- Joined
- Mar 24, 2009
- Messages
- 24,324
- Likes
- 11,757
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/us_india2011.pdf
Ebb and Tide
Guest Column | Ashley J. Tellis
Has the US-Indian strategic partnership bombed?
The expectantly awaited US-Indian strategic partnership is no more. That, at least, is the view in the commentariat and among some on Capitol Hill and within the Obama administration. Even among those who do not hold this extreme position, there is an uneasy sense that the bilateral partnership is not going forward, only sideways. And India's recent decision in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) competition and its troubled nuclear liability legislation (NLL ) remain the poster children that confirm the worst fears of even India's friends that the relationship is not yielding the rewards initially imagined.
To be sure, both outcomes can be explained away. The American contenders in the MMRCA race were always long shots, and they stood their best chance only if the government of India focused on value rather than pursuing the finest flying machines that money could buy. When the Indian Air Force settled for the latter — an arguably reasonable decision — the American entrants lost out. Similarly, the NLL is undoubtedly inconsistent with the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, and it undermines the ability of the American nuclear industry to do business in India. But it does not discriminate against the United States singularly. Rather, it impairs uniformly the ability of all foreign and domestic private suppliers to participate in India's planned nuclear renaissance.
Like so much else in India, the nuclear liability law too will be eventually fixed — after many exertions, a great deal of frustration, and much pain. India, it seems, always walks straight in crooked lines. But the intervening disappointment with India in the United States, which is driven by a multiplicity of issues — the current paralysis in Indian governmental decision-making, the awkward yet strident positions taken by India in multilateral institutions on the Arab awakening, the seeming reluctance to deepen bilateral defence engagement even when it appears clearly in Indian interest, and the listless Indian pursuit of economic reforms — has raised the question of whether the American effort to cement a strategic partnership with India at the high cost borne by the United States was worth it after all.
This is the central question that cannot be avoided: if the high-maintenance relationship with India is not judged to be worth the benefits to the United States, the strategic partnership between the two countries will not only be unsustainable, despite any episodic attempts at resuscitation, but also and more importantly will become a source of grief and exasperation to both Washington and New Delhi. From an American perspective, the answer to this question, then, revolves entirely around the issue of advantages to the United States: how these are conceived and how they are to be measured.
Those who believe that the US-Indian strategic partnership has bombed appear to be driven to this conclusion today largely by their frustration with Indian decisions on the MMRCA and the NLL . Their disappointment is understandable, but whether the severity of their conclusion is justified is another matter. After all, US-Indian cooperation on a range of matters currently is extensive, routine, and characterised by the 'dominance of ordinariness.' Which is all to the good. Spectacular breakthroughs are exceptional indeed. They occur infrequently — the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement was a conspicuous example — and it is unrealistic to expect consistent repetitions. But there has clearly been progress: barely two decades ago, the United States and India were either antagonistic or indifferent to each other; today, both sides vigorously debate how close they can be and what constitutes evidence of partnership!
Even where defence trade is concerned — the source of much current dismay — the progress has been nothing short of revolutionary. From the days when India could not — or would not — purchase a single major American combat system, the United States has now emerged in the front ranks of Indian suppliers of choice. Not too long ago, it was unthinkable that India wouldeven entertain the idea of relying on the United States for major weapon systems; today, it is willing to put a frontline American combat aircraft through its paces, while relying entirely on American platforms for its long-range maritime patrol aircraft, very heavy lift transport aircraft, advanced special operations tactical transport aircraft, and heavy attack helicopter requirements. If current trends internationally and in India hold, Washington will become a critical source of advanced military technology for New Delhi in the years to come.
Why, then, the angst about the US-Indian strategic partnership? If the timorousness is driven mainly by fears of a loss of momentum, that may not be an altogether bad thing. After all, complacency remains the biggest threat to realising the full potential of this evolving joint venture. But clearly something more is afoot. The dismay presently pervasive in the United States suggests that it is not merely trepidation about future failure but rather bitterness about being short-changed — a sullenness that grows from mistaken expectations of what India was supposed to deliver in gratitude for the exceptional nuclear cooperation offered by the United States.
From these expectations came the hope that India would deliver the MMRCA contract to an American vendor or that India would have concluded an NLL that welcomed American nuclear suppliers to the domestic market. Such expectations, however understandable, nonetheless betray the belief that the United States pursued a geopolitical rapprochement with India in the expectation of some material gains, such as privileged access to India's large and burgeoning markets. Although such access would undoubtedly be welcome, expecting it to materialise as a quid pro quo for civilian nuclear cooperation represents a peculiar transactionalism that was quite absent in the consciousness of President George W. Bush and those around him who conceived the transformation of US-Indian relations during his term in office.
