COVER STORY

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Indo-US ties set to deepen under Obama Administration

"We will work not just to maintain our good relationship but to broaden and deepen it"

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

The world has undergone tremendous changes since India won its Independence in 1947. The Cold War has ended and we live in a world where the United States continues to remain the sole superpower. American supremacy in the world arena has generated intense debate surrounding both the nature and quality of this power, as well as the execution and thrust of US foreign policy. At the same time, significant developments in four rising powers - China, Russia, India and the European Union – have provoked analysts to ask whether multipolarity is a realistic prospect.

India, which was designated as a Third World nation, is emerging as one of the fast growing economies with its more than a billion people. By 2020, India is expected to be the third largest economy after the US and China. Politically, India is well established in Central Asia. It shares its boundaries with China, Pakistan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, giving it political as well as economic significance.

The United States, home to nearly three million immigrants of Indian origin, has come to attach great importance to its relationship with India and the latter has moved away significantly from its former ally, the Soviet Union and has come closer to the United States. In 1945, an American Strategic Policy document surveying the post-World War II global political climate considered the possibilities of alliances with the two nations that would soon achieve independence from Great Britain, India and Pakistan. It suggested that India, rooted in Anglo traditions would be a "natural ally" of the United States but that Pakistan, with its Islamic origins, would be "unreliable." The document seemed a promising start for US-Indo relations but by the time that India finally did become independent in 1947, American foreign policy centered on the Cold War and how countries aligned with the East or the West. In that context, the decades of US-Indo relations leading up to Vajpayee's tenure as Prime Minister consisted of skepticism, occasional successes and an overall marginalization of the relationship's strategic importance. Yet by 1999, the governments of both countries were praising each other - Vajpayee voicing his admiration of US democracy in an address to Congress and Congress in turn calling India a "natural ally."

Prior to the administration of President George H.W. Bush (Bush Senior), the US and India had invariably been on opposite sides on almost every major issue. But during his administration, the conflicting Indo-US relations began to get on the right track. However, "the relations went from bad to worse in the wake of New Delhi's 1998 atomic tests, when President Bill Clinton slapped sanctions against India." After former president Clinton visited India in March 2000, the relations between the two countries started improving again. According to Dr. Thomas Abraham, since the time of Clinton administration, the US-India relation has much improved. US continues to be India's largest trading partner. Although, the US was not happy about India's nuclear test, former President Bill Clinton took a personal interest to mend fences and made a trip to India and was reciprocated by former Prime Minister Vajpayee making his state trip to the US. Since then, the bilateral relations have always been on the upswing.

Frederick J. Kaplan, Consul for Public Affairs, U.S. Consulate General – Chennai, said, "Culmination of cold war has removed a serious irritant in Indo-US relations. Introduction of economic reforms in the early 90s in India has led to strategic partnership between the two countries and collaborations in technology, health, agriculture, military, and in promotion of democracy."

The relationship between India, the world's largest democracy and the United States, the world's oldest democracy, have undergone radical changes, especially in the past two decades. Today, there is close cooperation between the two countries on issues of far reaching consequences, such as bilateral trade, nuclear energy and space technology for peaceful purposes and missile defense.

While India enjoys new US attention, it remains vigilant against any American meddling in its touchy ties with Pakistan, especially over the issues such as Kashmir. India remains pivotal to Washington's attempt to stabilize Afghanistan, while New Delhi welcomes the US as a balancing force in its regional competition with China.

These changes in perception, attitude and responses have come rather gradually and deliberately, as a response to the changes in world order. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, before her visit to India, remarked, "India is emerging as not just a regional power but as a global power. We saw that in the work that we were able to do with India in the Core Group for the tsunami relief. And I think there are many more opportunities — economic, in terms of security, in terms of energy cooperation — that we can pursue with India." While in India, she said, "The relationship between India and the US has transformed in recent years from one that had great potential into one that is really now realizing that potential."

The Indo-US relationship is all set to deepen under the Obama Administration, notwithstanding apprehensions in some quarters about "potential friction" on issues like Kashmir and nuclear non-proliferation, a recent Congressional report suggests. "Some look to history in anticipating potential friction on issues such as non-proliferation (where India may be pressed to join initiatives like the CTBT and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty); human rights and Kashmir (where the new Administration could become more interventionist); and bilateral economic relations (where Obama may pursue so-called protectionist policies)," according to the 83-page report on the ‘India-US Relations' by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) and India's Farm Minister Sharad Pawar
(L in white) walk during their visit at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in
New Delhi July 19, 2009. Clinton sounded optimistic that U.S. and India
can bridge differences on reducing greenhouse gases.

"Obama's statement that ‘Our rapidly growing and deepening friendship with India offers benefits to all the world's citizens,' suggests that the bilateral strategic partnership is likely to continue and even deepen. While many Indian analysts opine that Republican US Presidents typically have been more beneficial to Indian interests than have Democratic ones, most appear to conclude that undue worry is unnecessary, and that the selection of a Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) perceived as friendly to India has done much to ameliorate such concerns," the report said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna

Confirming India's views on its partnership with the US to be important for achieving its national development goals, Indian Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar said that a partnership with the US is important to achieve its national developmental goals and argued that the transformation of the Indo-US relationship has been the most significant feature of New Delhi's foreign policy in decades. She noted that Indo-US relations have undergone a historic transformation over the course of the past decade.

Shankar said both US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have reiterated a commitment to continue the process of further strengthening ties, to build on the impressive progress of recent years to build what Secretary of State Clinton described as the third level of India-US relations.

