India has lodged a strong protest against the US after a naval strike resulted in the deaths of three Indian sailors without receiving an apology.

For years, Washington described India as an indispensable partner, a democratic counterweight to China and a strategic anchor in the Indo-Pacific. Then the US Navy killed three Indian sailors and America’s top diplomat could not even bring himself to apologise. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the deaths directly with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call last Friday, reiterating what he called India’s “strong protest” and declaring, in a later social media...