When US President-elect Joe Biden and his administration take office next year, perhaps the most consequential document they will release will be their national security strategy. Former secretary of defence James Mattis has already recommended that the next administration remove the phrase “America first” from its pages to avoid alienating allies. Whether the White House couches American pre-eminence in more diplomatic terms, however, its policymakers will still need to decide the global balance of power’s pecking order. The incoming administration is reportedly considering the appointment of a White House “ Asia tsar ” within the National Security Council, highlighting the significance that the Indo-Pacific region already holds in the minds of its national security team. China is the chief reason, with the Biden team seeking to ditch the Trump administration’s unilateralism in favour of revitalising alliances in the region to balance against Beijing. Yet for Biden’s strategy to be successful, he must prioritise the powers involved, and think beyond traditional treaty alliances. For if the United States and China are numbers one and two in their Thucydidean rivalry , a bet on India as number three offers opportunity for regional balance. The return of nineteenth century-style great power competition necessitates deep reflection in Washington on precisely which global powers require the US’ strategic concentration, just as the geologist must differentiate Earth’s tectonic plates. When tectonic plates move, earthquakes and tsunami ensue. Similarly, when geopolitical plates make even the slightest of policy moves, it has a major impact on the world order for better or worse. Therefore, just as the geologist must monitor tectonic plates to comprehend developments on Earth’s surface, the strategist needs an intellectual command of the plates constituting the geopolitical core. In assessing the Indo-Pacific’s balance of power, seasoned cold warriors obsess about Russia’s role, while geostrategists flag Japan’s enduring security presence as part of the first island chain enclosing the East Asian continental coastline. Not to mention the Australians who perennially punch above their weight. India, however, remains chronically underestimated as a great power. The US foreign policy establishment has for decades remained bearish on India’s geopolitical prospects, remembering it as the poor, chaotic country that grappled with hunger rather than disrupting the international order. For many policymakers, Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew best summed up India in 2013: “India is a nation of unfulfilled greatness … There are limitations in the Indian constitutional system and the Indian political system that prevent it from going at high speed.” Not one to mince words, Lee declared, “India is not a real country. Instead, it is 32 separate nations that happen to be arrayed along the British rail line.” Lee Kuan Yew was ahead of the curve when he predicted China's emergence But a much younger Lee averred in 1974, “I have a selfish motive in wanting India to emerge as early as possible as a major economic power in world politics. If India does not emerge, Asia will be submerged.” Even towards the end of his life in 2013, strategically Lee recognised New Delhi’s role as an Asian counterweight to Beijing, saying “if the Indians are on the American side, the Americans will have a great advantage” over China. Plain economic indicators today bolster Lee’s prescience. India is already the world’s sixth-largest economy by market exchange rates, on track to become the third-largest as early as 2025. But it is already the third-largest economy as measured by purchasing power parity, which both the US Central Intelligence Agency and the International Monetary Fund believe is the best yardstick for comparing national economies. Today, the Chinese, US and Indian economies rank as the first, second, and third largest economies by PPP, respectively, with Japan fourth, Russia sixth, and Australia a distant eighteenth. India could lead a middle-power response to China in the Asia-Pacific Demographics are on India’s side, too. India is set to overtake China to become the world’s most populous nation by 2027. And by 2050, whereas the median ages of China, Japan, and western Europe will be nearly 50, 53, and 47, respectively, India’s will be an economically beneficial 37 years old. Demographically declining Russia played a weak hand well by invading Crimea in 2014, vaulting Moscow back into the great power conversation. Yet the more significant development that year was the fact that China overtook the United States as the world’s largest economy by PPP, while Russia dropped that year to sixth on the list. In defence terms, the US, China, and India’s militaries rank first, second, and third, respectively, measured by total military expenditures, with Russia and Japan at fourth and ninth, and Australia thirteenth. Ranked by active-duty military and paramilitary personnel , India is first, China second, Russia fourth, the United States fifth, and Japan and Australia 25th and 66th, respectively. Never mind future projections; the present strategic landscape clearly reveals a tectonic triangle between the US, China and India – not one between the US, Russia and China, now a relic of Cold War history. Japan and Australia will be important members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue , but India will be essential in the Indo-Pacific. The writers of the Biden administration’s national security strategy would be wise to acknowledge this reality if they are to balance Beijing in the most consequential region of our time. Then, perhaps, they can make good on the promise proclaimed in a national security strategy at the beginning of the century in 2002: “to promote a balance of power that favours freedom”. Arjun Kapur researched US foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Centre, studied at Tsinghua University in Beijing as a Schwarzman Scholar, and writes on Indo-Pacific affairs in New York City