistan a war, but I mean there were military operations being conducted. So, I think basically yes, I think that we are building that latent capacity to conduct operations together where we identify targets together with distinct assets maybe based in space, communicate those targeting points together, and one side might choose to, you know, attack it. Like we're talking about like again, go back to the submarine analogy, tracking a submarine and following it and then if in the event that it was trying to, you know, take some action against your territory or your own asset, being able to target it and attack it in some way. So, I think that like we're getting to the point of building that capacity for joint operations. I also think I mean this we're talking sort of very kinetic ways, but like just the ability to track space objects and share information on that and then you know, take evasive action should need be or call it out in order to deter. I mean, sometimes again publicity can be a form of deterrence to deter adversaries from taking hostile actions. I think those are also ways in which we're doing joint operations that are less visible and less maybe kinetic or in the yeah terrestrial world, but are still going to have meaningful effects. I mean, certainly I can imagine this happening in the cyber domain as well. It's also cyber is a as a domain that's referenced in the 10-year framework. So yeah, I think everything that we've been doing in joint exercises, planning, tabletop exercises is preparing for those possible scenarios that might arise and getting us through sort of the decision processes that would be required to should we want to actually do that. And then at the end of the day, that is a political decision that's made by the apex leadership of both countries. But I think there's a lot of utility to building that capacity up because it signals to your adversary that you could do it. And even that should give them pause, right? I think it … I think I've talked about this in plenty of like spaces and written, you know, alluded to this with other colleagues as well. But like, you know, India could play a meaningful role in a war, in cross-strait conflicts. And it doesn't have to ever cross the Malacca Strait or deploy troops anywhere. It could simply sort of stay in its own territory, protecting US assets that operate in the Indian Ocean, protecting our flank, again, tracking Chinese submarines, allowing for overflight. And as wars progress longer, I mean, like we tend to think about a Taiwan conflict as like a 30-to-90-day episode because so much, you know, firepower and attention is sort of concentrated on that sort of first amphibious landing operation and counter amphibious effort. But if a war drags out and becomes sort of this long-term protracted conflict as we're seeing with Russia and Ukraine, then industrial bases are essential. And India, I would say, it becomes even more essential to any major power competition in the Indo-Pacific or major power conflict in the Indo-Pacific because India has that swing industrial capacity to scale up and tip one side or the other. And I think that is also why I think you see efforts like Indus X, which is not just about startups, it's about broad scale industrial collaboration. I mean, again, the 10 year agreement talks about defense like, it's the replacement to the defense industrial roadmap. So, merging our defense industrial capabilities will be an essential part of demonstrating our ability to compete and fight in a protracted conflict.
Milan Vaishnav: So I think, you know, one of the things we talked about actually last time you're on the pod, Sameer, is this difficulty that Washington has with India's Russia relationship. Obviously, there are still concerns about India's ongoing defense, military energy relationship as well with Russia. One of the things that you rewrote in this new piece, which I thought was interesting, which is that, you know, Russia still remains a legacy partner for India, but India is looking to the United States to be its preferred partner. And I guess the question I wanted to ask you is, you know, what gives you that confidence in this assessment that India is indeed viewing the US as a quote unquote preferred partner, you know, in the years to come?
