How America's Retreat To Its 'Homeland' May Be India's Opening In The Indo-Pacific 'Rimland'

“We want to visit Chagos to put our flag there, including Diego Garcia. The British offered us a vessel, but we said we preferred one from India because symbolically it would be better,” said Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam on his ongoing visit to India.

The explicit expression of this choice has not been appreciated enough. It captures the shifting geometry of power in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), where smaller states increasingly look to India not just as a convenient partner, but as a natural source of legitimacy in their assertion of sovereignty.

This statement carries particular weight at a time when the United States is signalling a retreat from its traditional role as the Indo-Pacific’s security guarantor.

In a stunning break from recent US defence policy, it's 2025 National Defence Strategy (NDS) signals a "homeland-first" doctrine, prioritising protection of the US homeland and Western Hemisphere. This proposed shift marks a striking reversal of Washington's post-Cold War grand strategy, which had placed heavy emphasis on forward-deploying power to check rivals in Eurasia. The most recent example was the 2018 NDS aimed at containing China.

The timing could not be more telling.

It comes against the backdrop of tensions in India-US relations since August 2025, marked by 50 per cent tariffs over India's trade barriers and continued Russian oil purchases. Viral images from the SCO Summit in Tianjin, where Modi was photographed with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, captured the prevailing situation quite appropriately.

For India, the implications of America's turn inwards and transactionalism are immediate and profound. It effectively means the US conceding influence in Halford Mackinder's Eurasian "Heartland." But who shapes the heartland then?

"Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia," contended Nicholas Spykman when he refined Mackinder's heartland thesis. India, straddling the vital land-sea interface of the Indo-Pacific, is precisely that rimland power. New Delhi now faces the prospect of a regional security vacuum that it may have to fill.

These foundational geopolitical theories view geography as determining global power. Mackinder's "Heartland Theory" identified the Eurasian landmass as the pivot of world control, while Spykman refined this to argue that the "rimland" (coastal regions surrounding the heartland) was the real key to global dominance.

With the global pivot now decisively shifted eastward toward Asia, control of the rimland has become even more critical, positioning India as a uniquely strategic power straddling vital sea lanes and the land-sea interface.

The change comes at a time when China's assertiveness is at a high. Its Belt and Road Initiative is expanding at record pace with over 66 billion dollars in new projects in just the first half of 2025.

If Washington now signals putting “homeland” above countering China in the Indo-Pacific, the spectre of Beijing rapidly filling the void looms large. Consequently, the burden of maintaining stability in Asia could increasingly fall to like-minded partners, foremost among them, India.

The Quad Setback: Downgraded China Deterrence and a No-Show Summit?

This burden is already visible in alliance diplomacy.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). In a development unthinkable only months ago, US President Donald Trump may skip the Quad leaders' November summit in India. This would deliver a major blow to the Indo-Pacific coalition of four democracies: India, the US, Australia, and Japan.

Trump’s likely absence raises fresh concerns over Washington’s dependability. Few believe the US will abandon the Quad outright, but the erratic temperament of the current administration has been on display from the start. The contrast with President Biden’s era is stark. Then, the Quad saw consistent high-level commitment and regular summits. Now, US engagement falls short just as anxieties about China remain acute.

Reports suggest Trump’s priorities lie elsewhere, notably in striking deals with Beijing and Moscow, and, worryingly for India, even with Pakistan. In Trump’s worldview, there appears to be no great power competition. That perspective encapsulates the dilemma of the other Quad members.

If Washington downplays the Chinese threat for short-term gain, the very rationale for the Quad comes into doubt. This applies not only to India, Japan, and Australia, but also to regional partners who have long seen it as a pillar of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Such uncertainty forces them to contemplate alternatives.

India's Dual Challenge: Sub-Continental Borders and Maritime Frontiers

India faces a dual challenge as a rimland power: the Himalayan frontier and the Indian Ocean.

On land, the PLA has entrenched itself since Galwan, with logistics that allow rapid surges along the LAC. Indian forces have responded with year-round deployments, accelerated border infrastructure, and an unblinking military presence in Ladakh and Arunachal. Pakistan, though a lesser adversary, remains a persistent irritant, capable of fermenting crises and diverting resources, as seen in the Pahalgam terror attack.

At sea, the stakes are even greater.

Naval strength remains the foundation of influence in the Indian Ocean Region, and here Beijing is pressing aggressively. Through the BRI's "Maritime Silk Road," China has invested heavily in ports from the Persian Gulf to Myanmar, while its navy and submarines now routinely operate in the Indian Ocean. Joint naval drills with Russia and Iran reinforce the impression of a rising counter-order.

India, too, is stepping up as the region’s net security provider, embodying Prime Minister Modi's vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region). This doctrine positions India as the first responder to maritime crises and the primary coordinator of regional security architecture.

