Description
The paper will investigate the US’s contemporary foreign policy approach towards India through the lens of ontological security. It has been suggested that from the US’s perspective, a “special relationship” with India helps it mitigate anxiety arising out of uncertainties of power transition and the concurrent rise of emerging powers (Chacko, 2018). However, this paper argues that such suggestions capture only part of this complex relationship. Despite being on an upswing, the relationship still suffers from Cold War-era misgivings and mistrust, as well as from routine distress situations arising out of geopolitical misalignments on a range of international issues, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the sanctioning of Iran. How is it, then, that a relationship so uncertain in itself manages to become a vector of certainty in an era of uncertainty? To answer this question, this paper draws on the literature on self-trust, fantasies, and knowledge, focusing on the emotional underpinnings of knowledge creation, particularly knowledge about the significant other. It argues that knowledge provides a sense of certainty about the other, but this requires that the self trusts that the knowledge it has about the other is accurate. Fantasies become a part of the same knowledge-creation process, where fantastical narratives about the other allow mental simulations of the other’s likely future behaviour. By engaging in all such processes, this paper argues, the US gains a sense of certainty vis-à-vis India’s potential behaviour, reinforcing the durability of its India policy. This paper will make an important contribution to the literature on ontological security in international relations by revealing how self-trust, knowledge, and fantasies work together to provide a sense of certainty in a largely uncertain relationship.
