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Although China’s conflict with India has in some ways pushed New Delhi closer to Washington, in a striking finding, nearly a quarter of Indian adults (22%) actually see America as India’s greatest threat. As the next largest share, the United States clocks in higher than even historical nemesis Pakistan (13%).

While the world’s two largest democracies would seem to make for natural partners, especially given their mutual mistrust of China, Indians have strategic reasons to be wary of the world’s Western superpower: As tensions between Washington and Beijing increase, the Indian public may be worried about getting caught in the middle of a U.S.-China conflict that destabilizes regional security, putting India at risk.

India’s simultaneous memberships in both the U.S.-backed Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly called the Quad, and the China- and Russia-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization are together a good example of its pragmatic approach to dealing with the dueling powers, in part to help mitigate the aforementioned risk.

On the one hand, India’s Quad membership — alongside Japan, Australia and the United States — nominally aligns it with the major Western democracies hoping to contain China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific region. But India has been adamant that the Quad is merely a functional collective as opposed to a tight-knit group of nations underpinned by shared democratic values, as other members have argued. According to our own research, public faith in the Quad among its member states — as both a regional and national security stabilizer — remains limited in Asia, with Indians again of mixed minds.

On the other hand, in 2017 India joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, originally a Central- Asia-focused security arrangement that some have described as an “anti-U.S. bulwark” in the region. Reinforcing the point, Iran and Belarus — both Russia-aligned foes of the United States — are expected to accede to full SCO membership.

Sleeping in the middle makes for strange bedfellows

India’s renewed attempts to carve out a middle path have come with a curious array of foreign policy affinities and enmities, in part by design. It cannot afford an unchecked alliance between Russia, China and Pakistan, and it relies on positive relations with Russia — which supplies India with affordable energy and military hardware — to help temper Chinese aggression and expansionism.

In a clear public nod to these dynamics, Indian adults view Russia as the country most allied to their own, followed closely by the United States, while Pakistan and China anchor the enemy side of the scale. Russia aside, India views the other members of the SCO (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) in a mildly negative light, and several other countries that have historically been more aligned with the United States (e.g., Saudi Arabia) more positively.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Iran both fall roughly in the middle. Yet Ukraine is a U.S. ally receiving military support in the war against Russia, while Iran has supported Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine. The United States has accordingly sanctioned Iranian weapons manufacturers, and Indian relations with Iran have already led to regulatory issues, further highlighting the risks inherent in India’s attempts to play both sides.

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