India's Foreign Policy with Sameer Lalwani and Biden Debate Meltdown

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Sameer Lalwani, a senior expert on South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace on India’s Foreign Policy. We touched on topics ranging from how India would likely respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to technological and defense cooperation between the U.S. and India. We also discussed the importance of the U.S.-India alliance with respect to strategic competition with China and the problematic nature of India’s relationship with Russia.

First, however, we react to last night’s televised Presidential Debate between President Biden and Former President Trump. Focusing on foreign policy topics, we cover what each side said and their potential impact on Americans and U.S. global standing.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• 01:00 - US Presidential Debate Fallout
• 18:00 - Debating Foreign Policy
• 47:00 - Interview with Sameer Lalwani

Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode

US Presidential Debate Fallout

• Key Foreign-Policy Moments From the Trump-Biden Debate (FP)
• Joe Biden’s horrific debate performance casts his entire candidacy into doubt (The Economist)

Interview with Sameer Lalwani

• US Institute of Peace
• Personal Website
• X|Twitter

Follow Us

• Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com
• Show Twitter: @GlobalKellogg
• Anita’s Twitter: @arkellogg
• Show YouTube

Transcript

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Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in U. S. foreign policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relations scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my cohost, Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy.

Ryan Kellogg: I'm glad to be back. So this is episode 47 and we're recording this on June 28th, [00:00:30] 2024. 

Anita Kellogg: On this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Samir Lawani, a senior expert on South Asia at the U. S. Institute of Peace on India's foreign policy. We touched on topics ranging from how India would likely respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to technological and defense cooperation between the U.

S. and India. We also discussed the importance of the U. S. India alliance with respect to strategic competition with China, and the problematic nature of India's relationship with Russia. First, however, we react [00:01:00] to last night's televised presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump.

Focusing on foreign policy topics, we cover what each side said and the potential impact on Americans and U. S. global standing. So how are you feeling? We've had a few hours to digest the debate that happened last night. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, not well. Not well. I mean, it was just about as bad a performance as President Biden could possibly do.

Yeah. It's a absolute [00:01:30] unmitigated disaster, and I think it's very compelling the arguments now being made by the commentariat to push Biden to step down, although ultimately it's his inner circle and personal decision to do so, especially so very late in the game here. 

Anita Kellogg: So for the first time in this whole election process, I've thought, given this thought, For the whole time I've been like, Biden is going to be the [00:02:00] nominee.

Everyone's talking like there's another possibility. And especially at this point, after last night, and I've been thinking about it since then, I think you only do this if you are sure you can't win. And I think that we're at that point where it looks. Pretty likely that this Biden can't win, but the acknowledgement of if you do something, we're going to step down and we have another person to take his place as the primary candidate, [00:02:30] Democrat primary candidate, that person is likely to lose.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I think, I mean, the only analog to this is LBJ in 1968. I'm not even sure that was early in the process. I felt like there was actual, there was a primary process, a normal primary process. It wasn't a.

It was a contentious convention. I mean, that 1968 was which famously held as it is this year in Chicago, there are [00:03:00] massive violent riots in Chicago around the democratic national convention at the time. But yeah, essentially you've already had a primary process. Biden has all the delegates. What he can do is release those delegates and then essentially it's the parties Power brokers, those delegates who are usually people like donated to the democratic party or like local leaders within the democratic party are the ones who will decide who [00:03:30] is the party's presidential nominee.

So it's profoundly undemocratic in a way, but I think you're right. You've reached this state where. It seemed like he had deteriorated definitely enormously from 2020 and the last time that he debated Trump, but even deteriorated significantly from this winter when the, uh, the state of the union was delivered and it was just the complete [00:04:00] lack of energy.

The extremely poor focus, the inability to articulate, despite having a, frankly, a target rich environment. I mean, 80 percent of what Trump said was a bald face, bald face lies. Easy to, you know, amateur high school debater would easily be able to tear Trump apart. He failed on every single account and it was, it was an embarrassment.

[00:04:30] It was an utter embarrassment. 

Anita Kellogg: I think even taking away like pure how I would judge debate performance, my problem is that Biden didn't meet the minimum threshold of not looking like an old 80 year old man. And one indication of this, I think, is like he couldn't even give a good closing speech. The last two minutes, you should have a nice rousing two minutes.

Planned beforehand. There's no response. You're not responding to questions. You're not responding to Trump. Just give you, just give us a strong statement. And he [00:05:00] failed completely at that. And if you can't do two minutes at the end, if you can't give us two good minutes at the end, then that's deeply problematic and what can you bring to the table?

So that's, to me, that's the minimum that's beside being able to respond to Trump, being able to. Effectively counter his lies and stuff. Just give me two good minutes. Preferably in the beginning and the end. In the beginning with , the 

Ryan Kellogg: beginning was just, I mean, that really set the tone. It was the [00:05:30] raspiness of his voice and then within the first five minutes and one of his responses just kind of like trailing off into complete in articulation.

Just unbelievable. And I, and I, I don't know if it was, and, and I think it's the fact that he spent. Nearly a week and debate preparation at Camp David. And I don't know if it was a matter of, I mean, one clearly he has deteriorated significantly. And then two, [00:06:00] if he was the handlers not understanding what the task was, and that this, when somebody lies constantly, it's not about, you know, to your point, it's not about countering those lies, although you can have that in there, but it's about the visuals, the biggest concern was his age and it's appearing vital.

Appearing somewhat adroit and being able to respond to Trump and said, they're, they're stuffed them full of figures and facts that he did make an [00:06:30] attempt to actually answer the questions. Unlike Trump who just filibustered through regardless of what the question was to make his points. I don't know, just, just a failure on so many levels.

It's, it's unbelievable. 

Anita Kellogg: My concern is that it's simply not there, that they knew that they had to make him not look old, and there was just, he had nothing in him to make him not look old. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, which is, the, the blame now is going to that inner circle. There's been a [00:07:00] lot of probably sexist attacks on Jill Biden, on why, why is she allowing her husband?

To run if he's in this sort of declined mental state, but yeah, what was on display last night was just beyond the pale and I think it, it shocked people even, you know, I think you saw it like in the response to the, uh, the commenters on CNN, after which people that were close that worked with Biden that were [00:07:30] like friends with Biden legitimately talking of he should step down.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, it's deeply concerning. Because one, I just, I kind of can't even believe that I'm considering that, yeah, we need a new candidate at this late date, but I just, I fundamentally feel like, oh, I have to vote for this, like really old person who comes across as being really old and do I think that's what's best for America, it's a lot better for America than Trump, but it [00:08:00] seems as an American, I shouldn't have to find my only alternative to be this, this person who I believe in his most Most of his policies, not all of them, most of his policies, I agree with more often than not, but this person as president, this 80 year old man as president, do I think he's really the person I want in office when all these crises happen?

Not really. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and it is, it is, you know, you're electing a team. [00:08:30] I mean, Biden never was, you know, the best communicator or the best, and that is, and has traditionally been one of the central parts of the job, particularly in the modern era, the television era. And he was never great at that, but he was passable.

He was serviceable. And now that he's gone beyond and declined beyond like the bare minimal threshold. It really, it doesn't seem like it fulfills the [00:09:00] job of the presidency, even when we take into account that you're voting for his team, you're voting for the cabinet, for the policies, for, and I think there's no comparison between the teams, frankly.

But that being said, you have to meet a minimum threshold and even Reagan in the later stages of his second term never displayed what we saw last night in terms of, uh, [00:09:30] a decay. So, yeah, it's deeply concerning. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, I wish I could say I believe. That Biden would realize something about his ability and his health.

Oh, one thing I wanted to say is like, just watching my grandparents over the years, it seems to me that people, this is my observations, not medical fact or anything, that like people will seem young for their age or spry, and then kind of all of a sudden they enter this decline. It seems to happen really fast in my, my [00:10:00] observations and my grandparents, 

Ryan Kellogg: likely 

Anita Kellogg: this could have literally just happened by an in between now in the state of the union.

I mean, 

Ryan Kellogg: yeah, I don't know. I mean, they're, they're different set pieces. It's hard to believe, but remember the office of the presidency, enormously stressful. It takes, I mean, you look at the pictures of presidents like Clinton and Obama before and after were W. Enormously enormous stress on the individual and how age, at least if they take it seriously.

So yeah, maybe, maybe there was just even more because of [00:10:30] that kind of this, this accelerated decline, even within a short period, I don't know, but I mean, people on the right to basically be saying you stupid liberals, you've been having your head in the sand, we've been displaying, of course, this has been featured all the time, because they'll feature every single press, everything, and it'd be like, it was obvious this guy was a doddering old fool, 

Anita Kellogg: at 

Ryan Kellogg: least for the last couple of years.