Settling for a transactional approach to India now is not only mistaken but dangerous because it is certain to fail: the disparate levels of economic and political development between the United States and India, the power disparities between the two countries, and the fragility of the improvements in bilateral relations (which are still contested by significant leftist and nationalist constituencies in India), all suggest that New Delhi will likely fall short in most significant transactional tests that could be devised for quite some time to come. More to the point, however, a transactional relationship is also unnecessary because the vast gap in relative capabilities between the United States and India today and in the foreseeable future ensures that Indian contributions to American security and well-being will be peripheral, at least for a while longer.
The real gains in the US-Indian partnership will be manifest only over the long haul and will be realised less by what India does for the United States than by what it becomes and does for itself. Consequently, any current rush to transactionalism that undermines this prospect of success in the longterm future — when the United States is likely to need a strong, capable, and independent India more than it does today — fundamentally undermines the strategic interests of the United States and, therefore, should be consciously avoided. This approach requires both deliberate foresightedness and intestinal fortitude amidst all the pressures that drive towards transactionalism in a democratic polity, especially one wracked by economic pains at home and difficult challenges abroad.
George W. Bush, however, understood this calculus completely. Barack Obama does so too — though it is an open question whether the same can be said for his administration as a whole. In any event, what is often forgotten is that the United States pursued rapprochement with India not primarily for immediate commercial gains but for larger geopolitical aims that were intimately linked to its own interests — and not in the manner often currently understood.
Bush pursued a strategic partnership with India for three very good reasons. First, with the early success of Indian economic reforms in the 1990s, India had emerged as a rising power that promised to become a country of consequence on the international stage. The end of the Cold War and the demise of bipolarity simultaneously removed the previous discomforts of nonalignment that had imperilled the growth of US-Indian ties, thus offering both Washington and New Delhi the opportunity to eliminate the old estrangements once and for all. That India was a democracy made this goal simultaneously attractive and imperative. President Bush in particular was chagrined that two democracies could be so alienated even as he was awed by the success of India's democratic experiment, and he was determined to forge new bonds that would permit the United States and India to collaborate in creating a global order that served their common interests.
The strong compatibility in values was only reinforced by the growing recognition that India's interests increasingly converged with those of the United States. Whether it was the desire for a 'balance of power that favoured freedom,' or the common threats posed by terrorism and violent religious extremism, or preserving the traditional freedoms in the global commons, or addressing the challenges of energy security, American and Indian interests were similar even if they were not always perfectly congruent. Again, because of the disparities in capability between the two states, their policies towards these problems were bound to differ. But the fundamental fact that there are no differences in vital interests that would cause either the United States or India to levy mortal threats against the other or cause either country to undercut the other's core objectives on any issue of strategic importance made the possibility of a 'strategic partnership' viable. President Bush sought to build on this core convergence in the expectation that even if India's contributions were minimal today for all sorts of reasons, having India in the stable of America's friends and allies was preferable to being without it.
Finally, President Bush recognised that the United States and India were both confronted by the rise of Chinese power — a development that could prove to be highly disruptive if it were not managed in a way that enhanced peace and stability in Asia. Cognisant that previous rising powers had disturbed the international order in ruinous ways, the Bush administration developed and implemented a strategy that accommodated the benefits of growing economic interdependence between the United States (and others) and China, while simultaneously hedging against the downside of growing Chinese strength. Since the old strategies of containment were judged inutile in the emerging geopolitical environment, the administration sought to procure all the gains arising from strong economic bonds with China while at the same time supporting those democratic states on China's periphery whose growth in capabilities would serve as objective constraints on Beijing's misuse of power.
Assisting India's rise was critical to the success of this strategy and, consequently, American interests were well served by supporting New Delhi both in material and in institutional terms through the dramatic civilian nuclear cooperation agreement as well as more conventional devices such as an enhanced defence partnership, liberal high-technology transfers, and renewed space collaboration. President Obama has now carried this policy to its logical conclusion by supporting India's membership in various non-proliferation regimes, and by endorsing India's candidacy for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
All in all, the US effort at seeking a rapprochement with India was driven by a grand strategic vision that transcended commercial considerations. And by this standard, US policy towards India has succeeded substantially. For starters, the estrangement in US-Indian relations has now been definitively consigned to history. The deep distrust that lurked in each capital about the other — especially during the worst years of the Cold War — has completely evaporated. Both Washington and New Delhi now consult regularly on an incredibly wide range of issues — a development without any precedent in the last 60-odd years. These discussions occur, moreover, even on matters where the two sides disagree on goals, policies, or tactics; yet both have proved capable of sustaining their dialogue and their partnership without rancour or ill will. If anything, there is a greater appreciation of the predicaments faced by the other, even when neither side can do anything about it.
