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washington — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket has energized many Indian Americans, raising the fast-growing community’s political profile and sparking widespread excitement.

Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, appears set to become the first female presidential nominee of color after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday. But the fervor isn’t solely about her nomination.

Many Indian Americans, regardless of political leanings, are equally electrified to see other notable figures of Indian descent in the national spotlight: Usha Vance, the wife of Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, as well as former presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

“I’m very proud that Indian Americans are making it on every stage,” said Shaker Narasimhan, chair and founder of AAPI Victory Fund, a super PAC focused on mobilizing Asian American and Pacific Islander voters and supporting Democratic candidates.

Narasimhan recalled being on a call with about 130 people when news broke that Biden had dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Harris.

“Everything lit up, literally: the chats, the DMs, the phones,” Narasimhan said. “But it was all with excitement, not wonderment, like, ‘Wow.’ It was like, ‘Oh my God, let’s go,’ This is just the opportunity of a lifetime, as far as I’m concerned, for us to show our muscles.”

The enthusiasm cuts across the political spectrum. Priti Pandya-Patel, co-founder of the New Jersey Republican Party’s South Asia Coalition, said the community is buzzing about the prospect of Usha Vance becoming the country’s first Indian American second lady.

“I think it’s just a proud moment to see our community actually being out there and being noticed,” Pandya-Patel said. “I think that is definitely getting our Indian community very excited.”

5 million in US

Indian Americans are one of the fastest-growing immigrant communities, surging more than tenfold since the early 1990s.

Today, there are roughly 5 million people of Indian descent living in the United States, making them the largest Asian ethnic group and the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans.

While Indian Americans vote Democratic more than any other Asian group, roughly 20% identify as Republican.

The Indian American community has traditionally been perceived as politically less active than some other ethnic groups. However, there are indications of growing political engagement within the community.

A recent survey of Asian Americans, including those of Indian descent, found that 90% intended to vote in the November election even though 42% had not been contacted by either party or candidate.

The Asian American Voter Survey, of nearly 2,500 voters, was conducted between April 4 to May 26 by several Asian American groups.

“So that suggests a potential gap in engagement,” said Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the non-partisan American Hindu Coalition.

Shukla said the election presents a “tremendous opportunity” for the Indian American community as well as the two major political parties.

“I think Indian Americans need to recognize their power, especially because many of us do live in either purple states or purple districts,” Shukla said in an interview with VOA, referring to battleground states in the U.S. presidential election. “On the flip side, I think that it’s a real opportunity for the parties to do not just a checkmark or a checkbox-type outreach, but genuine outreach. Have town halls. Have listening sessions.”

Spokespeople for the Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to questions about their community outreach efforts.

Both campaigns mobilize voters through grassroots organizations.

Deepa Sharma, deputy director of South Asians for Harris and a delegate to next month’s Democratic National Convention, said her group is “working closely with people on the ground who will knock on doors, will do phone bank and outreach to this community.”

Indian Americans comprise less than 1% of U.S. registered voters, according to a 2020 study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But almost one-third live in closely contested battleground states such as Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

That puts them in a position to sway the outcome of the November election, said Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact, a progressive group.

“The South Asian American population far exceeds the margin of victory in the closest elections in these states,” Patel said.

Voter turnout steadily climbing

In 2020, the Biden-Harris ticket carried more than 70% of the Indian American vote, according to Patel, adding that support for Harris is likely to edge higher this year.

“She has drawn considerable support from the South Asian American community because she has consistently shown up and fought for our values, fought for our issues,” Patel said.

Earlier this year, Harris spoke at Indian American Impact’s “Desis Decide” summit, where she credited Indian Americans and Asian Americans with helping to get two Democratic senators elected in 2020 and 2021.

Patel said voter turnout among South Asian Americans has been steadily climbing in recent years. In 2020, for example, more than 70% of registered South Asian American voters turned out to vote in Pennsylvania, he said.

“I think they’re going to be instrumental in delivering the White House this November,” Patel said.

Similar predictions by groups such as Muslim Americans have sometimes failed to materialize.

But Narasimhan said turnout could be boosted with the right voter mobilization strategy, adding that voter education is key.

“Just because you’re a citizen doesn’t mean you can vote, you have to register,” Narasimhan said. “Teaching people the basic rudimentaries of what’s early voting, what’s absentee balloting, what’s going to the polls, navigating the system is critical, and we have to do that basic education.”

On the Republican side, activists are betting that Trump’s close ties to India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi will translate into votes for the former president.

“Trump has been friendly to India and that makes a big difference,” Pandya-Patel, the Republican activist in New Jersey, said.

Whether Indian American support for Trump is rising remains unclear.

In the recent Asian American Voter Survey, 29% of Indian Americans said they intended to vote for Trump, largely unchanged from four years ago.