Anita Kellogg: That's fine, they can say that. The reality is of what we see, and I've seen criticisms of that Biden wasn't doing enough interviews like other presidents, so [00:11:00] no one was able to see this, right? There's a 

Ryan Kellogg: reason for it, 

Anita Kellogg: clearly. And so that his team and people should take responsibility for that. The thing is that I worry about, I worry about all of it, is that now you'd have to have the elites be able to broker a decision, right?

And I don't believe the elites are capable of doing that. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, this is again, going back to, and maybe this will point to on the Democrat side, the [00:11:30] failure of the, the party structure and the party leadership to, to safeguard in terms of choices that it provides to the American voting public. I mean, we have seen, we saw extreme discipline with the elites and the rallying around Biden for the 2020 election in terms of like shutting down.

Opposition, getting people to, to drop out of the primary, to prevent, you know, any, any chance for, for Bernie Sanders to take the ticket. This, of course, is a whole new level, and I think it [00:12:00] is, it, it will require Schumer, Pelosi, just the kind of the, the grandes of the, the party to approach Biden approaches his inner circle to convince Jill.

That this is the right thing to do, let alone the next step of who is it who would be put forward because they've raised a huge amount of, of cash. They've already like pre bought ads and things like that. Who is it or what choice? [00:12:30] Enormously contentious. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, so who do you think, like who would you want to see?

And why do you think there's a realistic path for them? 

Ryan Kellogg: It has to be a governor, and I think it has to be somebody from the Midwest. It cannot be Gavin Newsom. I think Gavin Newsom would be a disaster. I think just the contrast of him, how he came across in the debate against DeSantis. I don't think he's ready.

Almost all elites, but he gives off the, the [00:13:00] heavy elite vibe. He's the only one I will admit that probably has like a more in depth foreign policy because California is nearly run its own foreign policy, but there's no way to get traction. So you're looking at, um, you're looking at largely people that don't have big national profiles.

You look at like the governor of Pennsylvania. You're looking at wit from, uh, from Michigan, but yeah, it has to be somebody with executive experience. It has to be somebody from the Midwest who can [00:13:30] connect with blue collar voters. That is what Joe Biden brought. That is the reason that Joe Biden won in 2020.

And I think you, you still need that. But yeah, it's, it's difficult with somebody cause the, the only person that is being talked about kind of is, is Newsom, let alone what you do with Kamala. I mean, she's, she's toxic. I mean, her, her approval ratings are lower than Biden's. I mean, that's absolutely a failure.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So you have to somehow [00:14:00] bypass the vice president, which is, would not be an easy feat. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And that's something that the Democrats are not good at. No, they did rally because. Hillary Clinton before, and then Joe Biden had paid their dues because the democratic party is about big on paying one's dues that it's your turn for this, that's what makes this so difficult is, you know, it's a sitting president.

How do you overcome that? And then, and then, you know, somebody who's been vice president, which is [00:14:30] kind of giving the, the nod to, well, you're next in line where the party thinks that you're next in line. Talking through it, it's like, they probably, they don't have the ability to do this. He's going to be shielded from any sort of criticism.

They'll be like, oh, it's, I mean, they're already kind of downplayed. They downplayed some of the spin rooms. You know, he himself is like, oh, how do you debate a liar? There's lots of clips, Jill almost being patronizing to him. Like he did such a good job answering [00:15:00] these questions. Like he was a four year old.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's hard to see how they penetrate that bubble and penetrate the DNC's history of always deferring to the grandee or whoever's kind of next in line. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So, I mean, I think I'm thinking through all these issues. This morning, you know, I keep coming to the conclusion of like, probably this is a victory and this is why Trump's so very, very [00:15:30] happy today.

And one, this would make this the most consequential presidential debate ever. 

Ryan Kellogg: It would. Yeah. Normally debates have don't matter, but this would be up there if not surpassing the Nixon JFK debate. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. 

Ryan Kellogg: Cause that's what, that's what one JFK first televised debate. And it was the contrast. It was that visual contrast.

And the fact that his team didn't understand that dimension of it, the fact that this is, you know, it's a new phenomenon. This is [00:16:00] 1960. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. 

Ryan Kellogg: It's been, it's been 60 years, you know, that these debates have been going on and understanding the dynamics of it. It's not the substance of the debate. It's the visual and it's the, um, the feel, the vibe that's generated, you know, from the responses.

Anita Kellogg: But yeah, I mean, I think how can you possibly with Joe Biden went over any independent voters because when I go vote for him, I'm not going to be happy that this is my choice for American democracy. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I [00:16:30] mean, it, it, it's, it's sad that these are the, are the two choices, but yeah, of course, you know, no, this isn't going to convince anybody to give full credit to Trump and said, yeah, it was his usual self with the 80 percent lines, but he came in very prepared.

He was very clever and downplaying it. I mean, the, the fact that they were like, Oh, you know, I'm probably going to lose this debate because Joe Biden's going to be on performance enhancing drugs. And set such a low [00:17:00] bar for himself, but then clearly, clearly had been preparing for it, had clearly and did a fantastic job filibustering and then just hammering in very disciplined approach.

I think having the mic shut off probably helped them. Not that he ever had to really respond to any stinging rebukes or any insults from Biden, because he was never able to deliver a punch, but. He delivered a disciplined and stuck to his [00:17:30] messages and, and the stuff that would come across as truly radical in terms of policy, he filibustered through.

Anita Kellogg: Yes, so that's in some way disappointing because his actual policy locations out there that we've heard from the Trump administration. You know, none of it he voided talking about any of that. Very smart, 

Ryan Kellogg: very disciplined because he knows that this is going to be You know the time to get those those swing voters.

He's not talking to the [00:18:00] base 

Anita Kellogg: So transitioning to the more substantive part of the debate and what they were. Yeah. To the extent that there was substance to this debate. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And that's, that's the thing been making the rounds on, on social media online is just the contrast and how far debates have deteriorated, not only from the 2020 period, which was not very substantial at all, but looking back to 2012 in a scene like Romney and Obama debate, and just how filled of substance and [00:18:30] civility It was like a bygone era.

You might as well be going back to the 19th century or something. Such a contrast. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: I mean, it's so dispiriting, just really, really dispiriting. Yeah. 

Ryan Kellogg: So there 

Anita Kellogg: was not much substance, but some things did get brought up. So the first thing that kind of came up with Trump's proposal for 10 percent tariff on all import.

And according to Trump, this will not raise prices, but will mean that all these governments are giving the U. S. lots of money. That's, 

Ryan Kellogg: that's how [00:19:00] tariffs work. isn. Yeah. Is that, 

Anita Kellogg: is it, is it tariffs? Well, I 

Ryan Kellogg: dunno, you're the ex, the economics experts, right? 

Anita Kellogg: Well, what happened is the companies, the domestic companies that are importing these have to spend 10% more on import, and then they pass that 10% cost on to consumers.

So in actuality, what happens with tariffs is consumers, not these foreign governments, consumers have to pay an extra 10% for the items than they would've without tariffs. [00:19:30] And this is usually done to reduce the amount of foreign goods, because at the higher price, it's going to be less competitive with your own domestic market.

So this would obviously have a pretty broad economic impact. If you're saying 10 percent on all tariffs, I think the average tariff now is like at 2%. And so. You would definitely see some amounts of inflation. How hard the impact is, I mean, imports are about 25 percent of [00:20:00] all consumed goods, I believe. So that's still a pretty significant proportion of the economy that you would see higher prices for goods.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, there's zero doubt that this would be inflationary and, you know, in a lot of cases, there wouldn't necessarily be substitutes for all goods and there certainly wouldn't be immediate substitutes and there's so, so yeah, it seems like on average, maybe the consumer doesn't feel the impact of the full 10%, but maybe it fills half of that [00:20:30] or two thirds of that.

Anita Kellogg: So I would definitely bring up prices. It could also have the effect of potentially making U. S. goods less competitive to export because they're not having to compete at the same price levels as they were before. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And I think that obviously the other thing would be, uh, retaliatory measures on all U.

S. exports as well. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. It's unrealistic to think that countries would just be happy with this, that they would not take any retaliatory measures. And this [00:21:00] WTO, all our trade agreements with our partners. You're kind of tearing up all these trade agreements and leaves a lot of ambiguity and, and where does less stability to the trading system in general.

One question that Trump deflected from was that asking him if he was, when he said he was going to deport all the illegals or undocumented workers, did he mean All of them, including ones who have been here for decades, who have spouses as civilians, [00:21:30] who have children who are citizens, just every, everyone.