Sameer Lalwani: So I'll say two specific reasons. One is the problems of, the challenges, let's say, the challenges and potential solutions that India has diagnosed from its recent conflict episodes. Going back to 2017 to 2020 with China, but then also the recent conflict with Pakistan, 2019 and 2025, right? When we're talking about these deficiencies that they want to solve in terms of space-based, ISR, air defense, and particularly sort of counter UAS, electronic warfare, systems integration, and you know, data fusion, these are all areas that I think the US is not only expertise, but like is excelling in and the Russians are fairly deficient on. And I think that's a reason why if you want to sort of have solutions to those problem sets, you have no choice but to turn to the West. And I believe I don't want to—I’m sure I'm going to mangle the quote, but I believe that there's a statement that the External Affairs Minister Jaishankar made in I want to say fall of 2023, where he talked about India's sort of technical technological orientation is westward. And even in private, you hear this from a lot of former Indian government officials who are sort of still close in the system are will say, like, there are certain capabilities that we'll focus on with the Russians that are again our legacy, like, you know, some fighter jets, I think really missiles and nuclear energy are really sort of oriented towards Russia still for legacy reasons. But the future of data and AI and algorithms and compute are all Western oriented, and really the leader of that is the United States. I mean, India can get some of this from partners like France and Israel, but it's really, we're looking to the United States. So it's like the diagnosis of the problem and the solution sets sort of are West and the United States. But then if you look at the people who are most oriented towards this direction, it's Indian private sector industry. And I'm talking about sort of the deep tech industry, defense startups, but not just defense startups, AI you know, companies that are sort of developing applications for AI and for deployments in the economy, in society, and certainly in the military as well. And they're all looking westward, I believe. And so that to me is an indication of why the future is still much more oriented towards the United States. Yeah, and the past, while it's a substantial past that it will have sort of a long tail, but it is the past, is Russia. And like, you know, you look at defense procurements, you'll see these numbers, I which I find frustrating because the number is just it doesn't really tell you reveal what it is, but you know, expenditures of defense equipment from Russia are continuing on. But if you look at what they're actually buying year on year, it's they're actually or what the what the money is for. They're paying for things that they purchased or signed agreements for ten, fifteen, twenty, sometimes thirty years ago. And so that to me is an indication that it's or sort of we're on the downward slope of that of that expenditure and the new the new procurements and capabilities are coming from India's Western partners.
Milan Vaishnav: So could I just kind of ask you to elaborate on this in a specific area which is space? You know, one of the things that you said in this piece is that, you know, when you talk to Indian strategists, right, they recognize that space has emerged as this kind of domain that shapes all of the other domains, whether it's air, land, sea, cyber, right? And that's just kind of the reality of modern warfare. We hear a lot about the very exciting kind of space starter community, the amazing leaps that India has made in its space program. Tell me a little bit about what you see as the kind of you know, space for expanded collaboration between the India and the US when it comes to space… I tried to make that as complicated as possible. In other words, what can the two do together in outer space?
Sameer Lalwani: So we're going to stretch my knowledge space, but I'll do my best just to repeat that word. I certainly think when it comes to space-based sensing, there's a lot that's happening in India. There are a lot of Indian companies that are developing novel techniques for Earth observation, synthetic aperture radars, hyperspectral detection of infrared and sort of, you know, other parts of the spectrum for consistent identification of what's happening on Earth. So that sort of whole Earth observation component of sensing is something that the United States will want more of and want from multiple sources. I think it it's already the United States is leaning very heavily on commercial sources of space technology. And you also see the United States putting out strategy documents talking about how it wants sort of a global strategy, a global architecture for this. So, I think that's sort of that maybe that's like the first part of it. There's a certain amount of redundancy that's useful as well. I think there's launch is a contest is a, it's a very national source of pride. Like every country wants to have their own launch capability, because like the risk that you lose that and then you sort of are reliant on, you know, the Chinese for launch capabilities, which is a period of time in the United States was facing that in the in the nineties or the Russians. That’s a problem. So, I think the United States will always sort of want to have its own launch capabilities, but having additional sources of it and redundancy is really helpful. And that's where a lot of Indian launch companies are coming up. Some of them are developing their own reusable rockets or you know fully reusable rockets. Some are developing 3D printing capabilities for components of launch and I think that'll be another area where you can expect a lot more collaboration with the United States. Communications is another one. I mean I think there's an element of, you know, our military communications are all very sensitive but developing—and this is sort of where I'm sort of out on a ledge here in terms of my knowledge—but more secure forms of communication techniques for that as well as technologies for that is something that I see some Indian companies starting to develop maybe initially for terrestrial communications but they have space applications and so I think all these are areas where the United States seems to have a voracious appetite for space right now. I think they just announced about over a thousand companies are going to be part of the Golden Dome process and procurement process which is like pretty open ended. I know of at least one Indian company that's going to be a part of that as well through its US subsidiary. And I think I expect to see more of that. So, the field is growing. The last part I should say is that the reason I think there's a lot of opportunity in space because India is exceptionally talented in space, right? I mean it going back to the breakthroughs that ISRO has made, one of the only four countries to land a module on the moon, it's and it's done so at a fraction of the cost of like a lot of Western countries, including the United States. And so that frugal engineering and innovation is at a premium. And I think the not just the United States, I'm sure I think Europe and Japan will equally be interested in drawing not just that talent, but that technology stack from India and sourcing it from India because it's also trustworthy as a partner to all these countries.
