Miss India 2004
What Clinton wanted in India during his tsunami relief campaign.
Posted on 02/27/2006 8:06:49 PM PST by indcons
The president's trip this week has strategic and economic import.
WASHINGTON – President Bush and his policymakers like to stress how much 9/11 has changed America's foreign-policy objectives, but one goal the terror attacks did not alter is to build a stronger partnership with the world's largest democracy, India.
When Mr. Bush arrives in India Wednesday, he will emphasize that same theme - one he has sounded since he was a governor running for president in 2000. At the top of the agenda are a controversial US-India nuclear-power agreement, proposed last summer when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington; security and economic ties; and India's relations with Pakistan, a country Bush will visit briefly on Saturday.
But the specific discussion points, while important, fail to convey the broad geopolitical significance of both the trip and of the administration's intent to forge a strategic relationship.
Closer US-India ties are "one of the most significant developments of the early part of the 21st century," says Kurt Campbell, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here.
Others close to the administration's thinking say India exemplifies what the Bush team sees as the future of a peaceful and prosperous world. Thus, they add, India should be encouraged as a partner.
India is "a compelling example of what [the president] thinks can happen elsewhere," says Michael Green, recent national security director for Asian affairs, pointing to India's established democracy, its "150 million Muslims with no Al Qaeda," and its growing middle class.
US-India relations have seemed to bud before and have suffered "false starts." Now, conditions favor a full bloom, in part because both countries appear to want it, experts say. "What used to be 'estranged democracies' are now 'engaged democracies,' " says Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asian affairs who has accompanied two former presidents - Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton - to India.
"New Delhi has joined the list of capitals to which a US presidential visit is now imperative," says Mr. Inderfurth, now at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
Bush seeks to cement relations with a huge and fast-growing economy, while at the same time building ties with India as a way to influence the other - but communist - giant in the neighborhood, China.
India sees a mature relationship with the US as a way to further its status as a world power - including, it hopes, a permanent seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council. India has worked to ease tensions with neighboring Pakistan - a dangerous nuclear rivalry that escalated to the brink of war in 2002, requiring intense diplomacy from the Bush administration and delaying the grand opening to India the president had hoped for in his first term.
Stronger US-India ties would have a geopolitical impact akin to that of the Nixon administration's opening up to China, former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, a member of Bush's original foreign-policy advisory team, said recently.
But like that transformation, US relations with India are not likely to become suddenly conflict-free.
India will continue to develop relations with nearby Iran independent of American priorities, experts say, and its need for energy and raw materials will encourage relations with developing countries, which could place it at odds with the US.
Yet a set of common interests should help the US and India move a relationship long characterized by mutual skepticism into a period of greater cooperation, says Teresita Schaffer, former ambassador to Sri Lanka and now director of CSIS's South Asia program. On her list of common concerns for the two powers: security in the Indian Ocean region; broader Asian security factors, including China's rise; Iran; and "global governance" aspirations.
Though India hopes for Security Council membership, the US is "tremendously not interested in moving that forward," she says. But there are other ways to address India's goals, such as providing a closer link with the G-8 group of advanced economies, she adds.
Inderfurth, however, says Bush "is missing an opportunity to solidify his vision of a global future by not endorsing India for a permanent seat." Noting that the National Intelligence Council, the CIA's think tank, recently concluded that the emergence of India and China "will transform the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century," Inderfurth says that if the Security Council is to "reflect the realities of the 21st century versus those of 1945, how could India not be included?"
Still, the proposed US-India civilian nuclear deal - under which the US would share nuclear technology and fuel with India in exchange for India opening its civilian nuclear plants to international inspection - suggests the kind of tension that is likely to roil the relationship in the future. The Bush administration sees the agreement as a way to reward India for "good nuclear behavior." The deal would also steer a booming economy away from fossil fuels, the White House says.
In both countries, opposition to the deal is centered in the legislature. Some in India's Parliament insist the deal would compromise India's security. In the US, Rep. Edward Markey (D) of Massachusetts has filed legislation to halt it, saying the deal would reward a nuclear power that refuses to join the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and risks causing a nuclear arms race in South Asia.
Despite the controversy, US Ambassador to India David Mulford said Monday he hoped the agreement would be sealed before Bush's visit.