And Trump avoided saying who he was going to deport, if he was going to deport everyone, or if there, he had specific targeted groups, but it's an important thing to bring up for the economy, because if you lose millions of workers, Then that's going to have a devastating impact on the economy. And I couldn't find it, but I saw as we're watching the debate, a report that had come on talking about that there would definitely be recession and, uh, inflation as [00:22:00] a result of that sort of policy.

Were he able to carry that out? 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, the majority of economists have, uh, attributed the U. S. 's outperformance relative to other developed nations, relative to even China, and a lot of that is due kind of in a backwards way, is because of the migration surge that we've seen over the last couple of years, because obviously, Following COVID, you had quite a few people either [00:22:30] retire early, or you'd basically had a, a smaller labor force, particularly like on the service sector side, part of it's also due to the shifting demographics, uh, and the retirement of, of baby boomers and whatnot.

So you've seen massive inflationary pressure on the wage side. And the only thing kind of keeping that in check over the last couple of years has been. The relatively high number of migrants coming in and we've, we've talked before, and obviously the refugee system is broken [00:23:00] currently, particularly the way that it's been handled with refugees being incentivized to come to the U S border, getting processed, having a court date set up, but then because of the backlog, uh, and the lack of funds that that court date could be like several years out.

Technically 

Anita Kellogg: those are asylum seekers, not refugees. 

Ryan Kellogg: Well, so that's not, so if you're a refugee, it's not a, you then become an asylum seeker or? No, 

Anita Kellogg: no, no. If you're a refugee, if you have that status, that means you were approved of in [00:23:30] your own country. 

Ryan Kellogg: Okay. Okay. Good technical point there. Yeah. So essentially these asylum seekers who then go to refugee cities like New York.

This is something that Trump brought up with a staying at the luxury hotels, which happened for a brief period of a couple of months. During one of the migrant search surges where they didn't have available housing. So they put them up in basically hotels that were under occupied within the city. Even in the worst periods, they normally get some [00:24:00] sort of work visa status within six months.

So it's not really a drain on city or state resources after that point, then they're contributing. And the other point that he made that was a lie was saying that they could collect social security or Medicare benefits, and they cannot, they have to pay in as employees working within the U. S. into the FICA taxes.

But they cannot actually collect those benefits. So you're losing kind of that, that [00:24:30] tax base as well from this population. That being said, it is broken, but clearly the U S economy needs a huge number of. Which I'm surprised by, cause this wasn't the case a couple of decades ago, but needs a high number of low skilled workers.

In order to meet the needs of the economy and to keep wage inflation at a reasonable level. 

Anita Kellogg: I mean, I think some interesting things that don't get brought up enough is, is one thing when we talk about asylum seekers or undocumented [00:25:00] workers, there's a completion of the groups today and of the groups like in the 90s and like in the 90s and 2000s, it was really people coming for economic reasons.

And in many cases. Where I live, Tysons and Walmart went to get these workers and brought them directly back and everybody knew that and that filled a lot of, of service jobs that were, would have cost a lot more money to have Americans fill if they could find any way at all. And we've known since the pandemic and that it's hard to get [00:25:30] people to work at fast food, it's hard to get people to work doing laundry and stuff at hotels.

Today, it's more asylum seekers who, after that six month process, can get that and fill these roles and take these jobs. But it's not that, you know, these people are truly fleeing violence and 

Ryan Kellogg: it's a mix. I would say, yeah, I mean, yeah, what percentage, you know, when their case comes up that they're able to truly establish like political persecution, I think is the open question, but I think a lot are still [00:26:00] economic migrants, particularly the cases that you've had other nationalities coming through.

I mean, cause you've had a large number of like Chinese, Coming through the Mexican border and then claiming asylum in reality, they're probably economic migrants, which is fine, but are, are, we should have a legal pathway in a system because the economy needs it and the economy has benefited from it. And 

Anita Kellogg: this is where the system has been broken for so, so long is that we talk about needing high skilled workers from, from abroad, [00:26:30] but we really need low skilled workers.

We really need them. And it's been a critical part of the economy. And they create more jobs. It's not like they're taking American jobs as we've seen American unemployment is at all times low. Yeah, and critically, 

Ryan Kellogg: they have a much lower, were lower than the average citizen rate for committing crimes.

That's the other thing that kind of Trump emphasized ever again. Well, basically all these millions of people are, are carrying out horrible crimes and rapes and murders. And that's simply [00:27:00] not true by national and state level statistics. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So illegal immigrants have a homicide conviction rate, 26 percent below natives in Texas.

And that's by Cato, a conservative organization. So basically when we talk about immigration, we are talking about economics. But not in the way that sometimes people think they're not taking American jobs, they are contributing to our economy, they are creating economic growth, they are contributors, in many cases [00:27:30] net contributors to the social welfare system.

But it is broken. It shouldn't be functioning the way it is. We, we need a pathway for, for there to be these workers who can get citizenship. And we've always known that we've known that for decades. 

Ryan Kellogg: Or even temporary work visas for the economic, for those though, you know, necessarily qualify under our normal stipulations, the economy needs these workers and it is one of the wage inflation has been one of the stickier areas around inflation.

And [00:28:00] this is one way to solve it. So the proposal of 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants being targeted for deportation would be an app. Well, one, the logistics of it, we won't talk about the moral issues of it. But the impact on the economy would be enormously disastrous. If everybody is so concerned about inflation, this would be, uh, unmitigated disaster, this policy.

Anita Kellogg: So [00:28:30] if you're concerned about the economy and you're concerned about immigration, these are facts that is important to take into consideration. Moving to international security, so the Ukraine war did get brought up, and Trump made one comment of substance that Putin's terms to bring an end to the war are not acceptable, but then spent the rest of the time complaining about how much money has been spent and how it would never have happened if he was president, so not very insightful on what he would do about the crisis, although we all suspect that the money would [00:29:00] dry up or be considerably cut back.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, I think that would be the consensus view. I'm not a hundred percent convinced on that just because within the Republican side, there is still a significant amount of support and there is still a significant amount of support from the American people. 

Anita Kellogg: But how long did it take to get Ukrainian funding?

And 

Ryan Kellogg: yeah, I know. That being said, I mean, we do know that Ukraine has a, a narrow window just from its own [00:29:30] limitation resources on, on the manpower side and being able to, to reconstitute their troops and potentially a, a limited window on the European side with some of these facing election. I, I don't think that at the French election, you know, it goes with the, the far right, you know, taking power.

That limits what Macron can do in terms of, cause he's certainly been the, the heart of the EU because of the gap. With Schultz and Germany really not [00:30:00] filling anything. So the question is, would Europe be able to step up substantially if you see a substantial decrease or end of, of US funding? I just, I would be shocked if he negotiates something so nakedly in favor of Russia.

That Russia is able to achieve its political objective of the war. And I think we need to go back and there was a [00:30:30] excellent piece from a West Point grad that I read recently that kind of, you know, what, what is kind of Russia's political objective just to remember, and it's not necessarily taking Kiev and controlling that territory.

But it's ensuring that Ukraine cannot be a functional state. That's part of the EU that at least, you know, eventually a NATO member. And to do that, you would have to [00:31:00] give up, I think, critically, like the port access, that Ukraine's economy would be devastated. That wouldn't have the funding and ability to rebuild its infrastructure.

And it wouldn't have access to markets. To sell out Ukraine that bad, which would be a considerable deterioration of the current lines. I could see the negotiated solution being where the four provinces, essentially Russia has annexed illegally giving that [00:31:30] up, but it also precludes like giving up Odessa and forbidding EU membership and forbidding.

Any sort of defensive arrangement, it would have to be pretty substantial to give Russia kind of its full political victory over Ukraine. And I, I don't think Donald Trump wants to do that. Cause that would be such a blow to us prestige. How do you paint that? [00:32:00] Unless you just really believe that it's he's driven by.

What everything under him was the greatest ever and we were so respected I mean, but he must value Something I know I mean none of it. Maybe maybe i'm just being too optimistic and this is like i'm just smoking some hopium but I'd like to think given that there's still residual institutional support within the republican party and Within the american people it [00:32:30] wouldn't be just a out and out outrageous selling out for full political victory By Russia, but he seemed to feel differently about that.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, American prestige in Trump's head is just whatever he wants to make it to be. I don't think that he would look at it in that way at all. I think in his, I think in his self beliefs, he will still think America is the greatest under him, no matter what happens. And even if you sell it Ukraine and I don't think [00:33:00] that matters.

That's true. So all, all he'll want is credit that it's over. 

Ryan Kellogg: The credit, they ended the war regardless of the, the terms it would probably be. Yeah. The end of all of course, sanctions on Russia, uh, complete normalization of, of relations with them. Yeah, I don't know. I'd like to think that I know we're just saying that there'll be no adults in the room, but there'll be no, but I think even within, maybe not within the magnified part of Congress, but [00:33:30] there there's still within kind of that professional establishment, this, this support for.

