\u2018It may be dangerous to be America\u2019s enemy, but to be America\u2019s friend is fatal.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2014 Henry Kissinger, American diplomat and former Secretary of State<\/p>\n
The American foreign policy, former diplomat Rajiv Dogra writes in his book War Time: The World in Danger, \u201cis notoriously fickle in its affections\u201d. It, he says, \u201ccan swing from being indulgent to complete indifference as per its calculation of what suits its interests at a particular moment. Even otherwise, consorting with America means walking on broken glass; you never know when a carelessly placed shard will hurt. Since the US is the superpower, it means that the lesser power walking with it will bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Being a friend of the US has always been dangerous, if not outright fatal. But with Donald Trump at the helm in the White House, many believed, especially those in Bharat, that the US might finally change its disreputable trait. One also expected the Donald to acknowledge the change of pivot from Europe to Asia and accordingly seek and form newer friendships and alliances, especially in the wake of the dangerous rise of the Dragon. However, the dream of a new, reliable America could barely last 100 days of Trump\u2019s second presidency.<\/p>\n
That Trump\u2019s America is no more reliable than its predecessors is unfortunate, particularly for Bharat. That Trump\u2019s America still thinks in the old-world perspective, where China is still being indulged, though the rate of indulgence has come down with time, and Pakistan is still being seen as a geostrategic axis despite being exposed of its terror links, is tragic.<\/p>\n
Ironically, Bharat, the country that has been the victim of American doublespeak, remains one of the few countries that still look up to the US with some sort of warmth, positivity and goodwill. At a time when Trump has been abused\u00a0worldwide for being the \u201cmadman of America\u201d, he finds a strong, almost unwavering, constituency that admires him for his political forthrightness and audacity \u2014 and also as someone who would bring America closer to Bharat.<\/p>\n
However, as fate would have it, Trump has been a monumental disappointment for Bharat and all those who thought he would create a lasting alliance of democracy against forces of Left-wing authoritarianism and Islamic fundamentalism. Such was the faith in him that even when he took an uncompromising stance against Bharat on the tariff issue, people in the subcontinent were still willing to be accommodative, hoping that the President\u2019s aggressive posturing would be confined to economic issues.<\/p>\n
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But then Operation Sindoor happened, and Trump\u2019s pro-Bharat mask fell off, especially after he pompously announced that his administration had brokered the \u201chistoric ceasefire\u201d between Bharat and Pakistan, advising the leaders of the two countries to have a \u201cnice dinner together\u201d.<\/p>\n
With this, Trump crossed several redlines: The first being the misinformation about brokering a ceasefire, which contradicts the long-held Bharatiya position of its conflict with Pakistan being bilateral in nature. Two, Trump makes the mistake of equating Bharat with Pakistan. There just cannot be any equivalence between democratic Bharat and jihadi Pakistan, a self-confessed state sponsor of terrorism for decades; between the economic powerhouse that is Bharat and a pauper state called Pakistan; between a country that prides itself on its strategic\/diplomatic autonomy and a nation that has the history of being no better than a client state.<\/p>\n
It seems the successes Bharat has had with Operation Sindoor have dazzled both its friends and enemies. America is no exception. With an operation that lasted barely a few hours, across three days, Bharat has made a seamless transition from being a soft state to a great power that can talk peace and go into war with equal ease. Bharat\u2019s economic rise is now displayed with its military might. This was enough to alarm the world, the US included.<\/p>\n
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The Trumpian perfidy would deeply impact Bharat\u2019s ties with the US, making Delhi become far more cautious in trusting America. Unlike Pakistan, which found unconditional support from its allies like China and Turkey, Bharat\u2019s friends remained largely noncommittal. The US-led Quad, for instance, of which Bharat is an integral part, refused to take sides.<\/p>\n
Delhi had already suffered enough under Trump\u2019s predecessor, Joe Biden. With Trump too following the Bidenian footsteps, Bharat\u2019s appetite for American friendship seems to be ebbing. What explains the American distrust for Bharat?<\/p>\n
It has been a considered view of this author for a while now that the US and Bharat can at best be \u201cfriends with benefits\u201d. The two countries will have enough issues to keep the differences alive, though bigger geostrategic concerns would at times push them to manage these differences.<\/p>\n
Today, as Bharat has piped Britain to become the fifth largest economy in the world and is expected to jump to the third spot by the end of the decade, there\u2019s growing consensus in the US that, yes, Washington needs Delhi to contain Beijing, but sooner than later Bharat will have to be contained if America has to retain its numero uno\u00a0position. The US-led West may regard India as a democratic bulwark against hegemonistic China, but it is equally wary about Delhi growing too big, too fast.<\/p>\n
