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TOKYO -- India will be a crucial partner for the U.S. in the future, playing a key role in countering China, America's highest-ranking Navy officer has said.
"I've spent more time on a trip to India than I have with any other country, because I consider them to be a strategic partner for us in the future," Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, told an in-person seminar hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Thursday. He was referring to a five-day visit to India last October.
"The Indian Ocean battlespace is becoming increasingly more important for us," Gilday said. "The fact that India and China currently have a bit of a skirmish along their border ... it's strategically important."
"They now force China to not only look east, toward the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, but they now have to be looking over their shoulder at India," he said.
The idea that the border clashes between India and China in the Himalayas pose a two-front problem for Beijing has been gaining traction among U.S. strategists.
U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, left, speaks with his Indian counterpart Adm. Karambir Singh after inspecting the guard of honor in New Delhi on Oct. 12, 2021. © Reuters
In June, as the leaders of the Quad -- the U.S., Japan, India and Australia -- were meeting in Japan, former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby told Nikkei Asia that while India would not directly contribute in a local battle over Taiwan, it could draw China's attention to the Himalayan border.
"What the United States and Japan need India to do is to be as strong as possible in South Asia and effectively draw Chinese attention so that they have a major second-front problem," said Colby, the principal author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy under former President Donald Trump. India, in the meantime, draws the same benefit from China's difficulties in facing a strong U.S.-Japan alliance around Taiwan, he said.
A planned joint mountaintop exercise between the U.S. and India in October is seen as underscoring the potential second front for China.
The annual joint exercise Yudh Abhyas, which translates to "War Practice," will be held in the South Asian nation's Uttarakhand state from Oct. 18 to 31.
While India has hosted the Yudh Abhyas exercise in Uttarakhand before, including in 2014, 2016 and 2018, those drills were all held in the foothills, over 300 km from the China boundary.
Local Indian media reports have said that this year's drills would take place at an altitude of over 3,000 meters in Uttarakhand's Auli region, less than 100 km from the Line of Actual Control -- the de facto border between India and China.
In an opinion piece titled "India has a stake in Taiwan's defense," columnist Brahma Chellaney wrote in Nikkei Asia that Indian activities in the Himalayas could help Taiwan's defense. It would be "tying down a complete Chinese theater force, which could otherwise be employed against the island," he wrote.
But such a two-front strategy must be coordinated with the U.S., he added.
In Thursday's seminar, Gilday said that a potential fight against China will likely be trans-regional. "You just can't think of China through the lens of the Indo-Pacific. You have to look at the Indian Ocean, you have to look at their Belt and Road, their economic connective tissue, which is now global," he said. "You have to take a look at their vulnerabilities."
asia.nikkei.com
"I've spent more time on a trip to India than I have with any other country, because I consider them to be a strategic partner for us in the future," Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, told an in-person seminar hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Thursday. He was referring to a five-day visit to India last October.
"The Indian Ocean battlespace is becoming increasingly more important for us," Gilday said. "The fact that India and China currently have a bit of a skirmish along their border ... it's strategically important."
"They now force China to not only look east, toward the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, but they now have to be looking over their shoulder at India," he said.
The idea that the border clashes between India and China in the Himalayas pose a two-front problem for Beijing has been gaining traction among U.S. strategists.
In June, as the leaders of the Quad -- the U.S., Japan, India and Australia -- were meeting in Japan, former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby told Nikkei Asia that while India would not directly contribute in a local battle over Taiwan, it could draw China's attention to the Himalayan border.
"What the United States and Japan need India to do is to be as strong as possible in South Asia and effectively draw Chinese attention so that they have a major second-front problem," said Colby, the principal author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy under former President Donald Trump. India, in the meantime, draws the same benefit from China's difficulties in facing a strong U.S.-Japan alliance around Taiwan, he said.
A planned joint mountaintop exercise between the U.S. and India in October is seen as underscoring the potential second front for China.
The annual joint exercise Yudh Abhyas, which translates to "War Practice," will be held in the South Asian nation's Uttarakhand state from Oct. 18 to 31.
While India has hosted the Yudh Abhyas exercise in Uttarakhand before, including in 2014, 2016 and 2018, those drills were all held in the foothills, over 300 km from the China boundary.
Local Indian media reports have said that this year's drills would take place at an altitude of over 3,000 meters in Uttarakhand's Auli region, less than 100 km from the Line of Actual Control -- the de facto border between India and China.
In an opinion piece titled "India has a stake in Taiwan's defense," columnist Brahma Chellaney wrote in Nikkei Asia that Indian activities in the Himalayas could help Taiwan's defense. It would be "tying down a complete Chinese theater force, which could otherwise be employed against the island," he wrote.
But such a two-front strategy must be coordinated with the U.S., he added.
In Thursday's seminar, Gilday said that a potential fight against China will likely be trans-regional. "You just can't think of China through the lens of the Indo-Pacific. You have to look at the Indian Ocean, you have to look at their Belt and Road, their economic connective tissue, which is now global," he said. "You have to take a look at their vulnerabilities."
India presents China a two-front problem, U.S. Navy chief suggests
Adm. Gilday calls New Delhi an essential strategic partner of the future
asia.nikkei.com
