Events

Wednesday, 11 March 2026, 4:00 PM IST

Speaker: 
Rani D. Mullen, Weingartner Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Government, College of William & Mary, Virginia, US & Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR

Moderator:
Nimmi Kurian, Professor, CPR

This event will be held in a hybrid mode at the CPR Conference Room and online via Zoom. Please register below to attend.

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About the Talk
India’s partnership with the United States has expanded dramatically over the past two decades, yet New Delhi continues to resist alliance commitments. This talk argues that India’s approach to Washington is best understood as realism without alignment—a strategy that deepens security cooperation while preserving maximum economic and geopolitical autonomy.

Drawing on a levels-of-analysis framework, the talk shows how structural uncertainty, domestic capacity constraints, and leadership preferences converge to produce a pattern of selective alignment rather than strategic convergence. Recent developments—including U.S. tariff pressures, American demands to reduce ties with Russia, and India’s decision to delay trade negotiations following the invalidation of key U.S. tariff authorities—illustrate how New Delhi actively exploits political openings to rebalance dependence. At the same time, India’s parallel pursuit of alternative economic partnerships, including a major agreement with the European Union, underscores its commitment to hedging across multiple power centers.

The core argument is that the United States is viewed in New Delhi as an important but increasingly unreliable partner. As global order fragments, India is likely to expand security cooperation with Washington while simultaneously reinforcing strategic autonomy in trade, energy, and diplomacy—reflecting a deeply realist foreign policy logic.

About the Speaker
Rani D. Mullen is the Weingartner Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary. In 2024, she launched the Afghanistan Research Lab at William & Mary. She is an editor for Routledge’s Advances in South Asian Studies and the journal India Review, and a Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR.

Her research focuses on South Asian politics, particularly India and Afghanistan. Her book, Decentralization, Local Governance and Social Wellbeing in India, was published in 2011. She has held numerous fellowships and publishes widely on state-building, democracy, and foreign policy in South Asia, as well as in comparative contexts.

Mullen received her PhD from Princeton University and has been teaching at William & Mary for over two decades.