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There seems to be another reason why America thinks it can poke at Bharat despite the dragon in the room. This has something to do with the Chinese economy faltering big time in recent years. Historian Ian Morris writes in his book, War: What Is It Good For?, how it was believed \u201ctill a decade ago\u201d that \u201cChina\u2019s economy would outgrow America\u2019s sometime between 2017 and 2027\u201d, and that \u201cChina\u2019s GDP will be 50 per cent bigger than the United States\u2019 in the 2050s\u201d. But now there is a growing realisation that China may slow down immensely to never outgrow the American economy. And that Bharat may actually be the one country that the US should keep a close watch on.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also another aspect that makes the American establishment wary of the emerging \u2018Naya Bharat\u2019, which, under Prime Minister Modi, has been pushing for long-term institutional reforms. Most of these reforms, especially on the economic and policy-related fronts, might not appear to be \u201cbig bang\u201d, but they are transforming the very DNA of post-Nehruvian Bharat. This makes a dominant section of the US establishment wary of PM Narendra Modi, with the deep state under the previous American dispensation reportedly pushing for a regime change in the country.<\/p>\n
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Trump\u2019s re-entry at the White House made many believe that the US and Bharat could finally be genuine friends. The appointment of pro-India faces such as Tulsi Gabbard vindicated such sentiments. But as the post-Operation Sindoor saga suggests, Trump doesn\u2019t have the attitude and aptitude to bring the India-US ties back on track. He seems to have fallen prey to the deep state machinations. Or, maybe he was always like that\u2014someone who loved running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. What is certain, however, is that Trump has lost his face forever, and with him, the US has squandered a massive opportunity to gain a long-term friend in Asia.<\/p>\n
Operation Sindoor, no doubt, gave a massive body blow to Pakistan, especially its \u2018powerful\u2019 air force. But a closer scrutiny would suggest that it was Trump\u2019s America (along with Xi Jinping\u2019s China) that was the biggest loser in the entire episode. Pakistan, after all, was just the face of the sinister war designed by China and rationalised by America.<\/p>\n
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In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, America lets a friend down, and Trump loses his face!<\/p>\n
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost\u2019s views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018It may be dangerous to be America\u2019s enemy, but to be America\u2019s friend is fatal.\u2019 \u2014 Henry Kissinger,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[57420,57426,57438,57445,57442,57433,57455,57460,57437,57434,57465,57466,57450,57446,57423,57447,36815,57461,57463,57441,57422,57428,57449,57451,57467,57444,57416,57439,57430,57464,57417,57448,57453,57443,57452,57418,57440,57458,57427,57459,57454,57431,57456,57421,49,978,57462,57432,57435,57424,57457,57419,57429,57436,659,57425],"class_list":{"0":"post-130318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america-lets-india-down","9":"tag-america-china-pakistan-axis","10":"tag-american-deep-state-modi-distrust","11":"tag-american-foreign-policy-unpredictability","12":"tag-biden-trump-policy-similarities-india","13":"tag-deep-state-influence-us-foreign-policy","14":"tag-donald-trump-ceasefire-claim","15":"tag-donald-trump-role-operation-sindoor","16":"tag-india-china-pakistan-conflict-2025","17":"tag-india-disappointment-with-trump","18":"tag-india-exposes-pakistan-terror-links","19":"tag-india-pakistan-bilateral-conflict-policy","20":"tag-india-pakistan-border-escalation","21":"tag-india-pakistan-conflict-latest","22":"tag-india-pakistan-conflict-us-reaction","23":"tag-india-pakistan-missile-strikes","24":"tag-india-pakistan-tensions-2025","25":"tag-india-rejects-trump-mediation","26":"tag-india-us-relations-post-operation-sindoor","27":"tag-india-us-strategic-rift","28":"tag-india-us-relations-under-trump","29":"tag-indias-military-rise-operation-sindoor","30":"tag-indian-airstrikes-on-pakistan-2025","31":"tag-indian-military-dominance-pakistan","32":"tag-indian-retaliation-against-pakistan","33":"tag-naya-bharat-vs-us-global-hegemony","34":"tag-operation-sindoor-analysis","35":"tag-operation-sindoor-and-global-power-shift","36":"tag-operation-sindoor-geopolitical-consequences","37":"tag-operation-sindoor-geopolitical-impact","38":"tag-operation-sindoor-impact-on-geopolitics","39":"tag-operation-sindoor-india-pakistan-war","40":"tag-operation-sindoor-pakistan-airbase-strikes","41":"tag-operation-sindoor-winners-and-losers","42":"tag-pakistan-air-defense-failure","43":"tag-trump-america-india-betrayal","44":"tag-trump-failure-to-support-india","45":"tag-trump-false-ceasefire-announcement","46":"tag-trump-false-ceasefire-claim","47":"tag-trump-india-pakistan-equivalence-controversy","48":"tag-trump-intervention-india-pakistan-conflict","49":"tag-trump-loses-credibility-india","50":"tag-trump-mediates-india-pakistan","51":"tag-trumps-foreign-policy-failure","52":"tag-united-states","53":"tag-us","54":"tag-us-bias-towards-pakistan","55":"tag-us-distrust-of-rising-india","56":"tag-us-double-standards-india-pakistan","57":"tag-us-hypocrisy-on-pakistan-terror","58":"tag-us-interference-south-asia-conflict","59":"tag-us-response-to-operation-sindoor","60":"tag-us-silence-on-pakistan-airbase-strikes","61":"tag-us-led-quad-silence-operation-sindoor","62":"tag-usa","63":"tag-xi-jinping-china-role-operation-sindoor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}