The decision by the United States military to change the name of its naval command in the region from “US INDOPACOM” to “US PACOM” — United States Indo-Pacific Command to United States Pacific Command — reverting to its original name that was changed in 2018 can be dismissed as superficial, even trivial. Many have already responded with the Shakespearean “What’s in a name?”, even as the U.S. Department of War pointed out that US PACOM’s area of responsibility, from “the waters off the West Coast of the United States to the western border of India” or what had once been described as “Hollywood to Bollywood, from polar bears to penguins”, has never changed. In 2018, U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said that the name INDOPACOM was a recognition of the “growing significance” of the Indian Ocean, the Indian subcontinent, and India itself, and the U.S. dropped the term “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific”.

Current U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave the signal, on May 30, that this understanding has now changed, at his speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore — compared to more than 30 references to the “Indo-Pacific” in his speech in 2025, his speech this year contained not a single reference to the Indo-Pacific region or strategy.

Given the centre stage that the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific policy has had in India’s strategic calculus since 2018, it is necessary, therefore, to go beyond the superficial to the subterranean or submarine, in this case. New Delhi must study how broader trends in U.S. policy are attempting to recast both the region and India’s position within it in terms of three broader geographies.

U.S.-China ties and the Quad

The first, is the U.S.’s outreach to China, and concurrently diminishing salience of the Quad (India, Japan, Australia, the U.S.), which Beijing has always protested as an “exclusive clique” or derisively as “ocean foam”. In the long term, the U.S. and China cannot shy away from the fierce rivalry between them, but it is clear that in the immediate term, Trump 2.0 has decided to play nice.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May 2026 and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to the U.S. on September 24, indicate that the two sides do not want their differences to overcome the relationship, and the U.S. is tiptoeing around the Taiwan issue. Mr. Trump’s references to a “G-2”, including during a press availability with Mr. Modi on the sidelines of the 52nd G-7 summit in France (June 15 to 17), are an early warning of a plan to recast the world into “spheres of influence”, where China would be the predominant power in the continent, not as one pole in a multipolar Asia, as India envisions.

As a result, the Quad, rebuilt in Trump 1.0 as a counter to China in the region, appears to be floundering. The U.S.’s National Defense Strategy released in January 2026 does not mention the Quad even once. In terms of substance, the Quad’s combined agenda has been pared down to four areas of cooperation — maritime security, economic prosperity, critical and emerging minerals technology and disaster responses. Even within these limited objectives, there have been setbacks, such as over Artificial Intelligence cooperation. Despite Quad countries signing on to Pax Silica, and Critical Minerals Initiative Framework with the U.S., the Trump administration ordered Anthropic to end access to its latest models for all non-Americans.

Another question concerns the Quad Summit, which India has unsuccessfully sought to host since January 2024. During U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Delhi in May 2026, he offered no firm commitment that Mr. Trump would visit Delhi this year, amid indications that the Quad may be relegated to a Foreign Ministers’ level grouping. The U.S. Navy’s reported actions involving Iranian ship IRIS Dena (March 2006) and recent attacks on three ships in which three Indians were killed underscore maritime security and domain awareness concerns within the Quad framework. In July, when he hosts Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and travels to Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi must discuss alternative maritime coalitions and revive the Australia-India-Japan trilateral.

The U.S.-Iran MoU and West Asia

The second geography of concern is West Asia. The U.S. ceasefire with Iran, after just a few months of a surprisingly badly planned war, is indicative of a general fatigue in Trump 2.0 with U.S. friends and allies in the region. The situation is even more volatile today than it was prior to February 28, especially given the short shrift Israel has received in negotiations with Iran, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defiance over the ceasefire for Lebanon.

A closer look at the 14-paragraph “Islamabad MoU” released by Iran reveals several signals for the region. Paragraph four states that the U.S. commits to “remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran” within 30 days after the final deal. Paragraph five says that, after the Hormuz Strait is demined, Iran and Oman will define the Strait’s future administration in consultation with Persian Gulf littoral states.