Trump has called Modi a “true friend.” In 2019, he and Modi addressed a joint rally in Houston, Texas, that attracted more than 50,000 people, many supporters of the Indian prime minister. At the “Howdy, Modi!” rally, Trump called Modi “one of America’s greatest, most devoted and most loyal friends.”

Pandya-Patel said the rally boosted Indian American support for Trump, whose friendship with Modi, she added, is a key reason many Indian Americans back him.

Shukla of the American Hindu Coalition said there is a perception among some Indian Americans that the Democratic Party is not “a Hindu-friendly party.”

That may partly explain a recent “shift” in Indian American party affiliation, she said.

In the Asian American Voter Survey, the number of Indians who identify as Democrats fell from 54% in 2020 to 47% in 2024, while those identifying with the Republican Party rose from 16% to 21%.

Anang Mittal, a Virginia-based commentator who previously worked for House Speaker Mike Johnson, said the apparent shift reflects less a “sea change” than shifting political attitudes.

“I think the country as a whole is sort of shifting towards Republicans because of the larger issues that are plaguing this election,” Mittal said.
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washington — U.S. diplomats and military officials rejected concerns that recent — and sudden — changes to the American political landscape are a sign of weakness, warning America’s adversaries Thursday against trying to seek any sort of advantage.

“They should think again,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, briefing reporters.

“They should be disabused of the notion that we are anything but focused on the national security challenges that the country faces,” he added. “That includes responding to our adversaries when appropriate.”

At the Pentagon, officials insisted that whatever challenges U.S. adversaries might have in store, the U.S. military is ready.

“As to whether or not our adversaries are testing us at this particular time, they’re always testing us,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“It’s just a nature of who they are and what they do,” he told reporters. “I don’t think that this particular point in time is any different.”

The warnings from Washington come less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, instead endorsing fellow Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris to run against former president and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.

In an address from the White House late Wednesday to explain his decision to quit the race with just more than 100 days to go until the presidential election, Biden spoke in stark terms about the future of the country.

“Nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy,” Biden said.

“America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division,” he added. “We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy?”

Adding to the public concerns, the U.S. military announced just before Biden’s speech that, for the first time, Russian and Chinese long-range strategic bombers flew a joint training mission, coming within 350 kilometers of the northwestern U.S. state of Alaska.

Other officials have also warned of emboldened U.S. adversaries.

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday told lawmakers that Iran still seeks retribution against Trump and some of his advisers for the January 2020 killing of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

“We need to recognize the brazenness of the Iranian regime, including right here in the United States,” he said, while declining to share details of a reported assassination plot against Trump.

“I expect there will be more coming on that,” he said.

Others have voiced concerns about the actions of Iranian proxy forces, like the ongoing attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, or attacks by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

“We are taking away capability from the Houthis,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown Jr., speaking to reporters Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.

“But at the same point, it’s going to take more than just a military operation,” he said. “This is an engagement with the international community, but also the [U.S.] interagency to use the various tools to put pressure on the Houthis to cease this.”

At the State Department, spokesperson Miller said no matter the challenge, U.S diplomats will be up to the task.

“The president has made it incredibly clear to the secretary and the rest of the national security team that he expects them to be focused for this next six months, that he expects them to advance the foreign policy objectives that he laid out from the outset of the administration and we have put into place over the course of the last three and a half years,” he said.

And should any adversary seek to weaken the U.S., the Pentagon’s Austin said, the military will be waiting.

“I think we’ll continue to see this going forward,” he told reporters. “But again, we have the world’s greatest military, most capable military, and we will continue to protect this nation.”
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washington — The appearance of two Russian and two Chinese long-range, strategic bombers in the skies off of coastal Alaska may have been a first, but it did not catch the United States off-guard.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Thursday the appearance of the Russian and Chinese aircraft “was not a surprise” and that at no time did the bombers pose a threat to the United States.

“We have very good surveillance capabilities,” Austin said during a rare news conference at the Pentagon. “We closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, which demonstrates that our forces are at the ready all the time.” 

And if Russia and China fly more similar missions in the future, Austin said he has every confidence that U.S. forces will be prepared.

“We are at the ready. We will always be at the ready,” he said. “If there is a challenge or a threat to the United States of America, your troops will be at the ready and they will do the right thing.”

NORAD tracks aircraft

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) first shared word of the Russian and Chinese military activity late Wednesday.

NORAD said it tracked two Russian TU-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating in the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) — a stretch of international airspace where planes must be identified — off the coast of the northwestern state of Alaska.

A statement said U.S. and Canadian fighter jets were sent to intercept the Russian and Chinese planes, and that at no time did the Russian or Chinese pilots enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace.

“This Russian and PRC activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence,” it said.

