It was a strange way to announce the postponement of the first-ever simultaneous meeting of the Indian and American defense and external affairs ministers. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke the news to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj after UN Permanent Representative (UNPR) Nikki Haley touched down in New Delhi to soothe feathers ruffled by a burgeoning trade dispute and attempts to circumscribe New Delhi’s freedom to buy oil and weapons from Iran and Russia, respectively. The first postponement in April was understandable — Trump had recently fired his Secretary of State and his replacement was going through confirmation hearings before the US Congress. The latest deferment lends itself to many interpretations and — since Pompeo did not elaborate — to negative inferences about the state of play of US-India relations.

Nothing much could be deduced from the public statements by Nikki Haley who largely made boiler plate announcements that no one can find fault with. The 2+2 format, borrowed from the Japanese diplomatic blue book, is supposed to speed up strategic and security partnerships. But in actual practice the focus is narrower: all the 2+2 formats currently in vogue are aimed at containing China or Russia or both. And PM Modi crossed a Rubicon by parleying with Presidents of both these countries in settings that lend themselves to elaborate deal making and clearing of the air.

The US would have rightly sensed that India will be hard placed to accommodate its security and defense requirements after it asked India for a complete ban on Iranian oil by November 4 and threatened its contracts for Russian military hardware. Both directives are anathema to India because of its long-standing policy of not putting all its energy and military eggs in a single basket. Trade disputes and Indian immigration woes are the other irritants. In this stalemate, both sides need sustained, creative and energetic diplomacy that gives India the freedom to pick its partners. The nature of Indo-US ties does not lend itself to permanent estrangement. But the moot question is whether a distracted and depleted US diplomacy is up to the task.