Indo-US Relations

[The Messiah]

The word 'Khan' has existed before the Muslims. It actually derives etymologically from French 'chan' or latin 'canus' <which goes to show you how old it is>

As Vinod rightly said, it was borrowed into Turkish, and from there into Mongolian, Persian and Arabic where it meant 'prince' or 'chieftain', long before Islam.

It's German variant 'Kahn' is also in widespread use.

kahn is jewish if i may add.

 

[ajtr]

Trust but Verify​

November 10, 2010 1:44:07 AM

Ashok K Mehta

If the India-US partnership is to be truly strategic, both sides will have to deliver on each other's concerns. This will not be easy despite the prevailing optimism

Before the visit, it was said that there are no deliverables and no surprises. US President Barack Obama has surprised and delivered on issues he had said were "complex" and "difficult" in a pre-visit interview to PTI.

The lifting on curbs for dual use technology and endorsement of India's bid to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council are major indicators that Mr Obama intends to take strategic relations with India to a higher level. Further he said all the things Indians wanted to hear on Pakistan and facilitate India's entry into multilateral export control regimes meant only for NPT signatories.

So why this change of course from tactical to strategic? Inviting India to the high table was prompted by the need to reducing the trust deficit that has plagued the inflationary strategic partnership. India-US divergences are reflected in the way India has voted with the US only 20 per cent of the time in the UN General Assembly. Differences even on intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation were evident over the Headley affair.

The relationship has indeed transformed from one of virtual enemies to partners on selective issues but distasteful events, like the aircraft carrier Enterprise in the Bay of Bengal in 1971, linger. The only real strategic tie-up India has had was with the former Soviet Union and its legacy is carried through Russia though in a diluted form. India inevitably bears the burden of that relationship by being dependent on Russia for spares, technology and upgrade of military hardware and equipment, 70 per cent of which makes up the inventory of its armed forces.

Even as India-US relations were graduating from estrangement to engagement and were mainly defence driven in the early 1990s, the trust deficit remained despite the Gen Kicklighter initiative in 1991 for an institutionalised defence dialogue which was bereft of any political underpinning.

British-manufactured Westland helicopters with American parts had to be cannibalised to keep the aircraft operational as the US had barred supply of spares to India as part of its sanctions regime. The LCA project was similarly hit by terminating supply of GE404 engines which had been released under President Reagan's India initiative. In 2004, when the Government belatedly signed the Hawk trainer aircraft deal, the contract contained an India-inserted clause that there would be no US-sourced spares in the Hawk.

In the last 20 years of the 20th century, India managed to acquire, just a dozen artillery fire-locating radars from the US. It was not until the 2004 Next Steps in Strategic Partnership Agreement that the following year, the new Framework for Defence Agreement was signed in Washington. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee recalled how he detected some 'deviation' in the US version of the text of the agreement which had to be rectified. The US political and military establishment are extremely keen that the defence relationship becomes truly strategic in nature and India is elevated to the status of a non-Nato ally, a distinction that only Pakistan has enjoyed for some time now.

In 2001, the BJP-led NDA Government had provided unequivocal support to the US Ballistic Missile Defence and offered logistic support to US warships and aircraft engaged in post-9/11 war in Afghanistan. Indian Navy ships even escorted US Navy ships through the Malacca Straits. The Congress-led UPA is more circumspect in any tilt towards the US despite the so-called payback time for the India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement.

More defence equipment has been purchased from the US under the Foreign Military Sales Programme in the last five years than was acquired in the last 40 years and much more is in the pipeline but held up as India has been wary of signing a triad of foundational agreements — CISMOA, LSA and BECA — acronyms for interoperability, logistics support and terrain mapping. These agreements which the US says are mandatory for the sale of any high-tech equipment have been examined for intrusiveness and it seems they are. The EUMA (End User Memorandum Agreement) which bars modification of equipment and its transfer to a third country) was signed some time ago. The FMS is Government-to-Government transaction though separate agreements are required for spares with original manufacturers.

In September this year, during Mr AK Antony's visit to Washington, he told Defence Secretary Robert Gates that India was unable to sign the three agreements in their present form. Some of the big ticket items already contracted have been supplied minus a few high-tech components as the enabling triad agreements have not been signed by New Delhi. The users have told the Government that the absence of high-tech items will not degrade operational capability and they can work around them. Or get the additional items once the texts of the agreements have been settled.

The enabling agreements are pivoted around interoperability, security of codes used on US communications equipment and access to logistics facilities anywhere in the world by swiping a card. The first two are interdependent and hinged on joint operations requiring interoperability. The argument goes that India is least likely to join US or Nato in expeditionary operations except under a UN flag where US participation is doubtful. Interoperability therefore, is restricted to joint exercises, an unprecedented 53 of which have been carried out in the last 10 years.