Paragraph 6 stipulates that the U.S., along with regional allies, will provide at least $300 billion for Iran’s reconstruction. These provisions imply commitments on behalf of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) states while giving Iran leverage on key issues — military, connectivity, and economic security. Oman and Qatar are now closer to Iran than before and have been part of the Pakistan-led mediation process, while countries such as Saudi Arabia are seeking new security arrangements with Türkiye, Pakistan, and Ukraine.

India’s policy towards the region requires a rapid revision in light of the post-war, post-deal power structure. What was once a finely balanced approach now appears tilted towards Israel and the United Arab Emirates. New Delhi must also urgently reconsider its compliance with U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil and the Chabahar port, given Washington’s shifting positions.

The U.S. and South Asia

Finally, India must study the implications of U.S. foreign policy decisions in its neighbourhood. The appointment of Sergio Gor as both U.S. Ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asia signals Washington’s growing regional ambitions. New Delhi has pushed back on attempts by the U.S. to become a supra entity in South Asia, as well as its efforts to resolve intra-regional conflicts between India and Pakistan. This ambition was hinted at during Operation Sindoor (May 2025), and repeated by Mr. Trump over the past year, especially as he met the Pakistani leadership many times in this period.

Mr. Gor’s recent travels to Kathmandu, Thimphu, Dhaka and Colombo indicate that the U.S. is keen to broaden its efforts across the region. In the absence of effective pan-regional frameworks such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) — both are constrained by New Delhi’s political tensions with Islamabad and Dhaka — it is clear that the U.S. is entering into competition with China for influence in South Asia.

Beijing has already built several mechanisms for cooperation with South Asia, and both powers side-stepping India. India, as chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, and with Mr. Modi due to attend the planned BIMSTEC summit in Bangladesh and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Pakistan next year, has an opportunity to reassert its regional leadership. Given the opportunities, a revival of the SAARC grouping and other pan-regional initiatives must be considered.

Concerns over the U.S.’s moves across India’s geographies may seem contrary to the bonhomie at the Modi-Trump meeting at the G-7 meet in France, and the red carpet for Mr. Rubio’s India visit. Shorn of the rhetoric, however, the trends in U.S. policy are clear, and New Delhi must plan accordingly, acknowledging that the shifts run far deeper than the ripples on the surface caused by a dropped prefix.

Published – June 25, 2026 12:16 am IST

“If the 20th century ran on oil and steel, the 21st century runs on compute and the minerals that feed it,” declared Jacob Helberg, U.S. Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, as America launched a chip supply chain alliance to “build the AI ecosystem of tomorrow — from energy and critical minerals to high-end manufacturing and models”.

Signed by nine countries — Australia, Greece, Israel, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, the UAE, and the U.K. — in mid-December, ‘Pax Silica’ seeks to map a new geography of computing power. [Non-signatory participants include Canada, the EU, the Netherlands, OECD countries, and Taiwan.]

For decades, the semiconductor supply chain was governed by the cold, borderless logic of competitive advantage and cheap labour. Chips were designed in California, printed in the Netherlands, fabricated in Taiwan and South Korea, and assembled in the vast factories of mainland China.

Pax Silica signals a definitive end to this era of efficiency. By formalising a coalition that includes Australia’s mines to Singapore’s logistics and Japan’s chemical manufacturing and precision machinery, the U.S. is attempting to build a ‘closed-loop’ ecosystem.

The implied goal is to insulate the AI development from China’s dominance as Beijing is rapidly advancing domestic chip-making capacity.

This closed-loop approach marks a profound shift in American strategy. Rather than seeking a sprawling consensus among all Indo-Pacific partners — many of whom have deeply entangled trade ties with Beijing — Washington is prioritising politically aligned states that are technologically aligned and willing to buy American tech and integrating with America’s economic security protocols.

