Indo-US Strategic Partnership and its Security Implications for Asia Pacific Region

Due to unprecedented rise of China in the economic, political and social domains world is shifting its strategic focus from the European Politics to both continental and maritime domains of Asia resulting in a challenge for the US and its allies. US, China and India are tied into strategic ingredients of cooperation, competition and containment. US intends to assign India an appropriate, competitive and probable offshore balancing role against China - that is, a strategy of balancing without containment. Engaging into an active conflict is not envisaged due to close integration of these powers in terms of economic, political, social and cultural domains. Indo US close strategic coordination is win-win situation for both the countries. India may become an offshore balancing power for US to retain its influence in Asia Pacific region against China and its allies; On the other hand it brings treasure of opportunities for India to strengthen its military arsenal with open doors of US sophisticated technology with the co-production and co-development framework. This generous access to the state of the art military hardware would enhance India's power projection capabilities to the maximum, posing security implications for neighbors' and adversaries to India. Moreover growing Indo US nexus aiming balancing and containment of China has serious regional strategic security implications.