Two strategic issues — reliability and unpredictability of the US strategic focus — and India's bad experience with the supply of spares will remain an irritant. The buyer-seller nature of the relationship cannot be self-sustaining unless it transforms into joint research, development and production like it is the case with Russia. The Russians are leasing for 10 years and a billion dollars a nuclear-powered submarine, helping in refiring the indigenous Kaveri engine for the LCA (Boeing is now providing 100 GE414 engines)and providing nuclear technology for India's own nuclear-propelled Arihant submarine.

If the India-US partnership is to be truly strategic, both sides will have to deliver on each other's concerns. This will not be easy. Pakistan, a strategic ally of the US is India's nemesis. India cannot drop Burma and Iran — the countries Mr Obama mentioned in his speech to parliament — to vote with the US. More importantly, for building a strategic framework, India must follow the American formulation: Trust but verify.

 

[ajtr]

Delhi not to toe Washington line on Iran, Myanmar​

Anirban Bhaumik, New Delhi, Nov 9, DH News Service:

As initial euphoria over US support to India's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council dies down, New Delhi is realising that President Barack Obama has left a gift-box, but it would be difficult to unwrap it anytime soon.

Though India is happy over US' "unequivocal and explicit" endorsement of its UNSC aspirations, it is unlikely to review its policies on Iran and Myanmar – the price-tag Obama attached with Washington's support to New Delhi's bid for a place on the international high-table.

Sources on Tuesday said that New Delhi might not make any change in its stand on the nuclear programme of Iran and restoration of democracy in Myanmar to toe the US line on these issues.

They said that New Delhi's stand on Myanmar and Iran had been prompted by its own national interests and its view of the situation in the region. They added that India had evolved and maintained its position on the issues "quite responsibly".

Just after articulating US support for India's UNSC bid in his address to the MPs in the Parliament's Central Hall on Monday, Obama reminded New Delhi that "increased power came with increased responsibility." In an obvious disapproval of New Delhi's alleged soft attitude towards Tehran, the US President said that he looked forward to working with India and other nations aspiring for the UNSC permanent membership to ensure that the Council's resolutions and the sanctions it imposed on particular countries were implemented.

He also said that India often "shied away" from strongly condemning suppression of democratic movements and gross violations of human rights in countries including Myanmar. He had on the previous day demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Sources in New Delhi said that India could not take a position on Myanmar akin to that of the US.

"We (India and Myanmar) are in the same region. We have a long border with Myanmar. We have our security concerns and we will also have to keep in mind the situation in the region," said a source, obviously referring to growing Chinese influence in Myanmar that prompted New Delhi to engage with the military rulers in Yangon.

Sources said that New Delhi too was keen to see "a stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic Myanmar and was ready to assist the Government and people of Myanmar on their path to further political and economic progress."

Sources pointed out that India did not favour the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran, but New Delhi believed that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Tehran too was entitled to all the rights that other signatories of the treaty had on peaceful uses of atomic energy. India had voted thrice against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency and abided by the United Nations sanctions.

But New Delhi did not support the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US on Iran, sources added. They underscored the fact that India's stand on Iran would be prompted by the historical links, energy ties and trade and economic relations between the two countries.

Though United States support to India's UNSC bid is unlikely to immediately hasten the complicated negotiations on the reforms of the world body, sources in New Delhi hoped that Obama's explicit political statement on the issue would give momentum to the process. They however said that Pakistan and its allies were expected to block India's UNSC bid.

 

[ajtr]

Defence sector may gain little from Entity List removal​

New Delhi, Nov 9, DH News Service:

Taking four defence laboratories and the missile-production house off the Entity List means 'very little in actual terms' even a hype was created for 'political reasons,' say sources familiar with US export control norms.

During US President Barak Obama's visit, the US administration announced taking the Bharat Dynamics Limited — India's missile production unit — and four laboratories run by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) off the Entity List maintained by the US department of commerce.

"Inclusion on this list generally triggers an export licence requirement for items that otherwise do not require an export license," says a statement released by the White House on Monday. The US administration highlighted it as one of the high-points of the Obama visit.

However, Indian analysts beg to differ. "Very little–actually nothing–will change if these laboratories are removed from the Entity List. One has to wait for the US official notification. But not much is going to change," a top source who has a thorough knowledge of the US export control regime told Deccan Herald.

The four DRDO laboratories are Armament Research and Development Establishment Pune, Defence Research and Development Lab and Missile Research and Development Complex in Hyderabad and Solid State Physics Laboratory in the national capital. All of them research on missile development.

While the US would still review the "sensitive technologies" in the export market on a case-by-case basis, removal of DRDO laboratories from the Entity List may entail these laboratories to have a marginal easy access to some routine technologies. And, that will not benefit them much.

In fact, export licensing requirements apply to only a very small percentage of overall US-India trade and many items subject to export controls can be exported to India without a license or under a licence exception, says the Bureau of Industry and Security that maintains the Entity List.