Ukraine to a certain extent that, that, that won't be completely railroaded in a second term. 

Anita Kellogg: Hopefully. Especially if it can 

Ryan Kellogg: be framed in the right way. I don't know. 

Anita Kellogg: Hopefully, but I'm skeptical. He repeated his claims. Of course, his favorite go to Biden is not getting any partners to pay up for NATO. Uh, we've talked about this a little bit.

Obviously I believe that they're primarily due to the Ukraine [00:34:00] war that there have been some increases in the percentage. That NATOs are spending, uh, NATO partners are spending on their military to defense. So this is, there's no paying up of nato. It's an agreement that you'll spend 2% of your GDP on defense.

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. And just to reiterate, every single country that borders around Ukraine, around Russia already pays that 2%, if not like 3%. So this whole protection racket thing is [00:34:30] ridiculous 'cause they're already, even on his definition, meeting the terms. Uh, for the goals of, of NATO in terms of, of spending targets.

Anita Kellogg: And then on Israel, Hamas, Trump wouldn't say if he supported a Palestinian state. He just completely voided that question. Even when he was asked a second time, he said that the U S should support Israel to keep fighting, to finish the job with Hamas. And then Biden kind of threw in there that he wanted to make sure everyone knew the U S was giving steadfast support for [00:35:00] Israel, that the only delayed weapons were ones that are.

Large massive bombs that are not effective in use of urban warfare setting. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, there's little doubt of what the Trump policy would be with Israel, essentially be unified with the far right Netanyahu government and his diminished war cabinets. I think, yeah, Palestinian rights don't, don't matter.

And I, I think, I think they could even still be [00:35:30] successful, you know, given given enough time from the India and the conflict. That the Arab street wouldn't, wouldn't notice that they can make some sort of corrupt deal with the Saudis and still have normalization relations and pay lip service to a Palestinian state.

But in reality, the continued envelopment of the West Bank by Israeli settlers would happen, you know, under Trump administration. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, it is interesting how he can, on one hand, be on that far right side with [00:36:00] Netanyahu and at the same time make all these deals with these Middle Eastern countries.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it's because the elites really don't care about Palestinians. It's only the street that cares. And honestly, it seems like it's more just Western elites, the left, that is the one still kind of up in arms around it. 

Anita Kellogg: And that kind of didn't really get brought into the conversation, but that Biden. Is a challenge Biden faces on the issue is that [00:36:30] he has, you know, the far left who is really upset with him on his, his policy.

I mean, he's been in the middle, so he hasn't really made anyone happy. Right. Because 

Ryan Kellogg: yeah, he's really in a no, no win situation. Yeah. It's, it's, it's impossible. There's, and he came from the school where, yeah, you never, you never question Israel or Israeli policy, but now you're in a situation where, you know, significant enough part of your base.

Feels very strongly about the issue. [00:37:00] And yeah, he tries to take the middle ground and pisses off both sides. 

Anita Kellogg: That's what happens when you take the middle ground, which is unfortunate because the middle ground is usually the best place. Best policy. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: But I mean, I think it is a no win situation period because we can't, obviously what happened in Israel was horrific.

We've said this many times, but the response can not be the humanitarian crisis and tragedy that's happening in Israel right now. 

Ryan Kellogg: Contradict myself, because I'm saying, well, I think Israel could probably still get the [00:37:30] ultimate guarantor of, of long term peace in the region through the, the corruption of, of elites propagated by Trump.

I think his policies in the Middle East will be successful. I think his transactional way of dealing fits in very well with that region. 

Anita Kellogg: I think that is the one, I guess, more positive side of Trump on foreign policy. If you think in terms of outcomes is how you believe he'd be [00:38:00] effective in the Middle East.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. As long as you don't care about Palestine. I mean, I think it would be a kind of an ethnic cleansing would be the end result. Now, obviously Iran has its proxies. It still has agency. I think in all of this, What was completely missing from all of these debates is that other nations have their own agency, their own capabilities, and their own domestic goals.

So it's not all what the U S [00:38:30] or Trump or Biden wants around the world, that they're not the shapers of all human events around the globe. So there'll definitely be countermeasures. And, and remember that Hamas struck because they were getting close to normalization around Saudis, and they saw the window of affecting that as closing.

Now, Trump basically tied it to Iran. He was like, Oh, Iran had no money. You know, during my whole administration and blah, blah, blah, not true, [00:39:00] right. But yeah, that's the, that's the reason Hamas struck. So it's not like Iran's going to go quietly into that night. If they feel like the noose is, is tightening either on their proxies or on normalization path with the Saudis.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Then the kind of final thing that they got into was whether the U S is Humiliation right now, or Uh, the most admired country in the world. 

Ryan Kellogg: You mean [00:39:30] after this debate? 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I'm sure there's everyone like, we want to be the U. S. right now and have these choices as president. That looks great. You guys are doing a great job.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And that's, it's a shame in a lot of, and I hate how reductive the president and like how the U. S. is viewed and the U. S. is, is in a lot of ways in a great position. You know, I think it came out of COVID stronger than any other developed country. If you look at any [00:40:00] metric. Around, especially around the economy, the U S is as strong as it's ever been.

It's it's grown its percentage. We're held its percentage of GDP. China seems to, and in a lot of ways in terms of growth have peaked and is struggling. The EU is struggling and it's not a function of who's president or the government. It's, you know, it's, it truly is the American people. And it is a [00:40:30] combination of the public and private sector and the systems that we have and, and all of these things that don't necessarily depend on a president.

That's why we are still such a, you know, people around the world do want to come here and there is opportunity here. And it's just a shame that at the national level, our leadership is so dysfunctional and we're faced with these, the, this choice between, you know, [00:41:00] somebody who clearly has deteriorated to such extent that.

He just, he's not up to the job versus somebody who is morally reprehensible and, uh, a liar and a felon. And those are our choices to lead this great nation. And that's, that's depressing and sad. And that's, that's, I guess what gets broadcast at that level. But I still think regardless, you know, the United States is enormous [00:41:30] power, destroying the globe.

So it has to be respected, like in, in some way. 

Anita Kellogg: Of course. I mean, I think one, what you said so well said so beautiful and two, I think the U. S. power is greater though under Biden in the sense that using alliances. Yep. You know, it's able to exert its full power and influence. 

Ryan Kellogg: The alliance is, is, is key, yeah, to why, why we're able to maintain any of the Pax Americana.

Anita Kellogg: And the disruption for that under Trump, weakened it. [00:42:00] So I think that I would say that's definitely true, is the problem of alliances, the problem, you know, just reading initial reaction. It seems like countries, you know, they're seeing this and when they're like, Oh my gosh, we're affected by what happens in the U S and this is not good for us either.

Why could you guys not do better to, I think the whole time, even as they've been building alliances back up with Biden, there's been this, well, Trump's not out, you know, out of the way. [00:42:30] Like we have to also be prepared our foreign policy in case Trump's comes back into office and these alliances are no longer being upheld.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of. Real preparation on part of like, how do we figure out a foreign policy without America leading? And that's the problem under Trump. If America is not leading when it does not uphold its alliances and try to work together. You know, we work together with not just Europe and Korea and Japan and Australia, but we work with a host of [00:43:00] countries that we have even ideological differences with, with something that is tricky under Biden as well, but.

But it is important for us to, to influence all kinds of events, power struggles, economic situations that affect American citizens and how they operate around the world and the goods and services we have. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And I think one of the, the key insights that I've been reading is just how a Trump administration would be viewed by our, our main rivals, Russia and [00:43:30] China.

And in Russia, apparently it's been framed out. I don't have the source in front of me. But Trump is framed essentially as our Gorbachev and, you know, some people would say, well, yeah, Gorbachev, that guy, that guy was great. He's reasonably made that deal with Reagan and the Soviet Union. And that was awesome.

But remember Putin in particular, you know, viewed him as the traitor. He was the traitor of the Soviet empire who brought its downfall. So they view Trump in the same [00:44:00] way as the traitor to America and American values who will bring about the downfall of the American empire. That's, deep down inside, at the same time, the Chinese view Trump as a nation builder, a nation builder for them.

Yeah, I saw 

Anita Kellogg: that, I saw that. 

Ryan Kellogg: As one who will strengthen China because he attacks the alliances. That's the thing with these autocracies is they're isolated. Look at Russia. Russia has to make a deal with North Korea, the poorest, [00:44:30] most pathetically run nation on the earth. He has to go beg them for artillery compared to the unprecedented alliances of the richest, most powerful nations on earth.

