Indians view the US as the biggest military threat after China and place greater blame on NATO and Washington than on Vladimir Putin for his war in Ukraine, according to a new survey.

Some 43 per cent of the 1,000 respondents perceived China — with whom India has a long-lingering border dispute and has seen tensions flare again since 2020 — as the greatest threat, according to the survey by Morning Consult, a US-based global business intelligence company. 

However, 22 per cent saw the US as the second-most significant security threat, ahead of India’s historic arch-rival Pakistan, the survey showed. 

“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,” according to Sonnet Frisbie and Scott Moskowitz, who oversaw the survey release