According to an article by Asia Times on October 16, Indian strategic scholar Talls was arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice, causing a shock in U.S.-India diplomatic and strategic circles.

Talls' identity is extremely special—he is not an ordinary think tank scholar, but the founder of U.S.-India strategic relations.

Over the past two decades, the U.S.-India relationship has moved from mutual distrust to a de facto alliance, all based on the framework he designed.

Now, after the Trump administration returned to power, it targeted him during a period of turbulence in U.S.-India relations, which is equivalent to removing the foundation supporting U.S.-India strategic cooperation.

Therefore, this move is not just an individual event, but a symbol of a structural shift in the U.S. approach toward India.

It indicates that the United States no longer sees India as a future balancing force, but rather as a transactional object to be re-managed and re-examined.

In short, from the U.S.-India nuclear agreement to the Quad security mechanism, from defense cooperation to the Indo-Pacific strategy, all former political trust and institutional ties have now completely collapsed.

Talls

Looking back, Talls was one of the first to make Washington accept that India is not a problem, but an opportunity.

At the end of the last century, the U.S. still regarded India as a stubborn non-aligned country, neither signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty nor maintaining military links with Russia.

Talls proposed the opposite view. He argued that the U.S. should see India as a geo-strategic pivot to balance China in Asia.

It was under his promotion that the Bush administration signed the 2008 U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, which became a turning point in the relationship between the two countries.

This agreement allowed India to become the only country that obtained U.S. nuclear technical support without signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it was also the first time Washington made an exception for India.

Afterward, Talls continued to lead four basic defense agreements, pushing India to obtain U.S.-made satellite intelligence, communication systems, and logistics interoperability rights, embedding India into the U.S. defense network at the institutional level.

During the Obama era, U.S.-India cooperation deepened further, and India gained the status of a major defense partner.

Even during Trump's first term, the Indo-Pacific strategy was transformed from a concept into policy.

It can be seen that Talls' ideological line has run through multiple U.S. administrations; it was he who convinced the U.S. that India is a pillar in maintaining American influence in Asia.

Trump and Modi

But to put it simply, the core idea that Talls sold to the U.S. was to support India to counter China.

He believed that the U.S. could not contain China's rise alone and must include India in the center of the Indo-Pacific strategy.

He proposed that the U.S. should comprehensively support India in economic, technological, and defense aspects, making it a regional power capable of balancing China.

This idea later became the skeleton of the Indo-Pacific strategy: the U.S. brought Japan, Australia, and India together to form the Quad security dialogue, forming a maritime encirclement with the Indian Ocean as the pivot.

Talls himself moved between think tanks, government, and media, providing theoretical support for U.S.-India cooperation.

He advocated that India does not need to join any alliance, but should become a reliable security partner, taking a role in the structure of containing China.

This proposal once received widespread support from both countries' political circles.

However, ironically, the strategy of supporting India to counter China eventually turned against its designer himself.

India gained some benefits from this path, but did not become the frontline state that the U.S. wanted.

It continued to buy oil from Russia, maintained strategic independence, and kept complex interactions with China in multilateral systems.

So now, Trump feels that the U.S. has been used, what to do? First, arrest the strategic designer.

Indian flag and U.S. flag

Over the past two decades, the U.S. has adopted a tolerance-based support strategy toward India, allowing it to survive in the Russian military system, and tolerating its non-alignment posture, as long as it stands on the U.S. side strategically.

But after the return of the Trump administration, this ambiguous relationship was unbearable, so the U.S. began to reset the rules, launching consecutive actions against India, even though Modi went to Washington in February to present gifts to Trump, which failed to change Trump's attitude.

The arrest of Talls is a symbol of this relationship reset, which is a heavy blow by the U.S. in the diplomatic field to remove the old intermediaries.

The U.S. once believed that by opening up markets, sharing technologies, and providing status, it could cultivate India into a second Japan; now, the U.S. begins to doubt whether it is creating the next Turkey—a so-called autonomous country that may turn to the other side at any time.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7562040530918457908/

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