Flight was joint patrol, say Russia and China

Russia and China on Thursday described the flight as a joint patrol over the Chukchi and Bering seas in the north Pacific.

“During the flight, Russian and Chinese crews cooperated in the new area of joint operations during all stages of the air patrol,” the Russian ministry said in a statement, describing the exercise as “part of the implementation of the military cooperation plan for 2024.”

Russian officials said the entire flight lasted five hours and that the bombers were at times escorted by Russian fighter jets, emphasizing that at no time did the bombers violate U.S. or Canadian airspace.

A spokesperson for the Chinese military said the patrol was designed to improve coordination between the Chinese and Russian militaries, and said it was the eighth joint air patrol since 2019.

The U.S., however, said the Russian-Chinese air patrol was the first to approach the area around Alaska.

“This is the first time we’ve seen those two countries fly together like that,” Austin told reporters, adding the Russian and Chinese bombers never got closer than about 320 kilometers from the Alaskan coast.

The U.S. defense secretary declined to comment on the timing of the Russian-Chinese air patrol, though he said, “you could probably guess that things like that have probably been planned well in advance.”

Earlier this week, the Pentagon issued its new Arctic defense strategy, which called for increased investment and increased cooperation among the U.S. and its Arctic allies to counter both Russian and Chinese activity.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have also raised concerns about growing cooperation between Russia and China, along with Iran and North Korea, as Moscow has sought support for its war in Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia’s military by sending Russia raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems.

“There is no time to lose,” a NATO official told VOA earlier this month, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the need to counter the growing defense cooperation.

“This must be a key priority for all our allies, because it is not just about spending more,” the official said. “It is also on getting those capabilities.”

Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
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WASHINGTON — Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who was chief of staff on former President Donald Trump’s national security council, spoke with VOA about his vision for ending the war in Ukraine.

Kellogg says he is not a formal adviser to the former president and has not presented his plan to Trump, but it is one of the options that he could consider if he is elected in November.

Kellogg also served as the national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence in the Trump administration. He now co-chairs the Center on American Security at America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group.

The Ukraine strategy was published back in May by AFPI as part of their An America First Approach to U.S. National Security, edited by Fred Fleitz, who also served as chief of staff at the National Security Council during Trump’s presidency and co-wrote with Kellogg the chapter on the Russia-Ukraine war.

It suggests that the U.S. should begin a formal policy “to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict.” The U.S. would continue to arm Ukraine to deter Russia from attacking during or after a deal is reached, but under the condition that Kyiv agrees to enter into peace talks with Russia.

To persuade Russia to participate in the negotiations, the U.S. and other NATO partners would delay Ukraine’s membership in the alliance for an extended period in exchange for a “comprehensive and verifiable deal with security guarantees.”

They write that Ukraine will not be asked to give up its ambition to regain all land seized by Russia, but Kyiv should agree to use diplomatic means only and realize that it might take a long time to regain all the territories. The strategy proposes to use the partial lifting of sanctions on Russia to encourage the Kremlin to take steps toward peace and establish levies on Russian energy imports to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The interview with Kellogg, recorded on July 18 at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Can you tell a little bit about the plan? I think it’s the most detailed paper coming publicly from Republican and Republican-affiliated groups.

Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg: We’ve said very clearly in our paper that Ukraine has fought valiantly. They are very well led. We think the Russians did clearly an unwarranted invasion of a sovereign state and this must be addressed. President Trump, to his credit, said in the very first debate when he was asked by one of the commentators, Dana Bash, do the Russians basically get to keep the territories? He said no, not at all. He said not once, he did it twice.

So, there’s a negotiation, you are going to figure out what your starting points are going to be. You want to make sure that Ukrainians are not put at the position when they’re operating from weaknesses, but from strength. So, the question is how do you do that? And how you put all the pieces and parts in place? Nobody is ever saying that: “Oh, we just have to make Ukrainians to give up land and give it to Russia.” Look when you look at your losses, the losses in Ukraine alone, depending on who you talk to, you’re talking between 100,000 and 130,000 deaths. That’s enormous because when I look at [Russia’s losses] they have had three times that. The United States of America lost 60,000 in the Vietnam war. That was a 20-year war we went away from. The Russians, then the Soviets, lost 15,000 in Afghanistan and walked away from it.

If the Ukrainians say no and the Russians say no, then they can do it in a different way. But I think you started to ask yourself questions is this what’s best for Ukraine as a nation? I don’t care about Russia. I care about Ukraine.

Let’s say a year and a half ago the Russians turn their heels and if the West had provided the equipment that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy asked for, then you probably could have finished the job. You could have gotten into the Sea of Azov through Kherson, splitting them in half, and that is what you wanted to do. So, I blame this administration and the West to a degree for not supporting Ukraine when they should have.