That deteriorates those, I mean, of course, that's a godsend to Russia and to China. So there is little doubt, there's little doubt that our adversaries view Trump as a traitor to America and American power [00:45:00] and is the ultimate seed and destroyer of the American empire. And that, that to me is extraordinary.

That's the, the opening and ending case for not voting for Trump. He's the one who will destroy our adversaries from our own adversaries. View him as the seeds of our destruction. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Well, we had to be prepared for seeing him. I mean, and I guess the one thing you'd be prepared for is how do you mitigate the damage he's going to do?

[00:45:30] And 

Ryan Kellogg: that, that's where I still have, I still have faith. I mean, the people that, that you work with on a daily basis, those institutions still stand. He's not going to be able to even with schedule F, like fill it with so many cronies that you have people that understand the stakes who do the day to day work that I think, you know, stuff around migration, they're going to be focused on, but stuff around foreign policy, I think there'll still be a lot of leeway and he can be influenced, but.

[00:46:00] It's disturbing to know that our adversaries, those that are fundamentally opposed to our values, view Trump as this godsend to our destruction. Obviously I feel, I feel intensely about it. And I, I believe strongly in this country and the special role that it plays within the world and, and seeing that endangered is deeply disturbing, is deeply disturbing.

Anita Kellogg: So on that note, on that powerful note, I think we've [00:46:30] pretty much covered the foreign policy tangents that we found in the debate. Yeah. 

Ryan Kellogg: We made a lot of substance for what was, uh, at no point was a coherent argument ever made. 

Anita Kellogg: So that is the context for foreign policy in the presidential election year.

As we've talked about on the show, Ryan and I have this, both the deep interest in India, a country that's becoming more powerful and more important on the global state. And so I was really happy that I had a chance to talk with Samara Lui at the US uh, [00:47:00] Institute piece. And we talked on a variety of topics related to the US India relationship.

And I hope you enjoy listening to it. And I'm here with Samir Lawani, a senior expert on South Asia at the U. S. Institute of Peace. Hi, Samir. Thank you so much for coming on the show. 

Sameer Lalwani: It's great to be on. Thanks for having me. 

Anita Kellogg: So you just got back from India, which just finished holding its elections. While Prime Minister Modi was elected to a third term, his party did [00:47:30] much worse than expected.

Many are calling this a win for democracy. Do you agree? 

Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, 

Anita Kellogg: I think that's 

Sameer Lalwani: probably a fair estimation. I think there was a little uncertainty as to what direction the Modi government was going to take the future of Indian institutions, particularly counter majoritarian institutions, and with a result that it's for the first time the BJP does not have a majority outright, but rather is able to get a majority with its coalition partners, and It means that it has to be, uh, it [00:48:00] has to negotiate more.

It has to negotiate with its own coalition partners who may not be fully on board with like the entire, the entirety of the BJP's agenda. And it probably has to negotiate with the opposition a little bit more or at least bring them into consultations on decision making. So it makes it for a more deliberative democracy, which I think is ultimately healthier for India and for any democracy.

Anita Kellogg: I agree. And I, I think it's a good sign, especially because the signs are pointing otherwise before this election and [00:48:30] Modi was going after his political opponents and freedom of the press India as it becomes more important of a global player. It's important to see it as a strong democracy as well. So how do you see the elections impacting India's foreign policy?

Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, so I think the on foreign policy You're probably not going to see a lot of major changes. I mean, it's still the same government at foreign policy is often the purview of the executive branch and the executive remains [00:49:00] the same and the personality of the executive remains the same. So I expect a lot of consistency.

I think that particularly so that the top foreign policy issues being China, the United States and Pakistan on China. I think you've kind of have a bipartisan or a multi party consensus of sorts. Certainly some of the things that came out of the leads of the opposition in the previous term were, if anything, pushing India to do more with respect to China.

And [00:49:30] prior Congress led governments have also wanted to do things like border infrastructure buildup, uh, and trying to normalize the line of actual control of the disputed border with China, trying to modernize military forces to enhance deterrence. So, I think you're going to see some consistency on the China policy.

On Pakistan You know, I think you're going to see consistency, which is that India is largely ignoring Pakistan. Now, there was some discussion and still possibility that India would start [00:50:00] to allow for a thaw in the relationship, which would have meant restoring some diplomatic positions, diplomatic posts to their embassies, um, and increasing sort of embassy staff, opening up, um, some corridors for religious pilgrimages.

So a few kind of thaws in the relationship. I think if the Modi government had won decisively, that might have been higher on the agenda as it's a more contested political environment. It's not as easy for him to make concessions [00:50:30] or appear to be making concessions to an adversary like Pakistan. So my guess is that at least that not quite rapprochement, but sort of that saw might be delayed at least for a little bit.

And we've already seen that with China that there's It was some expectation of a thought that even the Prime Minister Modi previewed in interviews last fall and last December, but you've seen some pretty stiff moves by the Indians to, I wouldn't say box out China, but they're no longer going to be attending the Shanghai Cooperation [00:51:00] Organization Summit, and I think that is a message to China.

There's not sort of an appetite for just simply normalizing relations. And so I think you'll, you'll see that rapprochement or modus vivendi delayed at least for a period of time, if not postponed indefinitely. And on the U. S. relationship, it's onwards and upwards. I think that's been the case. Again, it's a bipartisan consensus.

Or maybe not consensus, but bipartisan support on the Indian side for expanding the U. S. India defense relationship, particularly the [00:51:30] defense technology relationship. You saw it built up by the Vajpayee government, which was the BJP government, then the Manmohan Singh Congress government for a decade, and then the Modi government picked up from there.

So, I think that will also be consistent with the previous 10 years of Modi government leadership. 

Anita Kellogg: Following up on talking about the U. S. India relationship, so it's increasingly seen as an important partner of the U. S. with respect to strategic competition with China. India, as you kind of [00:52:00] alluded to, has its own tensions with China, including militarized border skirmishes.

What do you see as the most important facets of the U. S. India relationship? 

Sameer Lalwani: So, this is a This is probably a multi part answer or a multi part episode, but I think, like, we just fill it to sort of 3 core or 3 or 4 core elements, right? So 1 is. I think that there's always been a discussion of Indian values that has had to maybe adjust or adapt a little bit over the past few years, as we [00:52:30] have recognized that our two democratic societies have maybe different values or not sort of completely aligned values.

But where we do, I think, still have a pretty strong alignment of values is In international behavior, the rules of the international road, uh, if you will. And so India has been a proponent of some of the pieces we described as the rules based order freedom of navigation and overflights respect for sovereignty, peaceful settlement of conflicts, dispute resolution through negotiations rather than [00:53:00] coercion or outright force.

So I think India still maintain consistency on that and voicing support for that. And criticizing, uh, particularly China when it aggresses against its neighbors, including India and those who aren't so. So I think there's a, there is a international values or sort of international behavior piece that is maybe certain the binding 1 binding piece of the relationship and that's related very closely to defense cooperation, which has a couple.

components to it. [00:53:30] First and foremost for the United States is operational cooperation. We have a national defense strategy that espouses integrated deterrence. We would like that integration to not just be within our services and our interagency, but integrating across partners and allies. And so India being an important partner in the Indo Pacific, we are starting to see more advances in Not just exercises, but actual operations.

You're seeing coordinated operations in the North Arabian Sea, not quite in the Red Sea yet, but in the North Arabian Sea [00:54:00] between U. S. and Indian navies, particularly over the last few months as, um, missiles and drones have disrupted commercial shipping and piracy has stepped up. The Indians have, uh, played an important role in countering some of that and coordinating with U.

S. and other U. S. allied navies. India has joined the Combined Maritime Force, which is a really striking thing for them to join a coalition entity that's not under U. N. auspices for the purposes of maritime security. Pretty counter [00:54:30] piracy. I think that there's scope for growth in that as well. You're also seeing a lot of U.

S. India defense cooperation in technology development in terms of planning to co produce jet engines together for Indian fighter jets that will then be monitoring and defending India's borders against China and other adversaries. Defense technology cooperation in space, in, uh, space based communication.

A situational awareness. I think that there's sort of scope for expansion to many other [00:55:00] domains. The maritime security domain as well as India's Navy becomes more acutely aware of the challenges within maritime approaches in the Indian Ocean. So a lot of the technology cooperation side and then the, you know, the original sort of driver, I think, of the U.

S. India relationship about 25 2025 years ago was this combination of. Just natural commercial interest that India had liberalized as an economy and became a key partner to the United States in information communications [00:55:30] technology development software as a service. And so that economic relationship continues to grow.

I think the U. S. Is now India's leading trade partner as of last year when you combine goods and services, and I think that's expected to grow as well. And that has some degree of relationship with interpersonal relationship with the Indian American diaspora that has been at least part of the economic growth story, particularly in Silicon Valley and the information technology industry.

