Abstract

Over the last few decades, despite changes in governments in both countries and significant geopolitical churn, US-India relations have gone from strength to strength. What are the underlying drivers that enabled this transformation? What are the prospects and challenges that this relationship might face with the return of President Donald Trump in the White House? This panel will speak on the diplomacy that enabled this transformed relationship and focusing especially on the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (ICET). Moreover, it will also examine the lessons and implications from this transformation for other powers within and outside the region.

About the speakers

Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri is the director of Carnegie India. His research focuses on the diplomatic history of South Asia, contemporary security issues, and the important role of emerging technologies and digital public infrastructure in diplomacy, statecraft, and development. He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947 and the editor of War and Peace in Contemporary India.

Arun K. Singh

Arun K. Singh is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. Singh has served as India’s ambassador to the United States, Israel, and France. Throughout his career in the Indian Foreign Service spanning thirty-seven years, he has been instrumental in shaping India’s policies, notably the continued progress in the U.S.-India relationship, India’s closer ties to Israel, and the formulation and implementation of India’s policies related to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Dr Walter C. Ladwig III

Dr Walter C. Ladwig III is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies and an Associate Fellow in the Navigating the Indo-Pacific Program at the Royal United Services Institution (RUSI). He is the director of South Asia programs for the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office’s (FCDO) International Academy and has given evidence to parliamentary inquiries into the UK’s Indo-Pacific Strategy by the Defense Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dr Rishika Chauhan

Dr Rishika Chauhan is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Science and Security Studies, based in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. At King's, she is also the co-convenor and lecturer for an Executive Education Programme offered to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Previously she has worked as a project lead on a UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology project and also contributed to UK government’s China Capability training.

Chair

Anit Mukherjee

Anit Mukherjee is a Senior Lecturer at the King's India Institute. He joined King's after ten years in Singapore where he was an Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. From 2010-2012, he was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi.

He is the author of The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Military in India (NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), which examines the role of civil-military relations and military effectiveness. He is the co-editor of India-China Maritime Competition: The Security Dilemma at Sea (Routledge, 2019) and India’s Naval Strategy and Asian Security (Routledge, 2015).

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