US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has taken ownership of the India issue, driving the administration?s wider foreign policy, geo-economic approach, Indo-Pacific strategy, and India policy, paving the way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s State visit to the US on June 22. Sullivan has played a crucial role in the areas of war in Ukraine, geo-economics, national security and technology, and the Indo-Pacific, with India playing a crucial role in each domain. Sullivan has led crucial talks with key Chinese officials and has a historic opportunity to translate his message of partnership of equals to reality during Modi?s visit.

When India’s national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval met his American counterpart, the 46-year old Jake Sullivan, in Washington DC in January to launch the initiative on critical and emerging technologies (ICET), Doval, 78, told Sullivan that he didn’t have much time on his side.

“Jake, we have to deliver on this soon.”

Five months later, as Sullivan arrives in New Delhi to firm up the deliverables for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to the US on June 22, he can tell Doval that he has delivered in quick time. Sullivan has driven the administration’s wider foreign policy, geo-economic approach, Indo-Pacific strategy, and the India policy. And it is because Sullivan, under his boss President Joe Biden’s political direction, has taken ownership of the India issue that Modi’s visit promises to be among most path-breaking visit by an Indian leader to the US in decades.

Sullivan, as a close observer of the bilateral relationship recently put it, may go down in recent American history as the most consequential NSA since Henry Kissinger. But unlike Kissinger, who turned 100 in May, Sullivan’s wider strategic legacy is not tainted. And unlike Kissinger, who appeared to undermine Indian security, Sullivan’s approach is marked by a fundamental commitment to doing all that’s possible to deepen the bilateral relationship and help enhance Indian capabilities.

The Wider Approach

Sullivan’s proximity and long association with Biden (he was NSA to Biden when the latter was VP; Biden has called him a “once-in-a-generation intellect”); his status as NSA that allows him to direct America’s complex maze of government agencies to fall in line; his leadership of a highly capable and focused team at the National Security Council (NSC); his relatively cordial working relationship with other key officials — particularly Secretary of state Antony J Blinken, secretary of defence Lloyd Austin, secretary of commerce Gina Raimondo and Central Intelligence Agency chief Bill Burns — has placed him in a unique position to lead and execute policy.

This is reflected in four key domains.

The first is the war in Ukraine. Burns, an old Russia hand, and Sullivan figured towards the end of 2021 that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. And together, with the President’s sanction, they made classified information public to prepare global public opinion about Russia’s invasion and erode any moral high ground Moscow may claim. The early warning helped Kyiv. Along with Blinken and Austin, Sullivan has since played a key role in arming Ukraine, strengthening the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), ensuring that Russia has faced its most difficult military challenge since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and weakening Moscow’s economic, technological and strategic footprint. This has required him to pull off a careful balancing act, where the US strengthens Ukrainian resistance but does not ignite a direct war with Moscow.

The second domain is what has come to be known as the “new Washington Consensus” to describe America’s approach to geo-economics. In a key speech at the Brookings Institution in April, Sullivan laid out four challenges the US was facing. These included the hollowing out of its industrial base; economic dependencies on other major powers (read China) which had exploited an open economic architecture to gain leverage through supply chain concentration; the climate crisis; and inequality and its impact on democracy. To deal with these challenges, Sullivan said, Washington was embracing a modern industrial strategy with massive public investment in key sectors including chips, clean energy tech, critical minerals; working with partners and allies to increase their economic capacity; creating diversified supply chains and placing it at the heart of a new trade policy; mobilising investments in emerging economies; and protecting foundational technologies with a “small yard and high fence”.

This intersection of national security and technology is the third domain where Sullivan’s imprint is most visible. For decades, China has been able to access US high technology either legally or through covert means. Sullivan, aided by his director of tech policy in NSC, Tarun Chhabra, and commerce secretary Raimondo has institutionalised a clear policy regime to deny Beijing access to semiconductor technology that can help China attain both economic and military dominance. Simultaneously, Sullivan has articulated the need for tech partnerships with “trusted partners”.