Of even greater import, India has begun taking the first tentative steps towards active cooperation with the United States and with other Asian partners in regards to a range of issues: economic cooperation, social development, diplomatic coordination, defence engagement, and, most importantly, putting the myriad pieces in place to preserve the regional equilibrium that is critical to stability in Asia over the long term. To be sure, these Indian actions are often hesitant, precarious, incomplete, and at constant risk of backsliding — dangers that are exacerbated by the currently troubled state of Indian domestic politics, the discomfort with the United States still persisting among elements of the Indian political class, the native Indian conservatism with regard to doing anything to 'shape' the world, and the still significant limitations in analytic, bureaucratic, and decisional capacity affecting the Indian state.
Yet if India is measured today not against the American expectations of where it ought to be, but rather where it was only a short time ago, the distance travelled by this country — despite being what Shyam Saran, the former Indian foreign secretary, so insightfully called a 'premature power' — is remarkable indeed. In time, as India's capacity and confidence grows, New Delhi's ability to more effectively partner with the United States will only increase further. And it may, on many an occasion, result in India following its own course, pursuing policies that are at odds with American preferences.
This should not be surprising for a country of India's size, history, and relentless obsession with 'strategic autonomy.' Nor should such an outcome be quickly read as a failure of US policy. Such an interpretation would be accurate only if the US goal of assisting India's rise was oriented, first and foremost, towards enticing New Delhi into 'doing' various things for the United States. But if the purpose of American assistance was to aid India in 'being' a certain kind of power — capable, responsible, and friendly — that would also automatically constrain the ability of any common competitors to unleash harm, India's inclinations towards independence do not necessarily undermine America's grand strategy.
The current disappointment with India in the administration and outside, therefore, arises largely because the original vision underlying the US-Indian rapprochement — that India's rise was a desirable end in itself from the perspective of American geopolitical interests and, hence, ought to be supported without any expectations of being requited — has been subtly eroded under domestic economic pressures and difficult foreign policy challenges into a transactionalism that demands Indian 'cooperation' in the here and now as the price of continued American support. While some of these expectations are reasonable (and natural) — which New Delhi out of sheer self-interest ought to consider how to accommodate — others are extravagant and beyond India's immediate capacity to satisfy.
What is needed in Washington at this juncture, therefore, is a measure of patience. Deeper cooperation will come as the Indian state grows more and more comfortable with the United States and its strategic aims and its manner of doing business. It is all too easy to forget that the transformation in bilateral relations has been driven so far mainly by a handful of far-sighted strategists on both sides. In India, where the risks accruing to dramatic shifts in policy are greater, these policy entrepreneurs have been exceptionally small in number, centred mainly on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a few of his most trusted advisers.
This constituency will enlarge over time. As a new generation of Indians comes to the political helm in the Centre and in the states — a generation that already draws from a body politic that is disproportionately approving of the United States as polls of international opinion consistently show — the density of bilateral cooperation will only increase. As India's policies evolve in the direction of greater integration with the global economy — a challenge in a country that is uniquely both poor and democratic — cooperation with the United States will naturally gather momentum. And as the ties between Indian and American society deepen — thanks to the growing links between innovators, entrepreneurs, financiers, educators, artistes, and, of course, Indian-Americans — the growing symbiosis between the two countries will manifest itself in forms of partnership that have been rare historically. Not to forget the pointed fact that the increasingly complex Indian strategic environment — exemplified most clearly by the rise of China but not limited to it — will make deepened partnership with the United States the 'new normal' in bilateral relations over time.
The secular trend, therefore, is moving inexorably in the direction of robust bilateral ties, and those who are dismayed by what are currently real, yet only transient, perturbations fail to appreciate either the burdens of history or the opportunities embodied by the future. The obstacles imposed by the past have left behind a residue that is yet to be overcome completely, but this remnant is slowly being abraded and what is most remarkable, taking the long view, is how much erosion of distrust has already occurred in so short a period of time. Think simply of India's changing attitude to the American presence in Southern Asia as proof of this metamorphosis. The prospects inhering in the future are even more significant because, so long as US expectations are rooted in the conviction that India's rise represents a net benefit for American interests, the growing challenges emerging in Asia will only bring the two countries closer than ever before.
Does this mean, however, that the US-Indian strategic partnership is doomed to succeed? Unfortunately not. There are still real risks to the strategic partnership and at least three come to mind at the Indian end.
The first challenge is not necessarily India's failure to buy things from the United States — the much ballyhooed current gripe — but rather the inability to make the decisions at home that will advance India's growth in power. If India were to move smartly on economic reform, regulatory easing, decisional transparency, and, yes, even fixing the flawed nuclear liability legislation — improvements it should pursue for its own purposes — US interests would be more than well-served. Quick action on these issues cannot be delayed for much longer if India is to sustain the impressive rates of economic growth it has enjoyed in the last decade. Without such growth, India will be unable to realise either its developmental goals or its quest for great power capabilities, and such failures would undermine long-term US interests in Asia more dangerously than any disappointments over Indian procurement decisions right now.
The second challenge is embodied by the prospect that India will fail to recognise that it can make Asia and the world a better place by preemptively acting upon it ('shaping'), rather than passively waiting to respond — as it is usually wont — only after the calamities have occurred and their effects laid at its door. Overcoming the legacies of culture, history, and psychology that elevate inaction to a high political art will be hard to overcome, but if India can move towards seeking remedies to 'inconveniences from afar,' not only would it be able to minimise the dangers to itself at lower costs than otherwise but it would also find more opportunities for creative strategic collaboration with the United States.
The third challenge consists of the still significant Indian failure to develop state institutions that enable the development of rational-purposive strategies and the mechanisms for undertaking the appropriate implementing actions as necessary. The conspicuous imperfections of policy planning and national security decision-making institutions, the stunted reform of higher defence organisations, and the constrained size and competence of the public services have not only undermined India's ability to make the choices that advance its own interests but it has in the process often left the country unable to respond to various American (and other international) overtures of cooperation — outcomes that neither benefit India nor its foreign partners including the United States.
If India fails on these three counts in any enduring way, Washington's bet on India will be frustrated far more consequentially than by anything India does or does not do to satisfy the United States bilaterally in the interim. These risks to a meaningful strategic partnership, however, do not lie at the Indian end alone. US actions over time can contribute just as significantly to the partnership's inability to realise its promise — and here too lie three equally noteworthy hazards.
The first challenge at the American end is the danger of policy inconstancy. All too often in American history, Washington has distinguished itself by an inability to sustain various policies for any substantial length of time. While the containment of the Soviet Union was a remarkable exception, driven substantially by the gravity of the threat, ensuring that the US-Indian strategic partnership turns out to be an equally fecund achievement will require a consistency in the American commitment to aiding India's rise over the long term, despite the changes in administration that will occur in Washington in the interim. Whether the United States can display such policy consistency remains to be seen, especially when India's contribution to American interests immediately may be less than fulsome for all the reasons otherwise recognised.
The second challenge is the ever present danger of forgetting the strategic objective amidst all the preoccupations with the tactical. The American partnership with India is not an endeavour that is, or will be pursued, in splendid isolation. To the contrary, it is an affiliation that has to be cultivated amidst numerous interactions with many other states, some of which may, at some given point in time, be more important to the United States than India is for various transient reasons. Keeping the focus on nurturing the relationship with India — which is the grand prize for maintaining a balance of power that favours the United States in Asia — will thus require committed attention on the part of American policymakers even when they might be otherwise distracted by the necessities of engaging other powers, including India's competitors such as Pakistan and China. Any distraction of significance or longevity where these countries are concerned could be lethal to the success of cementing the US-Indian strategic partnership.
The third challenge confronting the United States, and one that does not often receive due attention in the context of sustaining the relationship with India, is the threat posed by the potential enervation of American power. The dangers of US decline in terms of both the diminution in inherent capacity and the loss of power relative to other states receives consideration attention in Washington, even if the United States as a whole has still not developed the necessary consensus on how American power should be restored in the face of the structural changes now occurring in the global economy and in the international system.
Yet, the impact of the possible weakening of American power for the vitality of the relationship with India is still poorly understood. Stated mostly simply, any substantive decay of American power would be fatal to the burgeoning US-Indian relationship because of three interrelated reasons. First, an ebb in American strength would prevent the United States from being able to support India's rise in the manner necessary for the long-term success of the partnership. Second, and equally significantly, a weakening United States would represent a progressively less compelling partner for India, as New Delhi attempts to sustain this engagement against other competing attractions and threats. Third, and finally, any irremediable decline in American power would undermine the very idea of, and the foundations underlying, the strategic partnership: although New Delhi may be of value to Washington in such circumstances, the terms under which such support might be forthcoming may not always redound to the advantage of the United States. The restoration of American power, thus, remains a fundamental precondition for the success of the US-Indian strategic partnership, although it goes without saying that renewing American vitality is critical for many more reasons than India.
Both Washington and New Delhi, accordingly, face important challenges in sustaining their bilateral engagement for the grand strategic reasons that are now increasingly obvious to policymakers in both countries. The threats to this partnership, however, are quite different from those commonly supposed and it is to these challenges — most of which reside in the two respective capitals — that both states ought to direct their attention. As they do so, however, both can take solace in the fact that the rumours of the demise of their strategic partnership have been very much exaggerated.
