Post-cold war Indo-US ties: An analysis from the neo-realist perspective

India-US growing strategic ties in the post-Cold war period have so many explanations but the most interesting and pragmatic approach to understand their growing ties, in a unipolar in early 90s and an emerging multipolar world in early 2000s, is the system structure approach. The main assumption of Neorealism that structure dominates the units and states always desire to maximize their security by grabing maximum power in terms of material gains explains the growing strategic ties of India and the US. Mutual interests and desire to keeping the hegemonic powers in hand in the face of rise of China bring both countries together. On the part of India, there are some historic phobias to protect its territorial integrity and independence. The ages old desires to ensure a respectable place in the world's politics and attaining the hegemonic status in the region forced India to build close ties with the US in the post-Cold War period especially when it was deprived of its decades old trust worthy friend, the Soviet Union. China's economic development created opportunity for her to go abroad in the search of global markets for her exports. India and the US share the mutual interests and fears to contain the rising China and its economic expansion in the near and far regions. Despite having many contradictions on plenty of political, economic and environmental issues, India and the US are willing to cooperate in the security domain specially in Asia. Key Words: Strategic Ties, India, US, China, South Asia, post-Cold War, Neorealism, Hegemony, Power Politics.