Concrete developments underscore this role. On 4 September, Singapore’s Prime Minister Wong backed India joining patrols in the Malacca Strait, which is a recognition of the fact that India is the best bet to check China’s adventurism in the Indo-Pacific’s most critical chokepoint.

India’s neighbourhood also reflects this growing role. Despite periodic tensions, New Delhi remains the first responder in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, from tsunami warnings to search-and-rescue operations. The restoration of helicopter services to remote Maldivian atolls and Dornier aircraft operations demonstrates India’s willingness to be a reliable partner rather than a domineering neighbour.

India also played a quiet but crucial role in the Chagos Islands mediation between Mauritius and the UK, underscoring both its diplomatic weight and security presence. The point was driven home during Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s ongoing India visit, when he explained Mauritius’s decision to use an Indian vessel to hoist their flag in Chagos noting that "symbolically it would be better."

Further afield, Indian naval patrols off the Horn of Africa have escorted thousands of merchant vessels through piracy-prone waters, expanding into broader maritime security cooperation with Gulf states. Meanwhile, joint exercises with Vietnam in the South China Sea and India’s leadership in forums like the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium highlight New Delhi’s readiness to project influence beyond its immediate periphery.

Yet challenges remain. India’s submarine fleet lags behind China’s expanding underwater presence, its two carriers pale beside Beijing’s growing fleet, and budget constraints slow naval modernisation.

Nevertheless, India’s ability to integrate continental defence with maritime projection while cultivating partnerships across Asia positions it as the indispensable rimland power.

Strategic Autonomy Vindicated: The Wisdom of Multi-Alignment

Washington's inward turn has ironically vindicated New Delhi's traditional doctrine of strategic autonomy. For years, India resisted binding alliances, preferring multipolar engagement that allows it to find common ground with disparate powers.

Western critics long chided India for "sitting on the fence." They pointed to India joining the Quad and deepening defence ties with the US while remaining active in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Today, as US commitment wavers, India's diversified portfolio looks less like strategic confusion and more like prescient hedging.

More significantly, these multi-alignment channels have positioned India as a crucial mediator in global conflicts, trusted by both Putin and Zelensky, and even urged by EU leaders to push Moscow toward dialogue.

The recent US behaviour has further reinforced this logic. Rather than consolidating India as a natural ally against China, Washington chose coercion.

It imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods, doubling the existing 25 per cent rate over India's continued Russian oil purchases, and even took credit for an India-Pakistan ceasefire in a way New Delhi saw as intrusive.

Senior officials went so far as to accuse India of funding Putin’s war machine, an approach that struck Indian policymakers as hypocritical given Europe’s own energy dealings with Moscow.

India’s response has been measured but firm. While the Ministry of External Affairs called such remarks “unfortunate” and “misleading,” Modi himself refused to escalate, keeping his language diplomatic and forward-looking. The consequences were unmistakable. Far from bending India, the pressure deepened its engagement with BRICS, SCO, and European partners, while Russian energy imports actually increased.

The SCO Summit in Tianjin captured this hedging well. It signalled to the US that the leader of the world's largest democracy can remain cordial with the very adversaries Washington seeks to isolate, just as a miffed Trump complained of having lost India "to the deepest, darkest, China".

Even so, the US President quickly sought an off-ramp, emphasising his personal rapport with Modi: "I'll always be friends with Modi... He's a great Prime Minister." Modi, in turn, described ties as "very positive and forward-looking."

That the dynamics of this Indo-US relationship have shifted is clear in the latest exchange between Trump and Modi.

Trump's conciliatory post on the resumption of trade talks described Modi as a "very good friend." While Modi acknowledged his post, the subtle shift in tone was not lost on anyone. Unlike earlier occasions when he characteristically referred to Trump as his friend, this time he restricted himself to just noting that "India and the US are close friends and natural partners."

The nuance was telling. It signalled that personal trust had frayed and that the relationship, once framed around the leaders’ rapport, was now firmly transactional.

The lesson is clear. Strategic partners do not coerce each other on matters of core interest.

By overplaying its hand, Washington has highlighted why India cannot afford over-dependence on any single power. Strategic autonomy, long derided as fence-sitting, now appears less a weakness than a shield.

It preserves India’s freedom of action precisely when others seek to limit it. It has thus emerged not merely as a doctrine but as a practical enabler of India’s next phase of leadership.

Leading the Rimland: Will India Step Up?

Substantial challenges persist. India must balance continental defence with naval expansion, advance indigenous production, and manage shifting power dynamics in the Indian Ocean Region. Yet these difficulties pale beside the opportunities created by America's retreat.

The ability to engage simultaneously with the Quad and SCO, with Washington and Moscow, with European powers and West Asia, provides diplomatic flexibility that rigid alliances cannot match.

What emerges is not India as a junior partner in someone else's alliance, but as a leading power capable of shaping the balance across the world's most crucial rimland, the Indo-Pacific.