Washington: A former top US State Department adviser has issued a blunt warning — America cannot counter Beijing’s rising power in the Indo-Pacific without India firmly on its side.
Mary Kissel, who served as Senior Adviser to the US Secretary of State from 2018 to 2021, told Fox News that Washington’s strategy is doomed if New Delhi drifts closer to Beijing and Moscow. “If we are really serious about considering Communist China the greatest threat to the United States and our way of life, we need India. It’s just a fact. We can’t fight them alone in the Asia-Pacific,” Kissel declared.
“If we are really serious about considering communist China the greatest threat to the United States and our way of life, we need India.”@marykissel on @FoxBusiness pic.twitter.com/50wpX8vmMD
— Hudson Institute (@HudsonInstitute) September 2, 2025
Her remarks land at a sensitive moment, with US President Donald Trump’s escalating anti-India campaign— from slapping 50% tariffs on Indian goods to meddling in Kashmir and cozying up to Pakistan — driving ties to their lowest in years.
Adding fuel to the fire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen in warm, visible camaraderie with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin — a powerful optics blow for Washington.
Kissel, now with the Hudson Institute, underscored that the SCO gathering itself underscored the peril for Washington. “We need the heft of not just Australia, not just our friends in Japan, but also India. I think this meeting is highlighting a major challenge for the Trump administration,” she said.
The two-day summit, which brought together Xi, Putin, Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, has been hailed as the biggest show of non-Western power in recent years — and increasingly viewed as a counterweight to the G7 and NATO.
Analysts warn that Trump’s hardline stance risks undoing decades of careful diplomacy that had made India one of Washington’s most reliable partners in Asia. With Modi visibly warming to Xi and Putin, the fear in DC’s corridors is clear: the United States may be watching New Delhi slip into the China-Russia embrace.
