The US and India inaugurated the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in January 2023. That was adopted by the U.S.-South Korea Next Generation Critical and Emerging Technology Dialogue in December 2023. As a follow-up initiative, all three nations held their first inaugural trilateral technology dialogue in Seoul in March 2024. India, South Korea, and the US had been in a position to solidify their trilateral cooperation in numerous areas, together with financial safety, provide chain resiliency, and rising applied sciences within the broader Indo-Pacific area.
There are numerous alternatives for this triangular dynamic that may foster innovation, improve strategic alliances and partnerships, and profit every of the three nations, at the same time as sure challenges exist.
Navy Cooperation
Trilateral protection cooperation between India, South Korea, and the U.S. aligns with strategic goals within the Indo-Pacific to boost collaboration amongst like-minded regional actors. In February 2022, the US launched its Indo-Pacific Strategy, highlighting the significance of strengthening safety and upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific area. To attain this, the U.S. helps a “sturdy India” and South Korea as key companions and allies in realizing this regional imaginative and prescient. Equally, India advocates for a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific by way of its imaginative and prescient of Safety and Progress for All within the Area (SAGAR), and South Korea reiterates a free, peaceable, and affluent Indo-Pacific by way of its Indo-Pacific Strategy.
On the identical time, India’s rise as a big importer of navy tools (accounting for 9.8 percent of total global arms imports) permits main exporters like South Korea and the US to reap financial advantages and additional develop their protection industries, fostering a way of development and prosperity. This will increase interoperability amongst their armed forces and diversifies India’s arms provide away from Russia, which continues to play a dominant role.
Current developments already exemplify the accelerated collaboration in protection industrial and technological improvement. After the US and India launched their U.S.-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) in 2012, Washington acknowledged India as a Main Protection Companion (MDP) in 2016. This was adopted by initiating the India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) and signing the Security of Supply Arrangement (SOSA) in 2024. With South Korea additionally having signed a SOSA agreement with the U.S. in 2023, there are extra trilateral alternatives to come back by way of navy cooperation.
The United States has turn out to be a significant defense supplier to India, offering superior weapon programs resembling Apache assault helicopters, C-17 Globemaster transport plane, P-8I maritime patrol plane, and MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. Equally, South Korea has emerged as a main protection associate for India, as seen in India’s acquisition of 100 K9 Vajra-T self-propelled howitzers, a variant of South Korea’s K9 Thunder. This profitable export led to a Roadmap for Defense Industries Cooperation in 2019 for the joint improvement of land and naval protection programs, making a basis for extra strong navy cooperation and reaping financial advantages for all events concerned.
With the India-South Korea-U.S. trilateral, navy and safety cooperation isn’t just important, it’s strategically essential. Nonetheless, the triad’s synergy extends into different areas as nicely.
Inexperienced Vitality Partnerships
The inaugural trilateral technology dialogue between the United States, India, and South Korea, held in Seoul, represents a big milestone in strengthening cooperation on vital and rising applied sciences for inexperienced transition. The dialogue emphasised areas of cooperation which can be integral to financial development and safety, with clear power and important minerals on the forefront. This partnership is aligned with the worldwide push towards inexperienced power options, significantly specializing in constructing resilient expertise provide chains.
Within the clear power sector, the US, India, and South Korea recognized a number of key areas for collaboration, together with the event of superior supplies for renewable power applied sciences and the exploration of vital mineral provide chains, important for manufacturing batteries, photo voltaic panels, and wind generators.
South Korea has been ramping up its investments in inexperienced applied sciences by way of its Green New Deal, which focuses on transitioning to renewable power, constructing eco-friendly infrastructure, and growing electrical autos (EVs). In collaboration with the U.S. and India, Seoul has sought to expand joint investments in clear hydrogen manufacturing and decarbonization applied sciences.
As a part of the broader Indo-Pacific strategy, the Quad nations – India, the US, Japan, and Australia – have engaged in discussions to spice up clear power partnerships. This group has facilitated cross-national investments in solar energy projects and provide chains for vital minerals important for renewable power. South Korea and India have additionally partnered on photo voltaic power initiatives, with Korean corporations investing in solar energy vegetation throughout India. This cooperation is predicted to develop, significantly with the trilateral dialogue inserting inexperienced power on the middle of its discussions.
This collaboration additionally aligns with the rising international deal with decarbonization and local weather motion, as all three nations intention to capitalize on clear power applied sciences and important minerals to advance their renewable power capacities. By fostering partnerships in areas like photo voltaic power, hydrogen manufacturing, and important mineral provide chains, the trilateral dialogue addresses each environmental challenges and the necessity for safe expertise ecosystems. It additional highlights the growing significance of multilateral cooperation within the Indo-Pacific area, particularly as these international locations search to counterbalance dependencies on dominant provide chains, resembling these tied to China. This initiative not solely helps innovation but additionally positions these nations as key gamers in driving the worldwide inexperienced power transition.
Rising Tech and Innovation
The trilateral cooperation can shed gentle not solely on navy cooperation and the inexperienced transition but additionally on rising applied sciences and innovation. The semiconductor business is without doubt one of the vital areas for collaboration among the many United States, South Korea, and India, aiming to boost provide chain resiliency and strengthen analysis and improvement for superior chips. This potential is phenomenal due to the fragmentation of experience in the entire worth chain of the semiconductor business.
