October 16, 2025
Sharper: India and the Quad
Despite recent bilateral challenges, India’s relationship with the United States and its leadership within the Quad remains indispensable for an Indo-Pacific that is cooperative and secure in the face of coercive behavior. The nations of the Quad—Australia, Japan, India, and the United States—will be critical in shaping the future of the region, but serious threats remain on the horizon. Continue reading this edition of Sharper to learn more.
Features
CNAS Insights | Mr. President, You Are Losing India
The bilateral relationship between the United States and India is critical for the future stability of the Indo-Pacific, especially as the United States seeks to counter rising aggression from Russia, China, and the Axis of Upheaval. However, CNAS experts Lisa Curtis and Richard Fontaine warn that on its current path, the Trump administration risks permanently alienating India, setting New Delhi on a trajectory towards Beijing.
Watch It Again | “Free, Open, and Secure”: Mobilizing for Indo-Pacific Security in 2025
CNAS recently hosted a panel discussion on the importance of security cooperation within the Quad, moving past the group’s traditionally purely economic and diplomatic cooperation. The panel discussed a recent report coauthored with CNAS experts from Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Mobilizing for a Free, Open, and Secure Indo-Pacific: A Strategic Reassessment.
Report | Quad: The Next Phase
This CNAS policy brief explains the various perspectives of each Quad nation—as well as those of Southeast Asian nations and China—toward the Quad and how they will shape its future trajectory. It takes stock of some of the most important Quad initiatives launched to date and puts forth several policy recommendations for expanding and deepening Quad cooperation into the future.
CNAS Insights
CNAS Insights | Mr. President, You Are Losing India
Last month, after Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi clasped hands in Tianjin, China, President Donald Trump concluded that the United States had “lost India and Ru...
Event
"Free, Open, and Secure": Mobilizing for Indo-Pacific Security in 2025
Lisa Curtis, Stacie Pettyjohn
Oct 2, 2025
Reports
Quad: The Next Phase
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan is becoming the focal point for economic and technological cooperation in the I...
Commentary
Analysis from Lisa Curtis, Ryan Claffey, Eleanor Hume, and Kyle Rutter
Commentary
What Kind of Great Power Will India Be? | The Quad Power
This article was originally published on Foreign Affairs.As Tellis makes clear, India’s long-held strategy of promoting a multipolar world order has become counterproductive f...
Commentary
How the U.S. Should Push the Quad-Plus to Protect Undersea Cables
Subsea sabotage marks a new era in gray zone warfare, and the United States and its partners have a narrow window to expose and confront this threat before it becomes the new ...
Commentary
Can India Survive the Trade War?
India has little choice but to try to soothe simmering trade tensions with the U.S. without abandoning its redlines, while carefully managing the implications of increased coo...
In the News
Insights from Lisa Curtis and Derek Grossman
In The News
India to Seek New Trade Partners, U.S. Deal in Face of New Trump Tariffs
As Washington’s 50 per cent tariff on India took effect on Wednesday, among the highest in place against any country, New Delhi has settled on a hedging strategy – keep seekin...
Podcast
USSC Briefing Room | The Prognosis for the Quad and Other U.S. Alliances in the Indo-Pacific
In conversation with the United States Studies Centre, Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Center for a New American Security, Lisa Curtis discussed the Quad and the f...
In The News
Inside the Trump Team’s Conflicting Efforts to Mend Ties with India
With the relationship between the United States and India at its lowest point in decades, Washington’s inflammatory language toward New Delhi is deepening the crisis, accordin...
In The News
‘We’re at DEFCON 1’: India, Bruised by U.S. Tariffs, Cozies Up to Russia, China
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week laughed and joined hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, two of President Donald Trump’s fie...
In The News
U.S., India Maintain Military Ties Even as Trade Frictions Mount
Military cooperation between the US and India remains steady, with an annual exercise concluding this weekend underscoring strong bilateral defense ties despite growing politi...
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