In a move that signals a blunt recalibration of South Asian geopolitics, the United States has quietly shifted its strategic focus. It has reverted its “Indo-Pacific Command” back to its traditional designation of US Pacific Command (USPACOM). The structural reversal effectively undoes a 2018 policy that symbolically merged the maritime interests of the US across both the Pacific and Indian oceans. Under the newly restructured USPACOM, the Indian Ocean is being treated largely as a strategic back up plan.
While the policy shift sends a clear signal that Washington views its ties with New Delhi as subsidiary to its broader relationships with China and Pakistan, India remains surprisingly undeterred. Despite the apparent administrative and symbolic downgrade, New Delhi seems determined to demonstrate its strategic tilt toward the US, preparing to collaborate closely under a command structure that now positions the Indian Ocean as a secondary theater.
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US reworks Asia strategy
With a single strategic sweep, Washington has decisively reprioritized the Pacific. This is a major shift in American geopolitical strategy and not merely a semantic tweak.
The Pacific has re-emerged as the ultimate strategic theater. Its shores are lined with critical global flashpoints and major players, including China — explicitly designated as America’s only “near-peer” competitor — and Russia in the northeast, a vital gateway to the resource-rich Arctic routes of the future.
The region also anchors Washington’s most critical allies, including Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea, while containing vital maritime choke points like the Straits of Malacca and the heavily contested passages of the North and South China Seas. Ultimately, this major restructuring serves as a direct response to the rapidly evolving and increasingly tense dynamics of US-China relations.
Under the new “constructive strategic stability” put in place by the President Trump and Xi Jinping Beijing Summit in May 2026 , the two agreed to respect each other’s red lines and ‘manage’ their relationship. For now, the China threat may have receded but it remains a useful tool for the US to retain the co-dependency of their Asian allies who suffer from China phobia.
The US wants partnership with Asian allies for providing security to manage their relationship with China, Japan, South Korea and Philippines.
India has shown ambiguity but is part of the US’s co-dependency thesis.
The US expects far more service from India and has been exacting in its demands, which India has consistently met. Washington ordered India to reduce purchases of discounted Russian oil, India complied, sacrificing its own energy security.
Later, it “allowed” India to buy Russian oil again when it suited theUS interests.
The US imposed punitive tariffs of 50 percent — its highest — and floated a trade deal whose details remain undisclosed. India also pledged to invest $500 billion in the US over the next few years to support American re-industrialization, at its own cost.
India stopped buying oil from Iran in 2019 under US pressure. It then downplayed the International Strategic Economic Transport Corridor (INSTEC), where Iran’s Chabahar port was to be a key link for India’s sea-rail transport route to Russia via Central Asia. India’s multimillion dollar investments in Chabahar stagnated once the US intervened.
Meanwhile, Washington’s closest Middle East allies proposed the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), linking India to Europe through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Greece — bypassing Iran and ignoring Russia.
India nearly abandoned INSTEC, years in the making, for IMEC, which remains a paper dream. After the Iran-US/Israel war, the UAE suffered economic and logistics setbacks, while Saudi Arabia moved toward rapprochement with Iran. China, welcomed across the Middle East, especially by Iran, is poised to secure reconstruction contracts and a role in a renewed regional security architecture where both China and the US may participate.
President Trump has publicly thanked Russia, China and Pakistan for their respective constructive roles in the Middle East. India had hoped to curry favor with Washington by aligning with the Jewish lobby and becoming indispensable to Israel. It diluted its traditional support for Palestine, supplying weapons to Israel despite the latter violating humanitarian and international law through ethnic cleansing. India, once a staunch defender of international law, compromised its position by arming a state committing humanitarian crimes.
Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel was ill timed, occurring just before the US and Israel unilaterally attacked Iran, a traditional Indian ally. When the US Navy sank an Iranian vessel returning home after an India-initiated naval exercise, India was humiliated but did not condemn Washington.
Later, the US struck Indian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, killing three sailors, underscoring its disregard for India. Today, Israel is unpopular globally, forcing Washington to distance itself.
India’s misreading of these shifts, while calling Israel “Fatherland” (for the Jewish people who migrated from India), has not gone unnoticed by the Global South, Arab nations, and others whose goodwill India seeks.
India’s attempt to balance ties with the US has turned into a tilt, still deemed insufficient by Washington. The US has shifted its policy toward Pakistan. This was evident after India’s May 2025 Operation Sindoor, in which Trump claimed to have mediated peace.
Washington views Pakistan as a major ally for its Middle East and Central Asia ambitions. It endorsed the Pakistan-Saudi Defense Partnership, potentially with a nuclear component, and cultivated close ties with Pakistan’s Army and General Asim Munir. India’s long-standing effort to isolate Pakistan as a “terror supporting state” has failed.
For a decade, India’s strategic establishment has claimed four guiding principles: strategic autonomy, multi vector engagements, Global South leadership, and multipolarity. Recent Indian foreign policy misadventures have undercut each.
Anuradha Chenoy is Adjunct Professor at Jindal Global University. Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info
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