Carter reaffirms road map for the next US Defense Secretary

After contributing immensely to Indo-US defence relations in his various avatars in the Pentagon, and hence giving a solid content and meaning to the India-US strategic partnership in the 21st century described by President Barack Obama as defining partnership of the present century, the outgoing US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter selected India among Japan, Israel, Jordan and the UK, as one of his farewell visits to countries with whom he had taken exclusive interest in laying an unshakeable foundation and creating strong bonds of relationship which can only be weakened at the cost of US national strategic interest.

- Ranjit Kumar

Carter’s farewell visit to India on December 8, 2016, truly reflected the new found warmth and strategic nature of India-US defence relationship which has evolved to such great heights from where it will be difficult to dislodge, even by the most “mad” US Defense Secretary.

Ashton Carter grew from the ranks in Pentagon leadership hence his long and deep experience in dealing with international security issues could genuinely assess the significance of developing strong defence relations with India, which had from the very beginning of the 21st century given hints that India is not only going to be the biggest emerging defence market in the world but also the most important strategic partner of US in the Asia-Pacific region. Carter literally was able to take India out of the lap of Russia and reduce its dependency on them, which made Russia so jealous that it started courting Pakistan just to convey a message to India.

In less than 24 months of assuming the role as chief of the Pentagon, Carter made a record three trips to India and had unprecedented seven meetings with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar. During his various stints in Pentagon, Carter had very rich experience of dealing with India. As Pentagon said in a fact sheet before Carter reached India that he “spearheaded efforts to deepen and broaden” bilateral defence cooperation with India. The fact sheet said that as a result of Carter’s efforts US and India have improved mutual understandings of their respective defence institutions, are exchanging perspectives and coordinating policy approaches in new areas, reinvigorating military to military engagements, launching path-breaking cooperative technology projects and pushing bilateral defence trade to unprecedented levels.