The US is thought for its expertise in chip design and superior semiconductor analysis. Firms like Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are all on the forefront of growing new chip architectures and AI processors, main in semiconductor mental property. Then again, South Korea is a semiconductor fab hub with two built-in machine producers, Samsung and SK Hynix, dominating the manufacturing of cutting-edge chips.
With its vast pool of highly skilled and educated engineers, India can play a significant function on this worth chain. Whereas the U.S. and South Korea lack chip talents on account of workforce shortages, India can turn out to be a hub of the semiconductor business’s R&D. Quite a few multinational firms, together with Texas Devices and Qualcomm, have established design and R&D centers in India. Thus, the three international locations’ synergy will enable them to collaborate throughout the semiconductor worth chain – from R&D and design (the U.S. and India) to manufacturing (South Korea), with India’s function being significantly important and promising.
Non-public South Korean and U.S. chipmakers’ efforts to collaborate with India as a part of a broader trilateral effort are already underway. The Indian authorities, by way of its “Semicon India” program and quite a few incentives, is attracting investments from each South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, in addition to U.S. corporations like Intel and Micron. In the meantime, South Korean corporations are investing closely in U.S. states like Texas and Indiana after the US handed the CHIPS and Science Act. This trilateral dynamic has the potential to develop merely from chipmaking to different subtle rising applied sciences, together with house, synthetic intelligence, 6G, biotech, and quantum computing.
Challenges Forward
Nonetheless, trilateral cooperation nonetheless has its limitations. The differing approaches to China among the many three nations current a problem to trilateral cooperation.
Contemplating the US’ emphasis on strategic competitors and its view of China as a main challenger to the worldwide order, it would take into account the India-South Korea-U.S. triad as one other minilateral inside Washington’s latticework technique. Its views on China could be exemplified within the Biden administration’s Inflation Discount Act (IRA) and the latest notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) prohibiting promoting and importing linked automobiles that utilized applied sciences from China and Russia.
Nonetheless, South Korea is reluctant to hitch blocs that seem to focus on China, given its substantial financial ties and the precedent of China’s economic retaliation following the 2016 THAAD deployment. In the meantime, India is “hedging,” avoiding full alignment with anybody energy bloc. Whereas India does face border disputes and strategic rivalry, it tries to proceed its financial ties with China, as exemplified by their commerce quantity surpassing that between the US and India.
That stated, Washington may act as a catalyst in pulling India and South Korea collectively for its personal financial statecraft within the Indo-Pacific by making the most of each Seoul’s and New Delhi’s strained ties with Beijing.
One other main problem that can even have an effect on this trilateral is the potential for Donald Trump successful the U.S. presidential election in November 2024. Previously, Trump referred to India as a “very huge abuser” of commerce connections with the US, suggesting that he may slap heavy tariffs on Indian merchandise. If Trump wins the election, the trilateral relationship will expertise important modifications because of the uncertainty created by the messaging, not to mention if the Trump administration ultimately implements some of the more concerning pledges, suggestions, and doable actions that the previous president has hinted at.
Coverage Suggestions
For more practical trilateral cooperation, institutionalization is crucial. Consistency is essential in diplomacy, as common interactions be sure that cooperative efforts are sustained over time past the modifications in political landscapes. Thus, creating formal mechanisms by initiating ministerial-level trilateral dialogues, consultative teams, and communication hotlines can present a extra structured platform for collaboration and coordination of insurance policies.
It’s also essential to speak actively with China, stating that these efforts usually are not aimed toward creating a brand new bloc or containing China. By emphasizing that the India-South Korea-U.S. partnership is targeted on frequent targets resembling financial safety, transnational threats, and rising expertise requirements, the three nations can scale back misunderstandings and convey their actions as contributory to regional stability.
Although at present underexplored, the India-South Korea-U.S. trilateral presents a novel alternative to boost maritime safety cooperation within the Indian Ocean, a area vital to international commerce and strategic stability. Because the geopolitical and financial significance of the Indo-Pacific grows, securing very important sea strains of communication (SLOCs) and addressing threats resembling piracy, unlawful fishing, and different illicit actions has turn out to be a precedence for these three nations. India, positioned on the coronary heart of the Indian Ocean, performs a pivotal function in making certain maritime security and stability, whereas the US and South Korea deliver superior naval capabilities and strategic experience to the desk. By working collectively, these international locations can strengthen coordinated patrols, share intelligence, and enhance capacity-building efforts for maritime area consciousness (MDA), making certain that the Indian Ocean stays a free, open, and safe house for worldwide commerce.
Conclusion
The India-South Korea-U.S. trilateral partnership holds the potential to affect the Indo-Pacific area’s future through navy cooperation, inexperienced power transitions, maritime safety, and strategic cooperation on very important applied sciences. Even when the early efforts, such because the iCET and expertise discussions, characterize essential turning factors, this trilateral settlement has advanced points. These embrace differing views on China, with the US’ strategic competitors posture contrasted with South Korea’s financial reliance on China and India’s non-alignment technique. The course of trilateral cooperation may be additional difficult by potential modifications in U.S. coverage in sectors like protection and commerce cooperation, particularly if the Trump administration returns.
However these difficulties are outweighed by the alternatives. The trilateral partnership can promote innovation, strengthen provide chain resilience, and uphold an Indo-Pacific rules-based order by formalizing common dialogues, establishing formal mechanisms for cooperation, and highlighting frequent goals like financial safety, technological management, and maritime stability. By working collectively to deal with transnational points like illicit fishing, piracy, clear power, and technological development, India, South Korea, and the US can create a robust framework for regional peace and prosperity and pave the way in which for future collaboration.