So Yeah. Maybe those are all different strands, but there's sort of a, you [00:56:00] know, there's the principles, there's defense, and there's economics. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, that's great. And I have questions to follow up on almost all those points. But first, I wanted to ask you, how do you think India would respond to the Chinese invasion of Taiwan?

And what role would they play in the conflict? 

Sameer Lalwani: Ah, well, this is, this is, I think, the million dollar question that we've been discussing in DC, and frankly, in New Delhi, too. And so maybe I'll start by saying, look, I think this conversation, Would have been an asthma, [00:56:30] maybe four or five years ago and received really quizzical looks over the last two years.

I've been basically posing this question in every dialogue that I engage with with Indian counterparts over the last five years, and increasingly there's a greater comfort with the question. There are better answers to that question. And I think the answers are trying to become more compatible with sort of U.

S. Expectations and U. S. Objective. So Thank you. I practiced the question, the response by saying, I think, uh, it is a lot of dynamism in that discussion, [00:57:00] but let's say today, what would we expect? What should the Indian, what we expect Indians to do? I think the truth is that India will try its best to stay, to avoid getting drawn into a Taiwan conflict as much as possible.

And I think that is probably true for a number of U. S. allies and partners for a variety of reasons, uh, self preservation, maybe sort of a little bit of denial, right? I mean, think about our closest allies did not believe the intelligence we shared about the Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine in the days leading up [00:57:30] to Russia's invasion.

And so I think there'll be a lot of resistance to accept that that's what's happening. And then I think if a crisis were to ensue, I would expect, as the United States rallies its allies and coalition partners, that India would start to, maybe begrudgingly, start to do things in support of the United States, right?

So there's a lot of passive things that India could do just without ever having to send a ship out anywhere. It could provide intelligence, it could provide, you know, [00:58:00] access to, or sort of collaboration with its space based assets, whether it's for resilient communications, sort of, you know, to augment U.

S. based operations, or also for their own intelligence collection. They could do, they could backfill a lot of roles that the United States has. Has as a responsibility in the Indian Ocean, a lot of things that fifth fleet does in the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian sea, I think India can naturally backfill that, and that's where you see India's role in the combined maritime forces, essentially preparing India for some of those roles and [00:58:30] responsibilities and counter piracy, lock protection, maritime security, even ensuring that Iran doesn't try to opportunistically aggressively.

In the region, while US forces and coalition partners are oriented towards the Pacific, so I think those are the early sort of ideas for what India could do. There's a lot of diplomatic stuff that India could do. I think it could obviously take on responsibilities or like leading coalitions within the UN, whether it's sort of condemnation, resolutions or other acts to put pressure on [00:59:00] China, India has professed itself to be a leader of the global South and has actually done a really good job of engaging the voice of the global South and trying to augment their voices in venues like the G20.

So I think leveraging some of that influence, I think it would be appropriate for India to do that at the time. But really, what we're sort of talking about is this space between what India Might do what it could do and then there's probably sort of we're approaching a A point of what we would like india to do which is probably even more I mean I think there would be [00:59:30] a lot of things we would like for the india to do in terms of even just in the indian ocean protecting u.

s transit of forces and maneuver within the indian ocean so that we don't have to expend so many resources on air defense or Tracking chinese submarines. I think that there would be an interest in access and basing and overflights both in The in about nickelback islands which are Abutting the trade in Malacca, but also.

Even Indian mainland. I think there's a whole range of, or a menu of things that we could start to put on the table, and none of them [01:00:00] require India to deploy forces east of the Malacca or hoots on the ground, so to speak, but there's a lot of creative ways in which war can be fought from a distance or over the horizon, and we're seeing that today in Ukraine and Israel with all the partners that are supporting those countries, and I think that we have set out maybe a template for the things that India could do to support really its own interest in preventing war.

Chinese or takeover of Taiwan, but really before that contributing to the deterrence of that operation in [01:00:30] the first place. 

Anita Kellogg: Those are really interesting points going towards technology and not everyone in the U. S. is aware of how advanced China's technological innovation has become and many are now concerned that China is leading in many advanced technologies, such as electronic batteries, hypersonics, and advanced radio frequency communications.

You've spoken on the significance of initiatives like Indus 6, a vehicle for technological cooperation between U. S. and Indian defense [01:01:00] companies. What makes IndusX so important to the U. S. India partnership? 

Sameer Lalwani: Well, that's another topic that you can get me going for an hour on. So I think basically there are three objectives with IndusX from the U.

S. standpoint. Number one is, again, to help India unlock and unleash its own technological potential in the defense space. To compete with China and to compete with China purely for its own sort of self defense, [01:01:30] or at least a minimum for its own self defense, rather. Right now, we know that India is overmatched in terms of spending and capability, both sort of quality and quantity, against China.

And frankly, the, the border with China just favors China in so many ways in terms of terrain and, um, geography, distance from capital, like China could move up missile capabilities that could range Indian urban centers very easily. It would take, uh, [01:02:00] Herculean efforts for India to be able to range even urban centers in Western, in the Western theater command of China.

There's just an imbalance in terms of what they can hold at risk. There's a lot of disadvantages for India. So the goal is for India to, uh, to help India be able to defend itself better, uh, through technology initiatives that leverage private sector collaboration. Um, that would mean India getting access to certain capabilities that are relatively new.

So in this case, being able to produce GE 414 engines that would then power indigenous light combat [01:02:30] aircraft, which would then basically give it something of a, you know, exporting chance against the PLA air force. But also moving to other areas again, like maritime domain awareness, communications and areas that India can leverage that are maybe sort of give them asymmetric.

Capacity to deter and defend against China, particularly with unmanned, so I think that's sort of step one. Step two is to sort of build more integration between our defense industries and our defense [01:03:00] communities as a whole, both for U. S. resilience in the future of a country. A theater war in the Indo Pacific where we need to rely on sourcing materials or capabilities from within theater.

It's a lot easier to do that from within theater than it is to sort of transit all these things across the Pacific. Or, and then have to, you know, reconstitute them or, or defend them sort of across the Pacific, so. Relying on the theater for servicing, maintenance, sourcing, there's already a lot of, uh, U. S.,

or there's a number of U. S. ships that have gone, or [01:03:30] naval ships that have gone to India for maintenance and repair, and I think the goal is to expand some of that. And then, I think, besides sort of India's own defense and supporting, you know, U. S. operational interests in the future, there's a competitive influence element, too, which is China and Russia are some of the leading providers of defense capabilities to a number, to a number of countries in the Global South, but, you know, that may not be the appropriate term, but, you know, lesser developed countries, Global South, [01:04:00] large parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America.

And india could be a very competitive player in that market that would then just Erode at least some of uh, russian and chinese influence, um in these markets I mean arms are it's not just a transaction. They are very sticky forms of technology that have sort of an enduring tail We see this now with how much india still continues to depend on russia We can talk about that later But that endurance means it sort of confers a degree of political influence And so in [01:04:30] it would be in us interest to see india be able to export more Defense technologies that are more competitive in those markets where the u.

s U. S. producers are not competitive, right? Because we produce exquisite weapons for the richest countries in the world, mainly just the United States. That's where Russia and China thrive. It's in sort of the spaces outside of the Western OECD countries. And that's where India could put a dent in their arms and political influence.

Anita Kellogg: Interesting. I want to follow up on that to some degree, but [01:05:00] first. As India is increasingly becoming more of a global power, what is the extent to its influence and capabilities in the Indian Ocean region? 

Sameer Lalwani: So I think in the Indian Ocean, there's probably sort of two ways to break this down. There's political capabilities and military capabilities and political capabilities would be about sort of the degree of influence that they wield in the region.

And that would mean, you know, in the littoral states of the Indian Ocean. [01:05:30] Historically, India was quite influential, um, and arguably the most powerful political force, certainly in the, uh, South Asian subcontinent, but you could argue even, you know, had substantial influence on, in the Bay of Bengal, so even Myanmar, Thailand to a degree, and increasingly in recent years had sort of growing influence on both Iran, And the gold state, just because of its rising economic power, it becomes sort of a magnet for all these countries.

So it has the potential for a lot of [01:06:00] political influence. Unfortunately, it's Been outplayed, I'd say, over the last 10 years by China, particularly with the Belt and Road Initiative, right? And then this is sort of, at the end of the day, Chinese money has been able to out duel Indian goodwill most days. A lot of countries sort of respect India for the positions that it takes, for sort of its rule abiding behavior.

It has not been a particularly aggressive country, even though it is sort of a de facto regional hegemon. I mean, there are a few countries disagree with that, but on average, I think [01:06:30] countries see India as a positive and stabilizing force. It's still a growing economy. Uh, Indian workers travel all over the region for, for work in the Gulf, uh, particularly sort of after the oil boom.