But others say the trajectory of closer relations should trump enabling a Bush-Singh handshake this week on the nuclear deal. "The relationship is too important - and indeed this deal is too important for future energy development and nonproliferation - to rush it," says Inderfurth.
Ping
india is believed to have what, 100 nukes now?
looking at their neighbors (china, pakistan, iran, etc), how on earth can the US NOT try to form a closer relationship with India, even ignoring the multinationals desire to use india and the permanent call center of the US?
Miss India 2004
What Clinton wanted in India during his tsunami relief campaign.
Ay caramba!
Mr Singh is being interveiwed on charlie roses show on PBS right now in dallas
THANKS for the ping.....I really appreciate it. Catching it on PBS right now.
Anytime
What we should do is get India's armed forces up to NATO standards, and get India to stop buying Russian weapons. Instead, buy India's Russian weapons stockpile and use it for OPFOR purposes, and then give India US/NATO weaponry (also allow domestic production of these items). We should also assist India with building their infrastructure. Then, we would have the largest democracy on the planet armed well enough to take on China and even Russia if need be.
Charlie:
"will you contain China if America wants you too?"
Honestly! what is Mr Singh supposed to say L0L
India's problem in the past was its delusions of grandeur, pride, and arrogance.
Such mentalities were at odds and incompatible with our foreign policy, which refused to recognize the delusional assertions of India's dominance in negotiations.
It would seem that the puffed up peacocks that used to run that country have either lost their feathers or dropped their act in favor of negotiating in good faith. After how the Clinton administration screwed over India, it is no surprise that they're finding working with the more upfront Bush administration as preferable, even if it means they have to cut the B.S. and theatrics.
My politial loyalties are pretty much ultra right wing and I have never been a big fan of the PM Singh's socialist Congress Party. That said, Singh himself is an intelligent, highly educated, and a statesman-like leader.
BTW, before he became finance minister and prime minister, Singh was the chairman of India's federal reserve (Reserve Ban of India). As a result, he understands economics and free market capitalism better than most Indians.
W.R.T. the question of China's control, I am surprised that Rose even asked such a question!! As you point out, what answer was he expecting? LOL
Countries don't have permanent friends; they merely have permanent interests.
At present, it is in the best interests of both countries to work with each other; "delusions of arrogance, pride, whatever...." have nothing to do with the increasingly warm ties.
Read what I wrote again and then repeat until you understand it.
India had an attitude problem that made working with them difficult, even when such relationships were in their best interest. It would appear that they've finally put aside the axe that they had with Western civilization and have settled down to deal in good faith with the Western powers. Generally speaking, India gets a fair shake from the current administration, as opposed to the screwing over they got from the Clinton administration. This helps.
I don't know how much of it is true, but Russian assistance in the 70s and 80s was critical for India to forward its interests. The US was anyway much closer with Pakistan. And China to boot.
Besides, India has had pretty close relations with Britain throughout the post-independence period, and continues to do so. So, where's the axe with Western civilisation?
It may help if you learn how to write. However, that may be too much to ask of you. Read what I wrote again (and again) until you understand it.
Western civilization has been the boogeyman used by third world populist politicians, and India has some rather tragic examples of colonial brutality in its recent history. It is a matter of perception, not a matter of historical fact, that matters when populist rhetoric are employed to manipulate crowds and voters.
I think the fall of the Soviet Union marked an important shift in the perception of Western civilization in India, mostly because the incentive among the Left most of the Indian political parties and individuals disappeared with the dissolution of the Soviets.
On the whole, I'm impressed with the changes in India's stance on foreign policy. They seem far more amenable to compromise and less demanding on asserting their rights to various entitlements. Far less blustering B.S. from them now than in the past.
Perhaps.
My English is fine.
And the quote about nation's only having interests was incorrect.
The correct quote is, "Nations do not have friends, only interests!" Your use of the quote had absolutely no bearing on my original statement, which leads me to believe that you didn't understand my original statements regarding India's prior tendency to deal with the United States in an underhanded manner, full of demands, and almost no willingness to compromise.
India has made a lot of progress in the past decade, and I'm generally impressed with the differences between India's progress and the lack of similar progress in countries with far fewer people, more resources, and more international aid per capita. But in no way would I suggest that India is a reliable friend or trustworthy ally. I will only go so far as to note that they're far more amenable now than they used to be.
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