Milan Vaishnav: So Samir, you alluded earlier to various kinds of defense reforms. And I want to ask you about one specific reform that's more kind of about architecture. Several years ago, with a lot of fanfare, India created this new position known as the chief of defense staff, which kind of put one individual in charge of you know, all the armed forces across services. You know, this person is supposed to be the kind of principal military authority, senior most officer. This was sold at the time, and I think, still gets referenced as, you know, a significant defense reform. I want to ask you, you know, based on your recent conversations, how well do you think this chief of defense staff design has worked? And what more needs to be done to kind of, you know, fulfill its maximum potential?
Sameer Lalwani: So I think there's been a lot of progress in India for the last eight years in building out this this leadership role of the chief of defense staff, investing in him certain authorities for not only advising the prime minister and sort of being the principal military advisor, but also being the top authority over other commanders as well as in the military acquisition process. And I think you're seeing that play out. So for example, in the aftermath of the war with Pakistan in May of this year, you saw the chief of defense staff talking a lot more about the need for integrated air defense and a much more sophisticated integrated air defense that requires all the services to be working together, to be procuring things together, to be integrating artificial intelligence into all levels of target identification, interception decisions. And so, I think they can set the agenda. The part where I think we are waiting to sort of see more progress is in the establishment of combatant commands. Because as India realized in this war, you need the fusion of all these different capabilities—air, land, sea, space, and cyber—all under a single person's control in a particular theater in order to prosecute a war or a fight effectively. And right now India still has a very federated process of different services owning different components of a fight even when they're all supposed to be fighting together and they might be able to synchronize there's still a latency in sort of passing off the targeting of an asset or of integrating different data streams that are coming from different sources. That that is, I think, the challenge that India faces that it needs to finally implement the combatant command process. The problem that comes with that is it forces all the services to give up sort of these prestige positions, right? These commander positions, these four-star roles and consolidate them down to like maybe four for all three services. And that means you know the most senior members of the military are foreclosing on their opportunity for that next promotion and that service is foreclosing on the ability to sort of have like unfettered control over a number of bases and assets and resources and manpower. So there's a lot that has to be given up in order to fuse these into more functional combatant command systems and it's not like India; I mean India is not a dictatorship where it can just sort of be like forced upon the entire system by like Xi Jinping when they when China changed its theater command structures back in 2016. So it's a process of persuasion and negotiation and debate. That's going to continue. But I think over time India is sort of making its way there and crises like the one we just saw in May, at times, you'll see really lumpy movements forward or lurches forward out of necessity. And I expect that we'll sort of see some processes that will come out of the May conflict that will sort of stick and now become permanent, probably I can imagine in terms of much more integrated air defense that will just have to be owned by a single commander in order for it to be most effective.