In Myanmar and Thailand, there's like huge amounts of Indian diaspora or non resident Indians. So they sort of have varying ways of political influence, but Yeah, Belt and Road initiative has seemed to really trump that because political leadership really like to see large infrastructure projects that either get them elected or [01:07:00] put money in their pockets or actually solve real problems in their country.

And so for all those reasons, India's influence has been diminishing relative to China's over the last years. I still think it has. It's sort of maybe the lead political influencer in, um, the subcontinent, but definitely China has made substantial inroads against India in that. And then in terms of military capabilities, I think you're seeing a similar story, which is that.

The Indian Navy, which is arguably the most powerful Navy in the Indian Ocean, that's there sort of permanently, at [01:07:30] times the U. S. Navy, if it surges into the Gulf, can, is probably the more powerful Navy, obviously, but the Chinese Navy has started to make inroads into the Indian Ocean as well, and that's in terms of their counter piracy task force sort of being more on station in the Indian Ocean on Regular basis since 2008, the ports that again are related to the belt road initiative that it's building their commercial ports that it, I can, I could leverage potentially for male, uh, military tasks in the future, or even just for commercial [01:08:00] tasks that, you know, have a dual use purpose.

And then the size of, uh, sort of China's service fleet that it's building out the number of destroyers and frigates. That Franklin or sort of like a new fleet that it could send to the Indian ocean should choose any time. There are some reasons why it might sort of want to start protecting more actively protecting the sea lines communication and its economic interests and investments, um, throughout the Indian Ocean area.

So, I would expect China to start to encroach more. You [01:08:30] see it happening with Chinese submarines making more regular forays into the Indian Ocean, Chinese survey vessels mapping the area out, preparing the way potentially for greater Chinese influence. And there the Indian Navy again has. Plateau to say in terms of its combat power and influence again, sort of a decades of not quite neglect, but delay in terms of new acquisition some in terms of India's developing countries.

So it has to make decisions about, first and foremost, the well being of its people, but things like the [01:09:00] submarine program that India has been contemplating since 2006 and still has not been able to find a partner for acquisition and procurement. That would take another 15 years. So there are substantial delays in its naval power that I think will mean that Chinese naval power will start to have significant, if not more influence in the Indian Ocean over the next decade, unless India starts to make some changes.

Anita Kellogg: Very interesting. So you mentioned early on about differing values between the U. S. and [01:09:30] India, but consensus when it comes to international behavior in the world order, but there are some reasons for friction and I'll talk about Russia in a minute. But first, the idea that. India has expressed that the ideal international system is not when dominated by a single hegemon, but would be multipolar with India as a significant power in its own right in the longer term.

Do you see this as leading to tensions between the US and India? 

Sameer Lalwani: It [01:10:00] kind of depends on how it manifests itself, right? So the sort of commitment to multipolarity is always complicated because for India. It's an ideal and sort of an article of faith that the world is multipolar, and therefore we should act like it is multipolar.

And I think that for a lot of U. S. analysts, you look at the distribution of power today, and particularly after 2022, when you see tighter European alignment with the United States as well. Northeast Asia and tighter Russia, China alignment, and [01:10:30] you and you look to yourself and you say, well, maybe the world looks a little more bipolar in terms of the distribution of power.

And that is the apt description of the distribution power in the international system. And so. It's fine to sort of aspire to multipolarity, but that's not what exists today, or that's not where we're trending towards, you know, why are we fighting so hard for sort of this abstract idea that doesn't, that's not present for the Indians.

The problem is that it undermines a lot of their foreign policy strategy and [01:11:00] thinking, which is about essentially, I wouldn't say exploiting the opportunity to multipolarity, but leveraging a geopolitical marketplace. And if the world is bipolar, there's no geopolitical marketplace, there's just one choice or another choice, and really, China's not a choice, so it basically means there's one choice, and that's not what India wants.

It believes that it has thrived and grown both economically and strategically when it was able to sort of compete, uh, when it was sort of to see countries compete [01:11:30] for influence with India and for opportunities with India. And particularly between the Russia and the United States. And so it's these technology streams from Russia as a valuable source of leverage and influence.

And as long as Russia remains an independent pole in the system that opens up space for India to maneuver and negotiate. And it would even like to see a little more daylight between the Europeans and the Americans, at least in terms of, you know, the technology sector. So again, it can leverage more out of them.

I mean, that's, Again, [01:12:00] understandable that that would be the strategy, but I don't think that maybe is an accurate description of sort of where we might be trending towards in the future. And so to hold on to multi polarity as an article of faith without kind of coming to terms with the realities on the ground might pose some, some problems in the future.

And especially if India tries to prop up Russia as that whole, 

Anita Kellogg: uh, if 

Sameer Lalwani: it tries to do so. So through ruble rupee payment structures, or as is reported just today in the news, uh, Prime Minister Modi going to Russia [01:12:30] to, you know, for his first visit since, um, the Ukraine war, maybe trying to rekindle and build up the relationship in, in other, in other areas of technology and defense.

Certainly in energy, it's grown, you know, 10 times, if not more over the last two years. So, so I think that would be challenging for the United States, Russia specifically, because A lot of U. S. India technology cooperation is based on the assumption of sort of the security of Indian systems and industry and communications.

And the more the [01:13:00] Russians are in those systems, the more concerned the United States has not just because of Russia, but Russia becomes a backdoor to China as well. And that's just sort of a fundamental difference that we have with Indians about the risk of Russia. But the other, you know, just just throw one another point out there about because we were talking about values.

I mean, there's another area that's Also a little challenging. It's been diminished, I think, in recent years, but India shares a belief with Russia about maybe you could say the entitlement of regional spheres of influence. Um, it's [01:13:30] not as I wouldn't say it's as vocal about this as it is about sort of multipolarity, but the both these concepts, multipolarity and spheres of influence are kind of.

About a broader concept of a polycentric order that Russia definitely espouses. And at times you see India behaving like it, you know, the, the Indian Ocean should be its, its ocean, its backyard. It should sort of have first right of refusal for all sort of political engagements in the region. There's, there was a time when the U.

S. would try to [01:14:00] engage with regional partners like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. And not that India could actually do this, but it would express dislike and, and, and a desire for these things not to happen if it didn't go through India. So for the U. S. to have sort of independent security partnerships with Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or independence or peacekeeping training program with Bangladesh, that was frowned upon by India and, you know, potentially jeopardized U.

S. India. Relations. And so I think India has quieted that concern in recent [01:14:30] years as it's realized that China is encroaching very quickly into its domain. And so things like a U. S. Maldives defense act or defense arrangements are not as threatening to Indian interests as they once were, because at least they crowd out a Chinese Maldives defense arrangements.

But Down the road, it could be that once India feels more confident and secure and capable in its region, it might try to revert back to treating the Indian Ocean or the subcontinent as its sphere of influence, and that might pose a challenge to our views of the international [01:15:00] order, but for now, we are in congruence, and that is sufficient for at least sort of the task at hand.

Anita Kellogg: It seems to me that India and the U. S. share more fears over China than they do actual values. And by that, I mean, how can you say that your value is international world order and behavior when you don't take a stance against Russian aggression? 

Sameer Lalwani: Yeah, it's a, it's a huge problem and a gap in sort of India's logic [01:15:30] that they are willing to tolerate.

That kind of aggression, but not aggression in South China Sea or on the Indian border. They will, however, and this is sort of, I don't defend this position, but it's, it's worth sort of contemplating, they will, however, point out. That we, the West, or we, the United States, are also selective in our determination as to what is a violation of sovereignty, or sort of aggressive violence, act of violent sovereignty, and point out that we supported Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen [01:16:00] for several years, and we ourselves prosecuted a war in Iraq.

Even in road roughshod over sort of our own allies objections on the basis of this being a violation of sovereignty and sort of rules of the international system, and we, you know, believe we had good reason to do this. We did it with maybe sort of an interest in global security, but those are, you know, those are the reasons that Russia is sort of now using to defend its war in Ukraine.

So it is not to sort of draw a false equivalence here, but to simply say at least India is able to [01:16:30] use it. Maybe clever deflection, but also it's not just India that believes this. This is, these are. Responses that seem to resonate with large parts of the global south as well as we've seen and survey data Both sort of elites and general public and so it is a real challenge for us to just stand on this position that russia was the first country to violate the rules of the international system after 72 years or 70 years plus years of peace and security A lot of countries aren't buying it including [01:17:00] india Uh, so then we have to sort of revert back to like what our core interests are and I think you're right that it is Is about at least Ensuring that it's not Chinese unipolarity in or unipolarity in Asia, and there I think we have very strong agreement, and we have agreement on it on the basis of like the way in which China sort of bullies its neighbors and violates against sort of Rules of the road that have worked for both of us over time, right?

