Biden’s Problem With India

When the Indian foreign and defense ministers went to Washington last week for the high-level 2+2 talks with the United States, they were hoping to put India’s strategic partnership with the U.S. back on track. Unfortunately, the meetings — or at least the press briefings that followed — were dominated by the fracas over Ukraine and concerns over human rights abuses in India.

All told, for President Joe Biden, India has now become the center of an unlikely dilemma. When he took office last year, Biden was expected to focus on the threat from China and build a coalition of democracies against it. Early in his term, Biden hosted a Summit of Democracy toward that end. India was invited to that summit and was also positioned as a key partner in Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Then, Russia invaded Ukraine and everything changed overnight. Last Sunday, Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan outlined America’s three key objectives in light of this new crisis: “a free and independent Ukraine, a weakened and isolated Russia and a stronger, more unified, more determined West.”

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