In fact, in what could be the seed of another Quad, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Ministers Yair Lapid of Israel and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed of the UAE held a virtual meeting while the Indian minister was visiting Israel in October and agreed to cooperate in maritime security and discussed future cooperation regionally and globally.

The India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement reached in 2005 between Bush and then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed the new chapter in relations between the two countries. Improvements in ties that began before the agreement that set the stage for the virtual recognition of India as a nuclear power entitled to international nuclear cooperation in civilian fields, took off under subsequent Republican and Democratic administrations.

Although the US had come to the aid of India following its defeat in the 1962 China War, as a member of a military alliance with Pakistan, the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) Washington was lukewarm towards India and turned definitely hostile to India during the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971.

While US arms poured into Pakistan, India turned to the Soviet Union and in 1971 signed a treaty of friendship with it incorporating mutual strategic cooperation. While India’s relations with the US and its allies have grown since then, New Delhi is still dependent on Russia for a major portion of its defence needs, making a break with Moscow—or even just riling it up—almost an impossibility now.

Without the continued Russian defence supplies, India would find it difficult to stand up to China’s aggression—the driving force behind the Quad and the US Indo-Pacific strategy.