Even if it's, it's been sort of selective application, the rules about sort of, um, freedom of navigation and [01:17:30] overflight and even peaceful dispute resolution have worked really well for us in Asia and worked well for India's economic growth story, frankly, for China. So there, I think we sort of find some congruence and Are able to, to build from that, but yeah, we have, we have a, we have a problem on Russia and I don't know, I've thought a lot about this.

I'm not sure there's an easy resolution to it in part because Indian interests are still really tied up with both the theory of multipolarity and Russia's centrality to it, but then also to really deep arms dependence that goes into the strategic [01:18:00] systems that are really hard to look away from. 

Anita Kellogg: That's what I want to go a little bit more in depth.

So although its overall share is decreasing, and I think this is more about Indians, native capabilities, increasing in defense, Russia remains a leading supplier of India's military equipment and is it's also helped keep the Russian economy afloat by buying its oil. So how does India view Russian military aggression?

And as you've kind of already touched on, but a little bit more depth, how does its relationship with Russia [01:18:30] affect its partnership with the U S? 

Sameer Lalwani: Yeah. Okay. So. I think it's worth separating this out a little bit because the energy domain is one that was fairly small up until 2022 and then grew tremendously from like, you know, a few billion dollars a year in energy transactions and investments to 50 billion, I think, last year, and that's largely India buying below or about at the price cap that US and NATO partners have, have agreed on, and then refining it domestically and then [01:19:00] selling it back onto the market at a higher price.

So India. Pockets some of the benefits. I think they said believe in saved or accrued billions in that sort of those transactions They've also kept oil prices relatively stable And this is something that I've heard former US officials even acknowledged that we're Russian oil that come completely offline It just really destroyed the global economy entirely.

It's certainly price shocks in the West and India, as well as other countries have been sort of part of helping to stabilize that oil price. So, but that's a, I say that's sort of more of a space of [01:19:30] opportunism and maybe less sort of challenging. And it's also not sticky in the sense that they could change their oil purchasing behavior is pretty quickly if we want to sort of, you know, resolve that.

The arms dependent is maybe the more intractable part, because this is something that India has been building up Or since the 1960s, since they acquired MiG 21 Bisons that they were able to license produce. And since then, they had really good relationships with the Soviet Union in terms of defense production that was [01:20:00] licensed produced in India.

So they created jobs and industries out of it and supply lines out of it. They got some technology transfer, uh, far less than they, they sort of claim. But nevertheless, that sort of transferred into the defense public sector. I say today, yeah, there's a large amount of India's arsenal that has Russian origins, Russian or Soviet origins.

His new procurement is definitely diversifying, but that arsenal, we're talking about sort of, you know, thousands of pieces of military equipment that stay in your [01:20:30] system for 20, 30 years at least, and India keeps things around for much longer. Like it still has MiG 21s that are flying in its air force.

So India is particularly vulnerable to the sort of this long tail and legacy of Russian and Soviet equipment. Even there, I would say it's not, it wouldn't be so intractable except that. What I worry about is that some of India's most strategic systems today have benefited, not really necessarily from Soviet support, but from Russian support in the 90s.

And that was, in a way, a crucial [01:21:00] period, just like there was a lot of brain drain from Russia that went to China and, you know, helped infuse their military research developments. In India, India benefited a little bit from it, not nearly as much as China, but for example, there's a joint venture program between Indian defense and Russia called the BrahMos missile program and developed out of the Russian Onik missile, which was an initial prototype that needed a lot more development.

So the Indians put up capital to do it with the Russians. The joint venture is based in India. It produces this supersonic [01:21:30] cruise missile that Seems to be appealing to a number of countries. It's been sold to the Philippines, for example, and they believe it's been, you know, pretty important in their, uh, holding at risk of Chinese ships with this, uh, anti ship cruise missile.

But it, it still relies on Russian technology, including a Russian ramjet propulsion, and Indians have not been able to reverse engineer or develop that on their own. And so they will be dependent on Russia for this missile capability, which is a really, It seems to be helping, you know, US allies in the South China Sea.

So it's a [01:22:00] complicated situation for them. It's also potentially a sort of nuclear capable delivery system if they were to want to use it. And they've suggested as much that that might be the case. But it's also their, their SSBNs, their ballistic nuclear submarine program. Seems to have benefited from Russian engineering and support.

There's still reports that Russian engineers and technicians work in Indian naval ports and bases on their submarine programs, both through their conventional diesel submarines, but also their nuclear submarine. This [01:22:30] is all speculative, by the way. So like, you know, anyone listening to this, as sort of knows more than me, you should, you should definitely sort of tell me I'm wrong, but this is based on sort of limited, very thin open source reporting and then whispers like in Delhi.

But I think it's plausible. And I think this is a real constraint on the Indian system, because if they want to sort of have an assured second strike capability that relies on Summary launch ballistic missiles. They, they might need to continue at least Russian collaboration. Um, if not support for this [01:23:00] program, as they continue to build and launch new SSBN.

In their fleet. So I think that's another real challenge for them. Some of the missile development sort of probably helped by the Russians may not sort of be entirely dependent on it, their nuclear program still to this day that their hopes on a fast breeder reactor are based on Russian, Russian design reactor.

So there's a lot of things that are sticky and will probably remain so for a long period of time that even maybe you could ask the [01:23:30] U. S. Yeah. Is it in our interest to tell India to divest from these systems? I think it'd be probably not. We don't want India to sort of step back its nuclear capabilities so far back that it has no ability to deter China, um, if there's, you know, some escalation.

So, so I think we're in a bit of a bind. Now, the, sorry, you asked one last question that I thought I'd just really quickly reference, which is, How does this pose a problem for the U. S.? I mean, certainly in anything that sort of has information and communications technology, it's a [01:24:00] problem for us to sort of seamlessly interoperate with those Indian systems.

The good news is that a lot of Indian maritime reconnaissance capabilities, uh, are purchased by the, uh, from the United States. So, P. H. MH 60s, and then soon MQ 9s that will allow for a lot of maritime reconnaissance. It's purely based on U. S. suites of systems. But if they're surface fleet, it's still, there's a lot of Russian equipment there.

It requires not easy, but I think plausible cross domain solutions are written about this in places, but again, people a [01:24:30] lot smarter than me can kind of talk about the details. It's just. I think it basically, it's a cost problem, not an insurmountable technical problem. But then the other part that we always have to worry about is Russian counterintelligence and espionage in the Indian system.

That it's human, that the networks, that's in a lot of different ways, that so long as India has a tight relationship with Russia in its military space, it's going to be, it's going to be a challenge for us to share technology, to share intelligence, to have total releasability in those spaces. [01:25:00] 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, those are some interesting points that you brought up, which on one hand is that the U.

S. maybe doesn't want India to completely cut defense ties because it doesn't want to weaken India's military capabilities, of course, but then on the other hand, it prevents some of the collaborative building upon between the two defense in both countries. 

Sameer Lalwani: Because there was a really interesting GAO report I stumbled on.

It's from like 2006 and it's about the Egyptian military's transition from. [01:25:30] Soviet supplied equipment to western equipment, or at least it was sort of there's some research about this and after like 30 years and 30 billion Dollars of foreign military financing, which is not trivial for uh going to the egyptians They were still only available to replace about half their Equipment, uh, to be, uh, like the other, the half of the equipment still remains, uh, Soviet, uh, after those 30 years.

And so it's a, it's an enormous process to rip and replace, especially during the poor developing country. I can't afford to do all that stuff. [01:26:00] So I think, I think we're going to find here that I think it's going to be enduring for some time. 

Anita Kellogg: That is interesting and definitely some food for thought and all that you brought up.

I could still continue to go on about, you know, economics. I have so many questions, but I think for today, this, this is a great interview. And I want to just thank you so much for coming on a show and sharing your insight on how India's perspective on so much of what's going on in the world and its relationship with the [01:26:30] U.

S. So thank you so very much. 

Sameer Lalwani: Thanks for the opportunity. I really enjoyed it. 

Anita Kellogg: Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics. You can visit our website at www. kelloggsglobalpolitics. com and follow us on Twitter at Global Kellogg or me, AR Kellogg. 

Ryan Kellogg: You can also reach us by email, so nita at kelloggsglobalpolitics.

com and myself, Ryan, at kelloggsglobalpolitics. com. As always, please see the show notes for the articles we discussed in this [01:27:00] episode. And if you like the show, please take the time, tell your friends, share it on your social sites. It's a simple, quick, and free way to support the show. Thanks. 

Thanks. Bye.