When I gave my farewell address in January as the U.S. ambassador to India, one issue threatened to overshadow the many accomplishments in our bilateral relationship — whether the United States would impose sanctions on India for its planned purchase of five Russian S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems. The Biden administration is now confronting this same predicament. In mid-March, President Joe Biden joined the leaders of Australia, India, and Japan for the first-ever Quadrilateral Security Dialogue summit, presenting to the world a democratic model of cooperation that sharply contrasts with the autocratic model of China. Yet, one week later, when U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited New Delhi, the headlines focused not on this high-level cooperation, but on the same threat of possible U.S. sanctions against India.