(The writer, a well-known analyst is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C.)
Ebb and Tide
Guest Column | Ashley J. Tellis
Has the US-Indian strategic partnership bombed?
The expectantly awaited US-Indian strategic partnership is no more. That, at least, is the view in the commentariat and among some on Capitol Hill and within the Obama administration. Even among those who do not hold this extreme position, there is an uneasy sense that the bilateral partnership is not going forward, only sideways. And India's recent decision in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) competition and its troubled nuclear liability legislation (NLL ) remain the poster children that confirm the worst fears of even India's friends that the relationship is not yielding the rewards initially imagined.
To be sure, both outcomes can be explained away. The American contenders in the MMRCA race were always long shots, and they stood their best chance only if the government of India focused on value rather than pursuing the finest flying machines that money could buy. When the Indian Air Force settled for the latter — an arguably reasonable decision — the American entrants lost out. Similarly, the NLL is undoubtedly inconsistent with the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, and it undermines the ability of the American nuclear industry to do business in India. But it does not discriminate against the United States singularly. Rather, it impairs uniformly the ability of all foreign and domestic private suppliers to participate in India's planned nuclear renaissance.
Like so much else in India, the nuclear liability law too will be eventually fixed — after many exertions, a great deal of frustration, and much pain. India, it seems, always walks straight in crooked lines. But the intervening disappointment with India in the United States, which is driven by a multiplicity of issues — the current paralysis in Indian governmental decision-making, the awkward yet strident positions taken by India in multilateral institutions on the Arab awakening, the seeming reluctance to deepen bilateral defence engagement even when it appears clearly in Indian interest, and the listless Indian pursuit of economic reforms — has raised the question of whether the American effort to cement a strategic partnership with India at the high cost borne by the United States was worth it after all.
This is the central question that cannot be avoided: if the high-maintenance relationship with India is not judged to be worth the benefits to the United States, the strategic partnership between the two countries will not only be unsustainable, despite any episodic attempts at resuscitation, but also and more importantly will become a source of grief and exasperation to both Washington and New Delhi. From an American perspective, the answer to this question, then, revolves entirely around the issue of advantages to the United States: how these are conceived and how they are to be measured.
Those who believe that the US-Indian strategic partnership has bombed appear to be driven to this conclusion today largely by their frustration with Indian decisions on the MMRCA and the NLL . Their disappointment is understandable, but whether the severity of their conclusion is justified is another matter. After all, US-Indian cooperation on a range of matters currently is extensive, routine, and characterised by the 'dominance of ordinariness.' Which is all to the good. Spectacular breakthroughs are exceptional indeed. They occur infrequently — the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement was a conspicuous example — and it is unrealistic to expect consistent repetitions. But there has clearly been progress: barely two decades ago, the United States and India were either antagonistic or indifferent to each other; today, both sides vigorously debate how close they can be and what constitutes evidence of partnership!
Even where defence trade is concerned — the source of much current dismay — the progress has been nothing short of revolutionary. From the days when India could not — or would not — purchase a single major American combat system, the United States has now emerged in the front ranks of Indian suppliers of choice. Not too long ago, it was unthinkable that India wouldeven entertain the idea of relying on the United States for major weapon systems; today, it is willing to put a frontline American combat aircraft through its paces, while relying entirely on American platforms for its long-range maritime patrol aircraft, very heavy lift transport aircraft, advanced special operations tactical transport aircraft, and heavy attack helicopter requirements. If current trends internationally and in India hold, Washington will become a critical source of advanced military technology for New Delhi in the years to come.
Why, then, the angst about the US-Indian strategic partnership? If the timorousness is driven mainly by fears of a loss of momentum, that may not be an altogether bad thing. After all, complacency remains the biggest threat to realising the full potential of this evolving joint venture. But clearly something more is afoot. The dismay presently pervasive in the United States suggests that it is not merely trepidation about future failure but rather bitterness about being short-changed — a sullenness that grows from mistaken expectations of what India was supposed to deliver in gratitude for the exceptional nuclear cooperation offered by the United States.
From these expectations came the hope that India would deliver the MMRCA contract to an American vendor or that India would have concluded an NLL that welcomed American nuclear suppliers to the domestic market. Such expectations, however understandable, nonetheless betray the belief that the United States pursued a geopolitical rapprochement with India in the expectation of some material gains, such as privileged access to India's large and burgeoning markets. Although such access would undoubtedly be welcome, expecting it to materialise as a quid pro quo for civilian nuclear cooperation represents a peculiar transactionalism that was quite absent in the consciousness of President George W. Bush and those around him who conceived the transformation of US-Indian relations during his term in office.
