On paper, the United States National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 is a hard-edged security blueprint, driving the US geopolitical agenda, but it is apparent that the US global agenda is driven more by economics and commerce. Though Pakistan barely has a mention in the NSS, Washington recently approved a package to upgrade Pakistan’s ageing F-16 fleet, underwritten more by its commercial interests as evidenced by various mining and crypto contracts that have been signed. Similarly, the recent Ukraine peace proposal floated by the US is heavier on economic and commercial issues than security. The message is clear. While the NSS speaks the language of security and values, the US actions are increasingly driven through commercial instruments—arms sales, control of capital and assets, privileged positions in reconstruction and critical resources. For India, the challenge is to understand how both together will shape our strategic space.
The NSS 2025 compresses the US priorities into a very sharp hierarchy. Across all regions, the document is openly sceptical of global multilateralism and “transnational globalism”. International institutions that constrain US sovereignty are described as suspect, and big universalist agendas are downgraded in favour of national interest and transactional deals. However, the US security policy is increasingly being expressed through economic and corporate instruments, indicative of an aggressive commercial state. This is not reflected in the NSS
* Western Hemisphere: The “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine declares America as an incontestable sphere of influence, with a focus on borders, migration, cartels and keeping out non-American powers.
*Indo-Pacific: This is the central economic and geopolitical arena. China is named as the main long-term competitor. The strategy promises to rebalance trade with Beijing, secure critical minerals and supply chains, lock in US advantages in AI and other advanced technologies and deter conflict in the Western Pacific and beyond.
* Europe and Russia: The stated aim is an “expeditious cessation of hostilities” in Ukraine and a restoration of strategic stability with Moscow, alongside sharper criticism of the EU’s regulatory model and political drift.
The emerging peace blueprint goes further, building a financial architecture in which frozen Russian assets back tens of billions in loans and investments. US firms would lead on Ukrainian reconstruction and on selected Russian resource projects – especially rare earths and Arctic oil – in return for a share of profits and managed re-entry of Russian energy into Europe.
* Middle East: The goal is stability without “forever wars” – protecting energy flows and Israel, deterring Iran and relying more on regional partners.
* Central Asia, Africa, Latin America: Although the NSS mentions them only briefly, US practice emphasises economic securitisation, preferential offtake for critical minerals, aviation procurement, digital infrastructure and efforts to police or crowd out non-Western finance and technology.
On India
South Asia is barely mentioned in the document, and India figures as part of the China chapter. The NSS calls for “improved commercial (and other) relations with India” and stresses India’s role in Indo-Pacific security, including within the Quad with Japan and Australia. India is clearly seen as important – but in functional terms, a partner to share burdens and help balance China, rather than a co-architect of the overall order. But equally important are the omissions—Pakistan appears only in a passing claim that Donald Trump “brought peace between Pakistan and India”, contrary to India’s consistent rejection of third-party mediation. Afghanistan is not mentioned at all.
The recent $686-million package to modernise Pakistan’s F-16 fleet is officially justified as a counter-terrorism and air-defence measure. In effect, it sustains the US defence industrial base, keeps Pakistan inside the US orbit just enough to be useful, and improves Islamabad’s leverage vis-à-vis India. This is not a return to old hyphenation, but it is calibrated hedging with a strong commercial component—and it is not reflected in the way the NSS treats South Asia.
NSS and India
For India, this duality shapes how the US will behave in our neighbourhood; how far it will go against China and Russia; and how flexible it will be in dealing with other middle powers. India’s core regional doctrines do not need to change because of the US NSS 2025. What must change are the assumptions about how Washington will behave around us.
* On Pakistan, India’s basic stance – no talks under terror, calibrated deterrence, no third-party mediation – remains valid. But the F-16 package is a reminder that the US will keep a modest security and commercial stake in Pakistan even as it publicly downplays South Asia. We should assume more US calls for “restraint on both sides” in a crisis, and less automatic alignment with India’s narrative. That argues for more self-reliant escalation ladders and much more systematic, year-round engagement in Washington, not just crisis firefighting.
* On Afghanistan, the NSS’s silence confirms what the 2021 withdrawal already made clear: no large American footprint is coming back. India will have to rely on its own channels to Kabul and its neighbours, and its own intelligence partnerships.
* On Iran, periodic coercion and sanctions will coexist with hard-nosed energy and shipping calculations. Our carefully balanced approach – engaging Tehran on energy and connectivity, while deepening economic and security ties with the Gulf and Israel – is still the right instinct. But we need to plan for financial and commercial chokepoints as carefully as for naval ones.