And the fourth domain is the Indo-Pacific. While Donald Trump’s administration deserves credit for calling out China’s ambitions in the region, the Biden administration has introduced a certain methodical approach to counter it. Aided by Kurt Campbell, his Indo-Pacific coordinator in NSC, and along with Austin and Blinken, Sullivan has helmed the Australia-UK-US (Aukus) nuclear submarine deal, supported Japan’s military modernisation, engineered a breakthrough in ties between Tokyo and Seoul, gained the US access to more military bases in Philippines, expanded American outreach to Pacific Islands, and given Quad a more active security dimension than anyone could have anticipated even two years ago. At the same time, the US wants to maintain open lines of communication. Here again, Sullivan has led crucial talks with key Chinese officials, first Yang Jiechi and now Wang Yi, in stabilising the relationship.

The India Relationship

In all these domains, India plays a crucial role. When divergences emerged between India and the US on Ukraine, Sullivan played a key role in ensuring that those divergences don’t become a defining feature of the relationship. He told a Washington DC institute last year that the US did not believe in lecturing India. He recognised India’s historic ties with Russia, and said that the US was playing a “long game”.

“We are investing in a relationship that we are not going to judge by one issue, even if that issue is quite consequential, but rather that we are going to judge over the fullness of time, as we try to work on convergence on the major strategic questions facing our two countries…On one of those questions, how to deal with the challenge posed by China, there is much more convergence today and that is important to US foreign policy,” Sullivan said in June 2022.

Indeed, this has opened up room for cooperation in the other domains.

On geo-economics, even as the White House is consistently signalling to American capital to move out of China or not make fresh investments as a part of its “de-risking” strategy, it is telling US businesses to invest in India. Sullivan himself participated in a major US India Business Council meeting in Washington DC, along with Doval, in January during the launch of ICET to signal American security state’s willingness to expand economic linkages in critical sectors. During Modi’s visit, look out for major investment announcements by American private sector majors in diverse areas, including jet engines (GE) and in semiconductors.

On tech, ICET has allowed both countries to deepen their partnership in artificial intelligence, quantum (look out for progress on high-powered computing), research (NSC is working closely with the Association of American universities and National Science Foundation to leverage Indian talent in the STEM space), space, among other issues. Many of these areas require the US system to take a flexible view on export controls. And Sullivan has played a key role in telling various agencies, including State, Commerce and Defense, that it cannot be business as usual. The first India-US strategic trade dialogue was a major step last week in unlocking a discussion on specific exemptions India needs in terms of policy, processes and specific cases.

And on defence in the wider Indo-Pacific, the American strategy rests on deterrence. This involves building and displaying enough capabilities, through a networked security architecture, that increases the costs for the Chinese to engage in aggression. Without being an ally or being a part of active fighting coalitions, this suits India. The US knows that India is the only country that is actually fighting China on the ground and is aware of Delhi’s edge in the Indian Ocean. But Washington, thanks to Modi’s “make in India” push, is also aware that while India may buy a few weapon systems occasionally (look out for a deal on the Predator drones), any efforts to integrate India into its wider security plans now requires US companies to invest in manufacturing in India (which is why the GE deal is significant). This is one instance where American strategic interest (build Indian defence capabilities, make it more interoperable with US systems, and lock in India into this security grid just as the Russians locked in India for decades during the Cold War) and its commercial interests (US companies don’t want to lose out to competition in one of the world’s biggest defence markets) is coming together.

On August 15, 2020, even before Biden’s electoral win, at a discussion to mark India’s Independence Day, Sullivan had spoken about the importance of the India-US relationship. As he meets India’s top political leadership, Sullivan has a historic opportunity to translate his message to reality. He can show that it is a new US — a US that doesn’t sermonise and dictate but genuinely seeks a partnership of equals, a US that is willing to go the extra mile to help without seeking exact reciprocity, and a US that knows Washington and Delhi have to deal with a common adversary, sometimes together, sometimes separately — that is waiting to welcome Modi in Washington DC.