Settling for a transactional approach to India now is not only mistaken but dangerous because it is certain to fail: the disparate levels of economic and political development between the United States and India, the power disparities between the two countries, and the fragility of the improvements in bilateral relations (which are still contested by significant leftist and nationalist constituencies in India), all suggest that New Delhi will likely fall short in most significant transactional tests that could be devised for quite some time to come. More to the point, however, a transactional relationship is also unnecessary because the vast gap in relative capabilities between the United States and India today and in the foreseeable future ensures that Indian contributions to American security and well-being will be peripheral, at least for a while longer.
The real gains in the US-Indian partnership will be manifest only over the long haul and will be realised less by what India does for the United States than by what it becomes and does for itself. Consequently, any current rush to transactionalism that undermines this prospect of success in the longterm future — when the United States is likely to need a strong, capable, and independent India more than it does today — fundamentally undermines the strategic interests of the United States and, therefore, should be consciously avoided. This approach requires both deliberate foresightedness and intestinal fortitude amidst all the pressures that drive towards transactionalism in a democratic polity, especially one wracked by economic pains at home and difficult challenges abroad.
George W. Bush, however, understood this calculus completely. Barack Obama does so too — though it is an open question whether the same can be said for his administration as a whole. In any event, what is often forgotten is that the United States pursued rapprochement with India not primarily for immediate commercial gains but for larger geopolitical aims that were intimately linked to its own interests — and not in the manner often currently understood.
Bush pursued a strategic partnership with India for three very good reasons. First, with the early success of Indian economic reforms in the 1990s, India had emerged as a rising power that promised to become a country of consequence on the international stage. The end of the Cold War and the demise of bipolarity simultaneously removed the previous discomforts of nonalignment that had imperilled the growth of US-Indian ties, thus offering both Washington and New Delhi the opportunity to eliminate the old estrangements once and for all. That India was a democracy made this goal simultaneously attractive and imperative. President Bush in particular was chagrined that two democracies could be so alienated even as he was awed by the success of India's democratic experiment, and he was determined to forge new bonds that would permit the United States and India to collaborate in creating a global order that served their common interests.
The strong compatibility in values was only reinforced by the growing recognition that India's interests increasingly converged with those of the United States. Whether it was the desire for a 'balance of power that favoured freedom,' or the common threats posed by terrorism and violent religious extremism, or preserving the traditional freedoms in the global commons, or addressing the challenges of energy security, American and Indian interests were similar even if they were not always perfectly congruent. Again, because of the disparities in capability between the two states, their policies towards these problems were bound to differ. But the fundamental fact that there are no differences in vital interests that would cause either the United States or India to levy mortal threats against the other or cause either country to undercut the other's core objectives on any issue of strategic importance made the possibility of a 'strategic partnership' viable. President Bush sought to build on this core convergence in the expectation that even if India's contributions were minimal today for all sorts of reasons, having India in the stable of America's friends and allies was preferable to being without it.
Finally, President Bush recognised that the United States and India were both confronted by the rise of Chinese power — a development that could prove to be highly disruptive if it were not managed in a way that enhanced peace and stability in Asia. Cognisant that previous rising powers had disturbed the international order in ruinous ways, the Bush administration developed and implemented a strategy that accommodated the benefits of growing economic interdependence between the United States (and others) and China, while simultaneously hedging against the downside of growing Chinese strength. Since the old strategies of containment were judged inutile in the emerging geopolitical environment, the administration sought to procure all the gains arising from strong economic bonds with China while at the same time supporting those democratic states on China's periphery whose growth in capabilities would serve as objective constraints on Beijing's misuse of power.
Assisting India's rise was critical to the success of this strategy and, consequently, American interests were well served by supporting New Delhi both in material and in institutional terms through the dramatic civilian nuclear cooperation agreement as well as more conventional devices such as an enhanced defence partnership, liberal high-technology transfers, and renewed space collaboration. President Obama has now carried this policy to its logical conclusion by supporting India's membership in various non-proliferation regimes, and by endorsing India's candidacy for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
All in all, the US effort at seeking a rapprochement with India was driven by a grand strategic vision that transcended commercial considerations. And by this standard, US policy towards India has succeeded substantially. For starters, the estrangement in US-Indian relations has now been definitively consigned to history. The deep distrust that lurked in each capital about the other — especially during the worst years of the Cold War — has completely evaporated. Both Washington and New Delhi now consult regularly on an incredibly wide range of issues — a development without any precedent in the last 60-odd years. These discussions occur, moreover, even on matters where the two sides disagree on goals, policies, or tactics; yet both have proved capable of sustaining their dialogue and their partnership without rancour or ill will. If anything, there is a greater appreciation of the predicaments faced by the other, even when neither side can do anything about it.