* In Central Asia, the US will seek specific mineral and corridor positions without offering security guarantees. That leaves the field open for India to expand connectivity via Chabahar and the INSTC, build digital and educational partnerships and, where useful, co-invest with Europe and Japan – all without being bound into a US-designed regional order.
* On China, the NSS is unambiguous: this is the central long-term competitor. India must treat the US–China rivalry as a tool to accelerate Indian capacity, not as a new ideological trench to fall into, and create both leverage and risk.
# Leverage, because Washington now needs partners with real weight and some degree of independence. That gives India bargaining power to seek genuine co-development and manufacturing in defence and critical technologies, not just imports; a meaningful say in any Indo-Pacific economic framework that affects our market and supply chains; and deeper maritime and information cooperation on an equal-voiced basis.
# Risk, because the gravitational pull of a US–China confrontation is strong. India could easily drift into the role of junior ally, with expectations on Taiwan, sanctions or deployments that are misaligned with our interests.
# A sensible Indian approach would combine hard decoupling from China in genuinely sensitive sectors (telecom, critical defence components, certain AI and space systems); de-risking but not severing broader trade and investment, while actively diversifying; and India-driven security postures at the LAC and across the Indian Ocean, drawing on but not subordinated to US preferences.
* On Russia and Europe, the following is key for India:
# We have a clear interest in preventing Russia from becoming a pure Chinese appendage. Long-term energy contracts, nuclear cooperation, space and defence projects and connectivity give Moscow alternatives.
# Europe’s search for greater autonomy from US political cycles opens space for deeper India–EU ties in defence production, digital infrastructure, green technology and standards. A more strategically autonomous Europe is, in many ways, good for India.
# India can support Ukraine’s reconstruction in targeted ways – through private sector projects, technology and technical assistance – that reinforce our commitment to sovereignty and international law without closing the door to Moscow.
The middle power moment
The NSS downgrading of multilateralism and preference for ad hoc coalitions and transactional arrangements actually creates space for middle powers. Countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Türkiye and Mexico can act as conveners and rule-shapers on issues such as debt, digital public goods, climate finance, supply chains, and critical minerals, among others. India’s G20 presidency was a proof of concept and should use G20, BRICS+ and the SCO to keep core economic and security conversations going even when US–China relations are tense, build and exploit ‘minilateral’ platforms like Quad, I2U2, Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, India–EU Indo-Pacific dialogues around concrete projects and standards. India should coordinate more systematically with other middle powers on critical minerals, AI governance and data norms so that no single bloc can dictate the rules unilaterally.
Energy, technology and critical minerals
Beneath all the rhetoric, the true fault lines that matter to India are in energy, advanced technology and critical minerals. The US and China are both constructing regimes of export controls, investment screening and asset leverage to protect their advantages. If India simply drifts, it will find itself locked into someone else’s ecosystem. A serious Indian response must:
* Ensure energy diversification, combining long-term arrangements with the Gulf, Russia, the US and Africa, with a major domestic push in renewables and nuclear.
* Treat technology partnerships as strategic bargains, not procurement exercises – insisting on co-development, local manufacturing and, where feasible, shared IP in defence, telecom, cyber and AI.
* Develop a coherent critical minerals strategy, including equity stakes in lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare-earth projects across Africa, Latin America and Central Asia, domestic processing and recycling capacity, and collective action with partners who also want to avoid dependency on a single supplier.
* India’s advantage can be a mix of commerce and public goods: digital platforms, training, health, education – a partnership that is not just about extraction.
A call to action for Indian strategy
The US NSS 2025 and the deals that surround it describe a United States that sees China as its core strategic challenge, is willing to monetise even its peace plans, will use arms, finance and assets as instruments of statecraft and is openly less committed to old ideas of multilateralism. India should treat the NSS and US actions as inputs to systematically revisit our assumptions about how Washington will behave in our neighbourhood; use US–China rivalry and US–Russia recalibration to upgrade Indian capabilities, not to bind ourselves into other people’s wars; deepen ties with Europe, Russia and key middle powers so that no single axis defines our options; and put energy security, technological depth and critical minerals at the heart of national security planning. If the world is moving into an 'America First 2.0' phase, India’s strategy must be based on clarity on our long-term interests, pragmatism in our partnerships, with clarity that we will work with all, but be owned by none.
