US Secretary of Defense Gen (retd) Lloyd Austin is the first-ever African American to occupy the top Pentagon position.
US Secretary of Defense Gen (retd) Lloyd Austin said that under Biden’s administration the United Stated will continue to build on the “strong defense cooperation” with India and ensure increased collaboration between the two countries’ militaries on “shared interests.” Austin was US President Joe Biden’s nominee for Defence Secretary and the nomination was confirmed by the US Senate making him the first-ever African American to occupy the top Pentagon position.
During his confirmation hearing, while addressing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin said: “If confirmed, my overarching objective for our defense relationship with India would be to continue elevating the partnership.” He also stated that he would “further operationalize India’s major defense partner status and continue to build upon existing strong defense cooperation” to ensure that the two countries’ militaries can collaborate to address shared interests.”
Austin added that he would deepen and broaden the cooperation between the two countries through the “Quad Security Dialogue and other regional multilateral engagements.” The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is an informal strategic Indo-Pacific group of India, the United States, Japan, and Australia.
Meanwhile, as we have reported earlier, US Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken said: “India has been a bipartisan success story of our successive administrations.”