"From the perspective of India, transformation of her relations with the US has been probably the most significant feature of its foreign policy over the past decade," she said. "We have nearly 30 forums of bilateral engagement, spanning virtually all aspects of human endeavor. Our political dialogue has grown to an unprecedented level, our strategic understanding has deepened and encompasses both our region and the world and our bilateral cooperation has entered new frontiers," Shankar said.

Democratic India's rise will, Shankar said, in its own modest way, stand as an affirmation of the universal values of liberty, democracy, pluralism and freedom of enterprise; it would be a factor of stability, security and prosperity in the world, especially in Asia towards which the center of gravity of future challenges and opportunities is shifting. ‘India and the US share many of these concerns and challenges," she said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

With the recent high-profile visit of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to India in July this year, the United States has conveyed to India that it is ready to embark on a new era of deeper relations with India "We will work not just to maintain our good relationship but to broaden and deepen it," Clinton said at a news conference with the Indian Minister for External Affairs, S. M. Krishna. "I hope that the partnership that we are developing together will truly change the future for all of the children in both of our countries." Krishna said the dialogue would set a "new agenda for India 3.0" — an allusion to India's high-tech prowess.

During the visit, her schedule had been packed with meetings with Indian business tycoons, a film star, agricultural experts, university students and rural women who work in cottage industries like textiles. The achievements of the visit may have been modest. According to analysts, "Hillary took a slightly long term perspective and signaled certain directions for solutions. Climate change, non-proliferation and trade are the three issues that need to be addressed in the new strategic dialogue."

As some observers pointed out that Hillary may have underscored that the Obama administration looks forward to a broad-based relationship with India that goes beyond the highly militarized "strategic partnership" that the George W Bush administration sought and Delhi got used to. Obama seeks a "greening" of the USIndia partnership whereas Indian strategists schooled in the eight-year cherished belief that the future of the US-India partnership lies in the two countries striding "shoulder to shoulder" in terms of a shared "vision".

From the Indian end, the "vision" meant that the US recognized India's primacy as the number one military power in the Indian Ocean region and built it up as an Asian counterweight to China. The "vision" had a dream run during the Bush era. India held something like 50 military exercises with the US during the past fiveyear period.

The Obama administration signed off on an agreement that will open the door to lucrative military sales by the United States to India. In addition, India said it had designated two sites where American companies would build nuclear power plants. The United States generally reserves strategic dialogues for major countries like China, so this is a symbolic acknowledgment of India's rising role in the world.

The United States won India's agreement to allow it to monitor the "end use" of military equipment and technology sold to India, to ensure it is not diverted to other uses or sold to other countries.

The progress on the nuclear deal is impressive. India's emphasis on commencing the reprocessing dialogue has been respected and the two sides will meet on neutral ground to work out the details. India also confirmed the two sites, in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh States, for nuclear power plants to be supplied by American companies. The contracts, worth billions of dollars, are a key benefit of a civilian nuclear deal with India signed in the last days of the Bush administration.

The U.S. State Department had also announced that it would begin negotiations with India in Vienna over the question of the reprocessing of spent fuel. Now two major American aerospace firms, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have both been vying for the largest, single Indian defense contract involving some 126 multi-role combat aircraft, will be able to compete without any hindrance.

However, some critics point out that the Obama administration is determined to bring the nuclear deal with India within an overall architecture of global nuclear non-proliferation. And they point out to the fact that the US got its G-8 partners accept at the recent summit meeting in Italy that countries like India, which reject the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ought to be denied all enrichment and reprocessing technology. India was hoping that the nuclear deal amounted to a tacit US acceptance of its nuclear weapon status but the opposite seems to be happening — a tightening of screws. While India hoped that the massive business opportunities in the Indian nuclear market would prompt avaricious Americans to jettison their non-proliferation agenda, Washington shall have it both ways — lucrative business as well as a reinvigorated NPT regime. There is a net gain insofar as India can at least import nuclear fuel and reactors for its needs overcoming the 35-year US embargo.

The U.S., after lengthy negotiations, will now also permit India's space program to purchase and use key American components in its launches. This agreement removes yet another barrier to critical technology transfers. Access to such technologies could give India's civilian and military space efforts a significant boost.

T P Sreenivasan, a former ambassador to Vienna and the United Nations, summed up Hillary's trip to India thus: "Nothing that Hillary Clinton did or said, at least publicly, has attracted criticism. This in itself is a sign of success. Further engagement is necessary to climb the heights and the two sides have at least set up a base camp to continue the climb in fair weather."

The Christian Science Monitor wrote, "The president (and thus Ms. Clinton) sees India as one of a few major or emerging powers that are well shy of being US allies but nonetheless might work more closely with the US – as the sole global superpower."

What caused the changes in relationship? As per the strategy of White House, it needs a huge presence of military and infrastructure to rule the roost in Asia and undermine the economy of the continent. India can not only be trusted to support America's interests but can also serve as a vital location for operations in the continent. This has been confirmed, in a report submitted by the Department of Defence, entitled ‘Indo-US military relationship: expectations and perceptions.'

The role of the fast growing Indian American community in the blooming of Indo- US ties cannot be understated. George Abraham, a community activist and a senior staff at the United Nations, said, "NRIs have always played major role in cementing USIndia friendship. Indian Americans seem to have learned that lesson well and emulated the model from AIPAC, the leading Israeli lobby in Washington. The rising profile of India with IT and so forth has transformed the image of India among the ordinary Americans. Indian Americans were the catalysts to that transformation."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his last visit to the USA, remarked, "The Indian-American community in this country is a much significant factor in a stronger India-US partnership in the future. Indian-Americans have shown the exceptional characteristic of being able to integrate fully into American life while also maintaining a close cultural and economic connection with India. They serve as a bridge between our national interests. They are an inspiration to our younger people. Often their regional roots in India make them a special bridge to individual states."

[ BY AJAY GHOSH ]