US Pacific Command name change risks damaging India ties: ‘senseless’

A Pentagon decision to strip “Indo” from the name of its largest unified military command eight years after it was initially added has raised questions about the United States’ continuing commitment to India.
In a statement announcing the Indo-Pacific Command’s name change on June 16, US officials portrayed the move as a matter of “honour”, “pride” and respecting “historical roots”.
But analysts told This Week in Asia that New Delhi would likely read the reversion to Pacific Command (PACOM) as another small but pointed signal that India’s place in Washington’s strategic imagination was shrinking.
“Whatever ephemeral morale boost might come from the renaming is entirely outweighed by the symbolic damage done to US ties with the most populous country on the planet,” said Christopher Clary, an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany.
The renaming is senseless
Christopher Clary, American political scientist
“The renaming is senseless. It is reasonable for sceptics to wonder whether the goal is to appease China, which seems to be the recurrent feature of this administration’s policy in Asia.”
The original renaming, in May 2018, was done “in recognition of the increasing connectivity of the Indian and Pacific Oceans”, James Mattis – the first of five defence secretaries US President Donald Trump cycled through during his first term – said at the time.
Admiral Harry Harris, the 24th PACOM commander who retired shortly afterwards, explicitly linked the name change that year to “geopolitical competition between free and oppressive visions … taking place in the Indo-Pacific”.
But eight years on, that rationale has seemingly been erased with no explanation other than “some vague desire to highlight past glories”, according to Clary.

‘Unnecessary injuries’
On the face of it, the name change is largely administrative – as Pentagon officials were quick to point out. PACOM’s area of responsibility, stretching from the west coast of the US to India, remains unchanged.
Yet the removal of “Indo” from the command’s title arrives at a sensitive time in the US–India relationship, with ties already battered by tariff disputes, a deadly strike in the Strait of Hormuz and friction over Delhi’s energy ties with Moscow.
Trump has also repeatedly signalled that India no longer enjoys the privileged position it once held, according to Derek Grossman, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California.
“Since last summer, Trump has demonstrated a willingness to risk serious tensions with India in pursuit of other objectives,” Grossman wrote in Foreign Affairs.

He said the US president had embarrassed Delhi by pulling out of last year’s planned Quad summit in India, while simultaneously pressuring Narendra Modi’s government over Russian oil purchases and repeatedly claiming credit for brokering a ceasefire in last year’s brief conflict between India and Pakistan.
Trump has also during his second term moved closer to Pakistan, a country India regards as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Clary, who described US-India ties as the “worst” in recent times, said he had hoped that the appointment of Sergio Gor as American ambassador to India in January “would represent a turning of the page” in relations.
“[Yet] the US continues to inflict unnecessary injuries on its relationship with New Delhi,” he said.
It will be interesting to track if the Indo-Pacific nomenclature remains in key strategy documents
Troy Lee-Brown, defence researcher
On Friday, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said the PACOM name change was being “carefully considered”.
Shruti Pandalai, India chair at Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank, characterised the move as largely symbolic, saying it came as US military budget requests remained heavily focused on China and as current military planning suggested “no downgrading of the Indo-Pacific, which will be a welcome relief in New Delhi”.
Still, she said it risked jeopardising more than two decades of trust building undertaken by both sides and inflaming public antipathy in India towards Washington.
Troy Lee-Brown, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia’s Defence and Security Institute, likewise noted that the command’s mission was unchanged and said ot was too early to interpret the move as a shift in strategy on the part of Washington.
“But it will be interesting to track if the Indo-Pacific nomenclature remains in key strategy documents and the like,” he added.
PACOM, which was established in 1947 and is headquartered in Hawaii, is responsible for all American armed forces stationed across half the globe, from the Pacific to the eastern Indian oceans.