VOA: The Biden administration is saying that they want to put Ukraine in the position of strength before it can negotiate with Russia. You are suggesting pretty much the same, right?

Kellogg: No, that’s a false statement. Have the United States given Ukraine a support of F-16s? No. Did we provide long-range fires early for the Ukrainians to shoot in Russians? No. Did we provide permission for them to shoot deep into Russia? No. Did the United States provide them the armored capabilities they needed? We gave 31 tanks. Thirty-one tanks is not even a battalion in the United States army. So, they talk about it, but it didn’t really happen.

VOA: Ukrainian officials might be cautious about entering into the negotiations with Russians because it might send a signal to their partners that they don’t need military aid anymore.

Kellogg: You have to give more arms to them because you can’t trust the Russians. You just have to do it, and the question is, do you do this before Europe tires, Americans tire, Ukrainians tire? Two and a half years — that’s a long war and the destruction is enormous. Sometimes you have to look at what we call in America the long game. And that is security guarantees, financial support and military support. We have to bring that to the American people, you know, President Biden has only talked to American people one time. You got to talk to them a lot. President Biden has only talked to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin one time. When I was with President Trump, he was talking to him 17 different times. It doesn’t mean he likes him. But you have to talk to your adversary.

VOA: Why would Russians want to negotiate?

Kellogg: You need to give them reasons to negotiate. You can give an extreme reason and say, OK, you’ve got to get back all the land from Ukraine. Maybe, short-term you tell Ukraine, we’re not going to support you coming to NATO, but we give you a bilateral security agreement.

VOA: The U.S. and Ukraine have just signed a security agreement.

Kellogg: That was not a defense agreement. A defense agreement should be ratified by the Senate. What you have to do is to come up with a peace agreement like we’ve done with Korea, we did years ago with Taiwan.

VOA: But what is the contingency plan if Russia doesn’t abide by the agreement.

Kellogg: That is part of negotiation. That’s where both sides draw the red lines. That’s where both sides make the determination: this is what we’re going to do or not do.

VOA: Ukraine already tried that signing the Minsk agreements with Russia.

Kellogg: Minsk agreements worked very well, didn’t they? They’re lousy. They didn’t do anything because nobody trusted anybody, and nobody worked together. You had Minsk 1, failed; Minsk 2, failed. Budapest memorandum, failed. So, you have to have some kind of degree of confidence and security.

VOA: One of the reasons why the negotiations in Istanbul broke down was that Russians demanded Ukraine’s demilitarization, a smaller army.

Kellogg: Yes. And this is an unacceptable demand. And you don’t walk into negotiating with unacceptable demands. But you have to have an ability, we call it an interlocutor. An interlocutor is somebody who can sit down and actually negotiate with both parties. It can be Trump, President Trump believes he can do it, but you also have to look at who else is out there. President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan of Turkey, do you think he could do it? No, he’s not going to do it. [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz from Germany, you think he will do it? No, he is not going to do it. [President Emmanuel] Macron from France, he tried but hasn’t done it. Well, now they had a change in government in Britain. So that’s gone away. You know, I don’t know maybe [Klaus] Iohannis, [the president] of Romania. Maybe he could do it, but you have to have somebody that both sides could talk to.

President Trump is talking to both parties. And President Biden is not. Now the option is quite clear: If Ukraine doesn’t want to negotiate, fine, but then accept the fact that you can have enormous losses in your cities and accept the fact that you will have your children killed, accept the fact that you don’t have 130,000 dead, you will have 230,000–250,000. Demographically, what does that do to the country?

You have to accept the fact that maybe the threat will remain on Kyiv, you have to accept the fact that Kharkiv will have more damage or do you want to say this is time maybe we take a pause and figure out how to push the Russians out of there so that they don’t get territorial gain. And how do you have a long-term peace agreement?

Let’s use NATO as an example. NATO has already said they’re not going to support Ukraine going into NATO until the war is over. That’s the reality and that’s where you need somebody to stand as a negotiator and say no, this is where we want to go.

The size of this war is not appreciated in the West. That is the largest war in Europe since World War II, it is between the two largest countries in Europe. The losses have been horrific.

It is too great of a country, and I’ve been there. I have been to Izyum, I’ve been to Kharkiv and I’ve seen what Russians did to it. There’s no love for Russians. There’s a support for sovereignty. Figure out a way does not mean we say give up land.

VOA: The other reason why the negotiations in Istanbul broke down is because it became known what happened in Bucha. It means that if Ukraine allows Russia to continue occupying any of its lands, it condemns the people who live there. …

Kellogg: Who is saying to give up land?

VOA: Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance alluded to that.

Kellogg: J.D. Vance was just nominated as the vice president last night. Until that, he was just a senator, one of 100. Yeah, you can say a lot of things in the Senate. When you speak for an administration, things change. 
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