Under this initiative, members are expected to synchronise semiconductor design, launch joint ventures in AI research, and align their investments in rare earths — raw materials that underpin the hardware for AI development. Pax Silica seems like a functional successor to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), but with a sharper focus on the supply chain for chip-making. The IPEF was launched during the Biden administration to boost economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region with a focus on trade, supply chain, clean energy and fair economy. India was part of the 14-member country group, but maintained an observer status in trade.

However, the ‘Pax’ is already proving to be a flexibility test. Despite the initial exclusion of New Delhi, the strategic map is being redrawn as the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to India signalled a pivot, indicating that Washington intends to formally invite India to join Pax Silica as early as February. This move suggests that for this alliance to achieve true global scale, India must be member country.

The Indian paradox

What India brings to the table is not just its burgeoning market, but its unique role as the talent powerhouse. With its immense pool of engineering talent and dominance in software services, India is the logical site for the labour-intensive ‘design-to-delivery’ pipeline of the AI age — a fact that India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw pointed out at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The country’s demographic dividend and its status as a data-rich democracy make it a key pillar for a Western-led tech bloc. Yet, New Delhi’s journey toward the ‘Silicon Curtain’ is complicated by its own pragmatic foreign policy. Even as it prepares to join a U.S.-led security architecture aimed at countering Chinese influence, New Delhi is simultaneously signalling a tactical thaw with Beijing.

After years of frosty relations following border skirmishes, the Indian government is reportedly considering easing restrictions on Chinese investments.

This creates a paradoxical landscape. India may soon sit at the Pax Silica table to help secure a supply chain away from China, while at the same moment opening its own domestic doors to Chinese firms to bolster its industrial growth. For India, the goal is not total decoupling, but rather a “re-balancing” where it can leverage Western security ties while maintaining the economic benefits of its proximity to the world’s factory.

History’s echoes

History suggests that techno-nationalist alliances are a double-edged sword. The most direct ancestor of Pax Silica is COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls), the Cold War-era body designed to keep Western technology out of Soviet hands. While COCOM succeeded in maintaining a “technology gap” that eventually helped the West win the Cold War, it also forced the Eastern Bloc into a state of costly, often clumsy, indigenous duplication. It created two parallel technological universes that rarely intersected.

Compare this to more constructive past alliances, such as the post-war European Coal and Steel Community. That alliance sought to lower barriers and harmonise standards to spur growth and make war “not only unthinkable but materially impossible” through economic integration.

Pax Silica, by contrast, feels more defensive, like the British or Dutch East India Companies of the 17th century, which sought to secure trade routes and resources for a specific group of players while aggressively excluding rivals.

The inherent risk of this alliance is that it may inadvertently create an exclusive club of “trusted” nations, driving those left on the outside closer to Beijing’s orbit.

Beijing’s Perception

China, for its part, has already been promoting its own technology cooperation through groupings like the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, stressing a model of “non-interference” that contrasts with Washington’s “values-based” trade.

Beijing’s official reaction to Pax Silica has been a mixture of measured calls for “market principles” and sharper warnings from state media about “decoupling.” If China perceives this as a containment effort, it may respond by deepening its own dominance over the processing of critical minerals, potentially creating a “resource wall” that Pax Silica members will find difficult to scale.

Perhaps, it is this eventuality that will make the U.S.’s case to purchase Greenland stronger as the arctic island is naturally endowed with critical minerals.

For the signatories of Pax Silica, the gamble is that the sheer economic gravity of their combined markets will be enough to set the rules for the AI century. But a “Pax” maintained by exclusion and walls is often a precursor to a long and expensive era of friction.

Silicon may be the “new oil”, but unlike oil, it is a product of human ingenuity that requires a global, frictionless exchange of ideas to remain cutting-edge. As Washington prepares to expand its inner circle to include New Delhi in February, it must decide whether Pax Silica is a bridge to a new era of secure prosperity, or merely a very expensive fortress.

Published – January 25, 2026 01:40 am IST