Two influential US senators and leading representatives of the business world called for strengthening relations with India, including in the defense sector.

“We want India and the United States to be the very best of friends and to have the closest of relations,” Senator Steve Daines said on Monday.

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He was speaking at a fireside chat between John Chambers and Senator Dan Sullivan during the annual Leadership Summit of the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF).

I think it's very important globally that we have clarity about who the good guys are and how we want to maintain and strengthen these relationships. And the good guys are the United States and India, said the senator from Montana.

China is watching what we do with India, Daines said.

Senator Dan Sullivan said many of these countries are motivated by historical grievances. “I think this new era, which is really a return to the era of authoritarian aggression, will be with us for years and decades to come,” he said.

It is necessary to deepen, expand and make more concrete the relations in the various areas of QUAD, he said, referring to the alliance of the USA, India, Japan and Australia.

“For me, the good news about the U.S.-India defense relationship covers the full range of our technological needs, but also what we need in terms of basic warfighting capabilities,” he said.

Sullivan said India and the US are currently gaining a lot more strategic experience. The good news that there is between the US and India on the defence side, I think, can cover the whole range of what we need in terms of technologies but also in terms of basic combat capabilities. First, it's really interesting to see how this has happened, but the combatant command is the most important joint force, he said, adding that the US needed help in this area.

Our Navy is shrinking. Our ability to produce warships has atrophied. We have a huge crisis not only in the Navy's shipbuilding, but also in the maintenance of the ships. Normally, U.S. Navy ships come back to the United States after intensive maintenance, he said.

John Chambers, chairman of the USISPF, said artificial intelligence (AI) offers the two countries an opportunity to come closer together and develop a comprehensive vision of what will happen.

It's really important to recognize that we're in a new era of authoritarian aggression led by Xi Jinping and Putin and the Ayatollahs in Iran and Kim Jong-un in North Korea. They're all working together.

When we said a year ago that India would have the highest GDP in the world, many people were surprised. For me, it was easy. You see it. You see the age structure of the population, you see the current minimums, and it was inevitable. But when you look at what can be achieved together in the next decade, you see a country that is laying the foundations, with the United States as a strategic partner, to change the world in ways that have never been seen before, Chambers said.

Not only will India become the largest economy in the world, but by the end of this century – and I believe this will be India's future century – it will probably be 90 percent larger than China's GDP and probably 30 percent larger than the United States', he said.

It is important that this relationship is defined not only on a technological level, but also on a geopolitical level, on economic opportunities, but more importantly, on a people level. There are about 5.1 million Indian-Americans living in the United States and about 1.2 million on H-1B visas, said Mukesh Aghi, president and CEO of USISPF.

Henry Kravis, co-founder and co-chief executive of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co., was honored with the 2024 Global Leadership Award for his tireless commitment to improving U.S.-India relations.