Indo-U.S. relations headed for a grand transformation?

Indo-U.S. relations headed for a grand transformation?

Ashley J. Tellis
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Washington

The forthcoming visit of India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
to the United States will provide an opportunity to test the
vitality of the U.S.-Indian relationship. In particular, it will
confirm whether the new U.S. policy towards South Asia, first
disclosed on March 25, 2005 when senior administration officials
asserted that the United States had reached the decision "to help
India become a major world power in the twenty-first century,"
represents the grand transformation in bilateral ties that has
eluded both countries during the last fifty-odd years.

In boldly declaiming, in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
words, "that we're fully willing and ready to assist in th[e]
growth of India's global power...which we see as largely
positive," the Bush administration effectively gave notice that
it would systemically decouple India and Pakistan in its
strategic calculations.

In other words, U.S. relations with each state would be
governed by an objective assessment of the intrinsic value of
each country to U.S. interests -- rather than by fears about the
effect on relations with the other.

A transformed bilateral relationship that makes the United
States, as Rice put it, "a reliable partner for India as it makes
its move as a global power" will ultimately advance America's own
global interests in defeating terrorism, arresting nuclear
proliferation, promoting democracy, and preserving a stable
balance of power in Asia over the long term. Achieving these
objectives, however, requires a new approach that translates the
President's intentions into new policy initiatives, something
Prime Minister Singh will be eager to judge for himself during
his forthcoming visit.

The administration's new policy towards India thus far has had
two major components. First, the administration has overcome its
past hesitation to supply India with advanced defense equipment.
Accordingly, it has permitted Lockheed Martin and Boeing to offer
the Indian Air Force F-16s and F-18s, respectively, and has
promised that the United States would support future Indian
requests for defense systems. The administration has even
intimated that the weapons and sensors it might provide India
would be more advanced than those supplied to Pakistan.

Second, and even more important for India, the administration
has compressed the implementation schedule of the Next Steps in
Strategic Partnership agreement previously reached with New
Delhi, and has expressed its willingness to discuss a range of
difficult and highly contentious issues through three separate,
high-level dialogues on security, energy, and the economy.

The strategic dialogue will focus on global security issues,
such as India's quest for permanent UN Security Council
membership, future defense cooperation, high-technology trade,
and space-related collaboration, as well as regional issues
pertaining to security in and around South Asia. The energy
dialogue will address energy security issues including the
proposed Indo-Pakistani-Iranian gas pipeline and nuclear safety
cooperation.

Most importantly, participants will discuss ways of
integrating India into the global nuclear regime so as to address
New Delhi's desire for renewed access to safeguarded nuclear fuel
and advanced nuclear reactors. The economic dialogue will aim at
increasing U.S.-Indian trade and creating new constituencies in
the United States with a stake in India's growing power and
prosperity.

Of course, cultivating this new relationship with India
carries several risks for the Bush administration. First,
supporting India's acquisition of nuclear and space technology
could undermine the international non-proliferation regime. While
providing such technologies would give New Delhi incentives to
control outward proliferation in perpetuity and join with the
United States in interdicting proliferation wherever it occurs
worldwide, Washington cannot simply jettison the global non-
proliferation regime that it has assiduously built over the last
several decades.

Second, the new administration strategy carries with it the
risk of provoking China, which could view closer U.S.-India ties
as a means of polite containment. This is another issue
Washington will have to manage prudently -- but without apology.
The United States should always consider the new U.S.-Indian ties
in terms of its own interests, rather than in light of potential
Chinese displeasure.

In fact, given the violent history of rising powers, the U.S.
might need partnerships with other Asian states to counter
growing Chinese capabilities, which even today directly threaten
the United States and its allies. Deepened relations with Japan,
India, and key allies in Southeast Asia will create structural
constraints that may discourage Beijing from abusing its growing
regional power. Even as Washington attempts to preserve good
relations with Beijing -- and encourages these rimland states to
do the same -- cultivating ties with these nations may be the
best way to prevent China from dominating Asia in the long-term.

These dangers assume that the administration's new strategy
becomes too successful for its own good. But the far greater and
more likely danger is that the enhanced U.S.-India relationship
could peter out and atrophy.

It is not lost on policy makers in New Delhi that, although
certainly welcome, the latest U.S. pronouncements about its
desire to boost Indian power remain -- at least for the moment --
statements of intent rather than concrete policy objectives.
Cynics within the Indian cabinet have privately pointed out that,
while the new U.S. approach actually provides Islamabad with
airplanes, all that New Delhi has received thus far are eloquent
words.

Despite U.S. willingness to co-produce military equipment,
Indian leaders expect more liberal access to a variety of
civilian technologies, such as nuclear energy, satellite
components, and advanced industrial equipment. If the United
States fails to provide India with such forms of assistance --
capabilities it needs to increase its rate of economic growth and
to become a major power -- New Delhi's current tolerance of U.S.
defense sales to Pakistan could quickly change into outright
opposition.

A rupture in relations with India would be a grievous failure
because the new Bush strategy has the potential to be truly
revolutionary both in Asia and beyond. In the past, relations
between the U.S., India, and Pakistan were largely zero-sum. The
events of March 25, 2005, however, ushered in a new era in which
the United States can engage India and Pakistan simultaneously,
instead of favoring one at the other's expense. This new
framework is not only good for American interests -- it has
already yielded a visionary bilateral defense framework agreement
-- but also for the security of one of the most dangerously
divided areas of the world.

Ashley J. Tellis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and served in the U.S.
Department of State as senior advisor to the Ambassador at the
Embassy of the United States in India. He is author of India's
Emerging Nuclear Posture. Reprinted with permission from
YaleGlobal Online, (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu).