New Delhi [India], September 18 : Former US National Security Advisor Lt Gen HR McMaster has said the “long-term future is in favour of the India-US relationship”, underlining that shared democratic values, economic interests and concerns over China will continue to draw New Delhi and Washington closer despite tensions in their ties.
Speaking with ANI, McMaster urged India to “have faith in America”, while saying the US should not pressure New Delhi to take sides against Russia or disengage from groupings such as BRICS.
“I think we should not worry about that as much and have faith that really the long-term future is in favour of the India-US relationship,” McMaster said.
He said India should have confidence in representative government and free-market economics, which he described as the model represented by the US, the European Union and Japan.
“I believe in the primacy of our democratic forms of government and in our free market economic systems,” he said.
McMaster, who served as National Security Advisor during Donald Trump's first administration, said the strategic relationship between India and the US was underpinned by a shared assessment of China.
“I think of just the gravity of... the recognition that China is hostile. China wants a servile relationship with India and I think all countries in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
“The choice isn't between Beijing and Washington; it's between servitude and sovereignty. And the US is on the side of sovereignty,” he added.
His remarks come as New Delhi and Washington have continued to see an upward trajectory in ties in the last three decades, which have seen turbulence in the last two years.
McMaster said he nevertheless retained “great confidence” in the India-US relationship, pointing to India's size, young population and economic potential.
“If India succeeds, in my view, the world succeeds,” he said, arguing for a major multinational effort involving India on food, energy and water security.
“Because if you can develop market-based solutions where the market will incentivise the adoption of these solutions and it works in India, it's going to work for the whole world,” McMaster said.
On Pakistan, McMaster said one of his “biggest frustrations” had been what he described as the US reluctance to recognise the extent to which Pakistanis “double deal and try to have it both ways and support jihadist terrorists”.
He said Pakistan had created a “terrorist ecosystem” that it was now suffering from, and added that he did not believe tensions between India and Pakistan would ease “in the near future”.
“And so that, I think, should push India and the US closer together,” McMaster said.
At the same time, McMaster acknowledged that differences in expectations have complicated the India-US relationship.
“We need kind of more trust. President Trump, as you know, he's very focused on reciprocity and trade, and these issues create tensions,” he said.
He also pointed to what he described as competing concerns within India — “fear of abandonment” and “fear of entanglement” — which he said had further complicated the relationship.
McMaster said the way forward would require patience and greater confidence in the factors that bind the two countries.
“So we just have to be patient, I think, and have faith in the gravity that is pulling us together in terms of our democratic forms of government, the principles that we hold dear, and the kinship between our peoples,” he said.
He also cited the Indian diaspora in the US as another enduring link between the two countries, saying its familial connections with India further “bind the United States and India together”.
McMaster said that despite the “bumps in the road” ahead, the shared interests between the two countries would continue to exert a pull on their relationship.
“I think that gravity is just going to keep pulling us together, despite, you know, the bumps in the road that we're certainly going to have, you know, in the near future,” he said.