Of even greater import, India has begun taking the first tentative steps towards active cooperation with the United States and with other Asian partners in regards to a range of issues: economic cooperation, social development, diplomatic coordination, defence engagement, and, most importantly, putting the myriad pieces in place to preserve the regional equilibrium that is critical to stability in Asia over the long term. To be sure, these Indian actions are often hesitant, precarious, incomplete, and at constant risk of backsliding — dangers that are exacerbated by the currently troubled state of Indian domestic politics, the discomfort with the United States still persisting among elements of the Indian political class, the native Indian conservatism with regard to doing anything to 'shape' the world, and the still significant limitations in analytic, bureaucratic, and decisional capacity affecting the Indian state.
Yet if India is measured today not against the American expectations of where it ought to be, but rather where it was only a short time ago, the distance travelled by this country — despite being what Shyam Saran, the former Indian foreign secretary, so insightfully called a 'premature power' — is remarkable indeed. In time, as India's capacity and confidence grows, New Delhi's ability to more effectively partner with the United States will only increase further. And it may, on many an occasion, result in India following its own course, pursuing policies that are at odds with American preferences.
This should not be surprising for a country of India's size, history, and relentless obsession with 'strategic autonomy.' Nor should such an outcome be quickly read as a failure of US policy. Such an interpretation would be accurate only if the US goal of assisting India's rise was oriented, first and foremost, towards enticing New Delhi into 'doing' various things for the United States. But if the purpose of American assistance was to aid India in 'being' a certain kind of power — capable, responsible, and friendly — that would also automatically constrain the ability of any common competitors to unleash harm, India's inclinations towards independence do not necessarily undermine America's grand strategy.
The current disappointment with India in the administration and outside, therefore, arises largely because the original vision underlying the US-Indian rapprochement — that India's rise was a desirable end in itself from the perspective of American geopolitical interests and, hence, ought to be supported without any expectations of being requited — has been subtly eroded under domestic economic pressures and difficult foreign policy challenges into a transactionalism that demands Indian 'cooperation' in the here and now as the price of continued American support. While some of these expectations are reasonable (and natural) — which New Delhi out of sheer self-interest ought to consider how to accommodate — others are extravagant and beyond India's immediate capacity to satisfy.
What is needed in Washington at this juncture, therefore, is a measure of patience. Deeper cooperation will come as the Indian state grows more and more comfortable with the United States and its strategic aims and its manner of doing business. It is all too easy to forget that the transformation in bilateral relations has been driven so far mainly by a handful of far-sighted strategists on both sides. In India, where the risks accruing to dramatic shifts in policy are greater, these policy entrepreneurs have been exceptionally small in number, centred mainly on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a few of his most trusted advisers.
This constituency will enlarge over time. As a new generation of Indians comes to the political helm in the Centre and in the states — a generation that already draws from a body politic that is disproportionately approving of the United States as polls of international opinion consistently show — the density of bilateral cooperation will only increase. As India's policies evolve in the direction of greater integration with the global economy — a challenge in a country that is uniquely both poor and democratic — cooperation with the United States will naturally gather momentum. And as the ties between Indian and American society deepen — thanks to the growing links between innovators, entrepreneurs, financiers, educators, artistes, and, of course, Indian-Americans — the growing symbiosis between the two countries will manifest itself in forms of partnership that have been rare historically. Not to forget the pointed fact that the increasingly complex Indian strategic environment — exemplified most clearly by the rise of China but not limited to it — will make deepened partnership with the United States the 'new normal' in bilateral relations over time.
The secular trend, therefore, is moving inexorably in the direction of robust bilateral ties, and those who are dismayed by what are currently real, yet only transient, perturbations fail to appreciate either the burdens of history or the opportunities embodied by the future. The obstacles imposed by the past have left behind a residue that is yet to be overcome completely, but this remnant is slowly being abraded and what is most remarkable, taking the long view, is how much erosion of distrust has already occurred in so short a period of time. Think simply of India's changing attitude to the American presence in Southern Asia as proof of this metamorphosis. The prospects inhering in the future are even more significant because, so long as US expectations are rooted in the conviction that India's rise represents a net benefit for American interests, the growing challenges emerging in Asia will only bring the two countries closer than ever before.
Does this mean, however, that the US-Indian strategic partnership is doomed to succeed? Unfortunately not. There are still real risks to the strategic partnership and at least three come to mind at the Indian end.
The first challenge is not necessarily India's failure to buy things from the United States — the much ballyhooed current gripe — but rather the inability to make the decisions at home that will advance India's growth in power. If India were to move smartly on economic reform, regulatory easing, decisional transparency, and, yes, even fixing the flawed nuclear liability legislation — improvements it should pursue for its own purposes — US interests would be more than well-served. Quick action on these issues cannot be delayed for much longer if India is to sustain the impressive rates of economic growth it has enjoyed in the last decade. Without such growth, India will be unable to realise either its developmental goals or its quest for great power capabilities, and such failures would undermine long-term US interests in Asia more dangerously than any disappointments over Indian procurement decisions right now.
