How Will Biden Pivot on South Asia?

The highlights this week: The Biden administration’s South Asia policy could shift after its withdrawal from Afghanistan, extremists stage violent protests in Pakistan, and Washington and New Delhi spar over a U.S. naval ship maneuver.

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The Biden administration’s announcement this week that it will withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 has significant implications for the sputtering Afghan peace process. The Taliban’s own perceived victory could embolden them in future talks, as FP’s Elise Labott writes. And the next five months before the completion of the withdrawal will be critical, as I argue in Foreign Policy.

The Afghanistan withdrawal also holds implications for U.S. policy in South Asia more broadly. Washington has long viewed the region through the lens of the conflict in Afghanistan. With U.S. forces on their way out, soon a new frame of reference will likely dominate U.S. thinking on South Asia: China, and specifically the U.S.-China rivalry.

For several decades, the United States has not developed a truly regional policy for South Asia. Instead, it approaches the region through a few silos: the war in Afghanistan, the relationship with Pakistan (in turn shaped by Afghanistan), and the U.S.-India partnership. Other South Asian states have not figured prominently in U.S. strategic thinking. When then-President Donald Trump unveiled a “Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia” in 2017, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan were the only countries mentioned.

Bureaucratically, the United States doesn’t conceive of South Asia as a single, distinct region. The State Department’s South Asia regional bureau also includes Central Asia, and two military commands split the region down the middle: Central Command oversees Pakistan, and Indo-Pacific Command oversees India.

This geographically limited approach to South Asia is misguided, given the region’s strategic significance. It holds one-quarter of the world’s population and sits astride the Indian Ocean region—an area whose map Robert D. Kaplan predicts may be as “iconic” to the 21st century as Europe’s was to the 20th. South Asia is also particularly vulnerable to threats such as natural resource stress and climate change that will define the coming decades.

During its first months in office, the Biden administration has continued the silo approach. It has closely focused on Afghanistan, enlisted Pakistan’s support in the Afghan peace process, and moved to deepen its partnership with India. The United States has largely ignored the rest of the region, although climate czar John Kerry did make a visit to Bangladesh.

However, the coming U.S. exit from Afghanistan means that China, arguably the Biden administration’s biggest foreign-policy priority, will soon take center stage in U.S. strategic calculations about South Asia. Early signs, from the public spat with Chinese officials in Alaska to major overtures to Taiwan, suggest that Biden will take a hard line on Beijing. Expect him to approach South Asia through the lens of U.S.-China rivalry.

India, which Washington sees as its best bet in South Asia to counterbalance Beijing, will remain a top priority for U.S. policy. But Pakistan, a major Chinese ally, will likely be left on the outside looking in—despite recent pitches from Islamabad for a more multifaceted relationship with Washington that goes beyond security.

On the other hand, the U.S.-China rivalry could finally prompt the United States to apply a broader geographic frame to its policy in South Asia. China’s deepening footprint in the region, fueled by the expansion of its Belt and Road Initiative, means that smaller South Asian states will increasingly appear on the U.S. strategic radar.

Additionally, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, a Trump administration initiative focused on countering China that the Biden administration appears likely to retain, calls for scaling up both security and non-security cooperation with Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Infrastructure development tools associated with the Indo-Pacific region, including the new Development Finance Corporation and the Blue Dot Network, could also be deployed to compete with the Belt and Road.

A truly regional U.S. strategy in South Asia wouldn’t necessarily be problem-free. Countries across South Asia are experiencing democratic backsliding. The Biden administration, which has made democracy promotion a pillar of its foreign policy, could spark tensions by criticizing problem states—especially Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—for their democracy and human rights troubles.

Overall, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan gives Washington the opportunity to engage more broadly across a region that as a whole is significant for U.S. interests. Motivated by its intensifying rivalry with China, the Biden administration is especially likely to pursue deeper ties with some of the smaller states of South Asia—countries often given short shrift in U.S. policy calculations.