One word explains why Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is changing the title of the Pentagon’s U.S. Pacific Command to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
India.
Explaining the title change on Wednesday, Mattis declared that “It is our primary combatant command, it’s standing watch and intimately engaged with over half of the Earth’s surface and its diverse populations, from Hollywood, to Bollywood, from polar bears to penguins …” The secretary’s reference to Bollywood is not incidental but rather a reference to India’s cultural (free discourse and capitalist entertainment) alignment with the United States.
Mattis also evidenced why the U.S. regards India as a landmark defensive ally: “Relationships with our Pacific and Indian Ocean allies and partners have proven critical to maintaining regional stability.” The secretary continued, “We stand by our partners and support their sovereign decisions, because all nations large and small are essential to the region if we’re to sustain stability in ocean areas critical to global peace.”
The key here is Mattis’ focus on the need “to sustain stability in ocean areas critical to global peace.” Mattis knows that ongoing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and China’s development of an oceanic navy with port access in Gwadar, Pakistan, has not gone unnoticed in New Delhi. Nor has China’s territorial expansionism along India’s northern borders. That’s relevant because these concerns align with the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. That strategy seeks a regional balance of power that favors free trade, free movement and the multilateral stability of the oceanic commons. Considering that the majority of the world’s trade flows through these waters, their importance cannot be overstated.
That brings us back to India.
As the world’s most populous democracy led by an economic-reform minded leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India offers the U.S. a natural partner. Moreover, India’s military modernization is proceeding at pace. For one, a new class of Indian guided missile destroyers will soon complement its navy’s relatively robust submarine fleet. The U.S. rightly hopes that India will take its place alongside the Australian and Japanese navies as a key military partner. Japan’s navy retains highly advanced vessels and the Australians will soon deploy their new anti-air focused Hobart-class destroyers. Together with the U.S. navy, the Australians, Japanese and Indians thus offer a powerful diplomatic and military alliance with which to deter Chinese aggression.
So yes, this command name change might seem simple on paper. But it serves as an olive branch of American respect and a means of building a crucial strategic partnership.