Milan Vaishnav: So Sameer, let me ask you one final thing, if we could kind of zoom out again back to the 30,000-foot level. Throughout this trip that you just had, a lot of the Indians that you met with reiterated this point that look, there is some degree of trust which has been lost in this relationship on account of the actions of this administration. And I've definitely heard some Indians say that whatever trust had been that has been built up over the last quarter century, right, since 2000, will never be recovered. You know, if we just think about the defense domain for a second, since that's the subject of our conversation, do you sense signs of that friction and if so, you know, are there steps being taken to help mend those frayed nerves? Or do you think that despite everything that's going on, at least when it comes to the military/defense/strategic side, that that trust is very much embedded and shared?
Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, so I think the first obvious sign of this, there's a you could they say like, an uncertainty premium will that that will now be built into the relationship and that might be faced in terms of time or of cost, right? So, time being like India might sit on and delay decisions that otherwise would have accelerated. I think in February of 2025, when Prime Minister Modi came to meet President Trump in the White House, I think India was ready to you know move rapidly on a number of acquisitions, whether they were P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, or you know, new acquisitions of MH-60 helicopters, you know, so different defense capabilities. I think there was a there was a speed and alacrity to it that may have slowed down because again, there's an uncertainty about what will actually be approved, what will sort of be the trade terms of this. So I think there's a slowdown in a lot of the decision processes and not just acquisitions, but also you know, like doing a tabletop exercise that sort of evaluates how we would manage a contingency together. I think last fall there was an Indian Ocean dialogue that involved effectively a tabletop exercise that couldn't happen for sort of unexpected reasons, but it could have taken place this year, except that now there's you know a trust gap that I think has emerged. So, it sort of sets us back in terms of being able to think through and talk about and plan for the scenarios that we're most worried about. But I also think that this is something that can be rebuilt. Sometimes so for some periods going to be slow and it's going to require like you know some steady outreach by US government officials. I think where we've seen it most effective and what I've made my case in the article we wrote talked about earlier is that in the defense space a lot of these areas of cooperation have been protected and have continued on maybe because they are sort of shielded from some of the political choices, maybe because you know defense exercise planning takes out take takes place a year in advance and so a lot of this stuff was like already locked and loaded and ready to go and it was like allowed to proceed apace. But it will require more active support from the policy and political leadership if we want to continue this pace or expand it. And I think the last thing is really we saw the acceleration of the US-India relationship in crises, right? Like trust is forged in crisis. It's a form of costly signaling where you know when you're faced sort of in a dire challenge, you're someone comes through for you that sort of demonstrates that they were not willing to just do that in when it was easy but when it was hard. And so, I think the US probably has to be attentive to those opportunities when they arise because they certainly will and be prepared to seize on them. And I think they can, maybe you could say like rapidly rebuild some trust in those moments, even if it's not sort of fully at what it was you know, just a short time ago. And then, I maybe I'll just sort of throw one last thought in there, which is that trust is important, but self-interest is also really important. And that, you know, that was the point I made earlier, which is even if you don't fully trust your partner in every capacity that they have your best interest in mind, if you trust that they will have—that their own self-interest is linked up with your self-interest, […] or you have confidence that in sort of that mutual self-interest, then I think there's still a lot of opportunity to move forward, even if it's not, let's say, strategic altruism.
Milan Vaishnav: My guest on the show this week is a scholar, Sameer Lalwani. He's a senior advisor with the Special Competitive Studies Project and a nonresident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He's also the author of a new piece called “Don't Call It a Comeback, Why US India Relations Are Due for a Rebound.” People of a certain vintage like you and I, middle-aged men, will get the reference to an early nineties hip hop song in the title. And I wonder
Sameer Lalwani: My kids get it too. They, they're into it.
Milan Vaishnav: There you go. I wonder how many of our listeners will get it. But Sameer, congrats on a on a thought-provoking piece. And you know, I think one also that's kind of swimming a little bit against the tide, right? Which has been, I think, rather pessimistic, shall we say, about the state of US-India. And I appreciate you trying to get us to think about this very differently. Great to talk to you.
Sameer Lalwani: Thanks for having me on.
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