ISAS Brief 1078

No.
1078 – 14 November 2023
Beyond Gaza: India’s Changing Middle East Policies

C Raja Mohan
Summary
Focused until now on the Indo-Pacific, the India-United States (US) strategic partnership is
steadily expanding to cover the Middle East. The fifth round of the ‘two plus two’ dialogue in
New Delhi in November 2023 highlighted the growing convergence of Indian and US
interests in the Middle East. New Delhi, which historically maintained significant political
distance in the past from the US in the region, appears ready to work closely with
Washington.
The growing convergence of India and the United States’ (US) perspectives on the Middle
East is one of the main signals from the fifth iteration of the ‘two plus two’ meeting on 10
November 2023 in New Delhi. The defence and foreign ministers of the two countries were
unambiguous in condemning Hamas terror, emphasising Israel’s right to self-defence while
observing the international laws of war, calling for humanitarian pauses, demanding the
release of hostages held by Hamas and pressing for durable peace in Palestine.
The affirmation that New Delhi and Washington “stand with Israel against terrorism”
underlines how close the two sides have come in the Middle East. India, in the past, was
unwilling to condemn Palestinian terror against Israel even as it sought global support
against Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism. India has ended that double standard in
responding to the current war in Gaza while reaffirming its strong commitment to
Palestinian statehood.
India’s external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, underlined the importance of taking a

consistent position on international terrorism, stating, “We take a strong position on
terrorism because we are big victims of terrorism. We will have no credibility if we say that
when terrorism impacts us, it’s very serious; when it happens to somebody else, it’s not
serious.”
The annual joint meeting of the defence and foreign ministers from the two sides, which has
taken place every year since 2018, except 2021, has become the principal vehicle to review
and advance the India-US strategic partnership. Together, the four ministers – nudged by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden in
Washington – have dramatically expanded the canvas of cooperation and deepened the
intensity of engagement on defence industrial collaboration, technology transfer, counter-
terrorism and regional security.
Cooperation on Asian security issues has been a new element in the engagement between
the two nations and provided a solid regional anchor for bilateral collaboration. In the early
years after independence, Indian foreign policy positioned itself in opposition to the US in
1
Asia, especially on regional security issues. This trendline in India’s regional policies endured
well into the 21st century.
It is only in recent years that India’s wariness about US dominance in Asia has yielded to
greater engagement and cooperation. The principal reason for the change in India has been
the assertiveness of a rising China. Even as Beijing sought to replace the US as the dominant
leader of Asia, it presented new challenges to Indian security policymakers on its Himalayan
frontiers that have seen a series of military crises in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2020. The 2010s
also saw the steady expansion of Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean and the special
relationships with India’s South Asian neighbours.
The 2017 crisis triggered a major shift in India’s approach to China. Discarding the old
preference for non-alignment, New Delhi stepped forward to deepen military ties with
Washington. The new Indian steps included the elevation of the ‘two plus two’ dialogue to
the ministerial level in 2018, the embrace of the Indo-Pacific geopolitical construct and the
revival of the Quad.
As India and the US embarked on a cooperative strategy to address the China challenge, the
conventional wisdom in New Delhi insisted India-US joint regional security efforts were
limited to the Indo-Pacific region. India and the US might be on the same side to the east of
the subcontinent, the argument went, but they will remain far apart to the west of the
subcontinent. That proposition was overturned quite quickly as India and the US joined
hands with Israel and the United Arab Emirates to form the I2U2 grouping in 2021.
At the G20 summit in September 2023, India, along with the US and Saudi Arabia, unveiled
the ambition to build an economic corridor between the subcontinent and Europe. The fifth
round of the ‘two plus two’ dialogue saw the further advancement of India-US cooperation
in the Middle East. The joint statement, issued at the end of the talk, welcomed “India’s full
membership of the multinational Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), headquartered in
Bahrain.”
India’s decision to become a full member of the 38-nation CMF that operates in the waters
of the Arabian Sea and the Horn of Africa and is headed by an American Admiral. It seeks to
protect maritime security across a vast body of water that hosts some of the world’s busiest
sea lines of communication. India’s decision to stay apart from the CMF all these years was
based on the ingrained impulse to act unilaterally rather than in a coalition. Pakistan’s
membership in the CMF, too, was a dampener coalition membership.
The past inhibitions have been discarded amidst the growing comfort level with the US’
presence in India’s neighbourhood. New Delhi no longer sees the Middle East through the
Pakistan lens and has begun to appreciate its enormous stakes in regional security.
Reflecting some of these changes is India’s participation for the first time in the
multinational Exercise Bright Star in Egypt in September 2023. This is a series of biennial
military exercises led by Egypt and the US. More than 30 countries, including Pakistan,
participated in the 2023 edition of the exercise.
2
Even as it looks beyond Pakistan and gets closer to the US in the Middle East, India
continues to ramp up its independent bilateral partnerships with key countries in the region.
New Delhi hopes that its bilateral, minilateral and multilateral engagement will help elevate
India’s stature and expand its role in the Middle East.
.....
Professor C Raja Mohan is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an
autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He can be contacted at
[email protected]. The author bears full responsibility for the facts cited and opinions expressed in this
paper.

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No.

1078 – 14 November 2023

Beyond Gaza: India’s Changing Middle East Policies

India’s external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, underlined the importance of taking a

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