The second challenge is embodied by the prospect that India will fail to recognise that it can make Asia and the world a better place by preemptively acting upon it ('shaping'), rather than passively waiting to respond — as it is usually wont — only after the calamities have occurred and their effects laid at its door. Overcoming the legacies of culture, history, and psychology that elevate inaction to a high political art will be hard to overcome, but if India can move towards seeking remedies to 'inconveniences from afar,' not only would it be able to minimise the dangers to itself at lower costs than otherwise but it would also find more opportunities for creative strategic collaboration with the United States.
The third challenge consists of the still significant Indian failure to develop state institutions that enable the development of rational-purposive strategies and the mechanisms for undertaking the appropriate implementing actions as necessary. The conspicuous imperfections of policy planning and national security decision-making institutions, the stunted reform of higher defence organisations, and the constrained size and competence of the public services have not only undermined India's ability to make the choices that advance its own interests but it has in the process often left the country unable to respond to various American (and other international) overtures of cooperation — outcomes that neither benefit India nor its foreign partners including the United States.
If India fails on these three counts in any enduring way, Washington's bet on India will be frustrated far more consequentially than by anything India does or does not do to satisfy the United States bilaterally in the interim. These risks to a meaningful strategic partnership, however, do not lie at the Indian end alone. US actions over time can contribute just as significantly to the partnership's inability to realise its promise — and here too lie three equally noteworthy hazards.
The first challenge at the American end is the danger of policy inconstancy. All too often in American history, Washington has distinguished itself by an inability to sustain various policies for any substantial length of time. While the containment of the Soviet Union was a remarkable exception, driven substantially by the gravity of the threat, ensuring that the US-Indian strategic partnership turns out to be an equally fecund achievement will require a consistency in the American commitment to aiding India's rise over the long term, despite the changes in administration that will occur in Washington in the interim. Whether the United States can display such policy consistency remains to be seen, especially when India's contribution to American interests immediately may be less than fulsome for all the reasons otherwise recognised.
The second challenge is the ever present danger of forgetting the strategic objective amidst all the preoccupations with the tactical. The American partnership with India is not an endeavour that is, or will be pursued, in splendid isolation. To the contrary, it is an affiliation that has to be cultivated amidst numerous interactions with many other states, some of which may, at some given point in time, be more important to the United States than India is for various transient reasons. Keeping the focus on nurturing the relationship with India — which is the grand prize for maintaining a balance of power that favours the United States in Asia — will thus require committed attention on the part of American policymakers even when they might be otherwise distracted by the necessities of engaging other powers, including India's competitors such as Pakistan and China. Any distraction of significance or longevity where these countries are concerned could be lethal to the success of cementing the US-Indian strategic partnership.
The third challenge confronting the United States, and one that does not often receive due attention in the context of sustaining the relationship with India, is the threat posed by the potential enervation of American power. The dangers of US decline in terms of both the diminution in inherent capacity and the loss of power relative to other states receives consideration attention in Washington, even if the United States as a whole has still not developed the necessary consensus on how American power should be restored in the face of the structural changes now occurring in the global economy and in the international system.
Yet, the impact of the possible weakening of American power for the vitality of the relationship with India is still poorly understood. Stated mostly simply, any substantive decay of American power would be fatal to the burgeoning US-Indian relationship because of three interrelated reasons. First, an ebb in American strength would prevent the United States from being able to support India's rise in the manner necessary for the long-term success of the partnership. Second, and equally significantly, a weakening United States would represent a progressively less compelling partner for India, as New Delhi attempts to sustain this engagement against other competing attractions and threats. Third, and finally, any irremediable decline in American power would undermine the very idea of, and the foundations underlying, the strategic partnership: although New Delhi may be of value to Washington in such circumstances, the terms under which such support might be forthcoming may not always redound to the advantage of the United States. The restoration of American power, thus, remains a fundamental precondition for the success of the US-Indian strategic partnership, although it goes without saying that renewing American vitality is critical for many more reasons than India.
Both Washington and New Delhi, accordingly, face important challenges in sustaining their bilateral engagement for the grand strategic reasons that are now increasingly obvious to policymakers in both countries. The threats to this partnership, however, are quite different from those commonly supposed and it is to these challenges — most of which reside in the two respective capitals — that both states ought to direct their attention. As they do so, however, both can take solace in the fact that the rumours of the demise of their strategic partnership have been very much exaggerated.
(The writer, a well-known analyst is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C.)