Political reason

The announcement was made more out of a political reason as Washington is pitching New Delhi as its new strategic partner in Asia.

"Having too many institutes on the Entity List is contrary to India's strategic positioning from the US perspective," said an analyst.

"A major change can only happen until the rules and regulations are changed in toto like what happened with the United Kingdom, Germany and France," he said. That may come from the realignment of the export licensing policy and cooperation in export control, which Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced.

Asked to comment, former DRDO chief V K Aatre welcomed the decision but declined to give specific examples on the areas where DRDO would gain. A DRDO official said the defence research agency could only air its views when it received an official statement from the US administration.

 

[ajtr]

Obama and the US corporate takeover​

November 10th, 2010
By Vandana Shiva

The main focus of US President Barack Obama's three-day visit to India was to firm up business deals for US corporations that would create jobs in the US. Trade deals worth over $10 billion were finalised, with a focus on defence, energy and agriculture. In fact, Mr Obama's speech at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, focused almost entirely on how India owed it to the US to open its markets to US companies and agribusiness. What Mr Obama failed to mention, however, is that India has already been forced to give market access to the US in the areas of oilseeds, pulses and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) at the cost of the Indian farmers, and India's biodiversity and environment.
India's imports of edible oils are growing disproportionately: Since 2008, edible oil imports from the US to India have jumped 2,666 per cent and are expected to reach 9.3 million tonnes in 2010-11, while returns to Indian farmers are declining.
The flooding of domestic markets with artificially cheap imports is challenging the livelihood of local farmers and food processors. This upsurge in imports has also destroyed the rich diversity of indigenous oilseeds, including mustard, sesame, linseed, groundnut, coconut etc. The reliance on imported oilseeds can easily trigger violence and instability, as Indonesia's food riots illustrate.
The destruction of India's pulse diversity through the Green Revolution has led to pulses, the only proteins in a vegetarian diet, becoming completely unaffordable in most Indian households, with the US now dumping subsidised "yellow pea dal" which is no substitute for our indigenous flavoursome pulses.
US-based Monsanto's monopoly in the Indian seed market has allowed the US corporation to harvest huge royalties through Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) while Indian farmers are pushed into debt and suicide. Two lakh farmers, mostly in the cotton belt, have committed suicide in India since 1997, the leading cause being debt linked to crop failure of the Monsanto Bt cotton, the spread of monocultures and of highly expensive, capital-intensive inputs that made cultivation economically unviable.
Mr Obama is also trying to pursue President George W. Bush's agenda of unleashing Walmart on India's retail economy. The argument used is reduction of waste and creation of jobs. However, Jonathan Bloom's recently published book, American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of its Food, puts the blame on the Walmart model for the destruction of food. India cannot afford such an expensive mistake. Further, retail generates 400 million jobs through self-employment. Instead of exporting unemployment to India from the US, Mr Obama should be importing innovative ideas of employment generation by learning from India's small-scale entrepreneurs.
With regard to agriculture, too, Mr Obama is carrying on Mr Bush's legacy with the Agriculture Knowledge Initiative (AKI) of 2008. At a time when the world recognises the productivity and ecological sustainability of small farmers, the US-India AKI is pushing India to adopt hazardous technologies such as GMOs and capital-intensive commercial agriculture, all of which benefit US agribusiness.
It is no coincidence that at the time of signing the AKI, US multinationals on the negotiating table — Monsanto, Walmart, Syngenta — lobbied for a change in India's IPR laws so to claim exclusive ownership and extract royalties on agricultural inputs, leading to the creation of a stronger technological monopoly.
Instead of learning lessons from the ecological and social non-sustainability of the Green Revolution, Mr Obama is attempting to push the AKI beyond India, by making India join the US initiative for a Green Revolution in Africa.
A recent newspaper report stated that "India and the US may team up to tap farm opportunities in Africa. The proposal is a spin-off from the India-US agriculture dialogue". Ben Rhodes, US' deputy national adviser for strategic communication, said, "The US has been part of food security initiative in Africa, where we are trying to apply technology, innovation and capacity building to help African farmers lift their countries and their standard of living. We see great potential for the US and India to cooperate, not just within India but in African countries as well".
The takeover of Africa's land and agriculture by a global alliance — led by US agribusiness — is being pitched as a new model of food security. But it is, in fact, the globalisation of a failed model that creates food insecurity.
African movements have staunchly rejected the Green Revolution model for Africa: what the stakeholders want is a sustainable, inclusive and indigenous solution that increases food sovereignty — not dependency on markets, expensive chemical inputs and GMOs.
The UN's International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, which engaged 400 scientists for four years to assess the performance of different models of agriculture, has concluded that neither the Green Revolution nor genetic engineering can offer food security. Only ecological agriculture has the potential for increasing food production.
Mr Obama — with his roots in Africa — needs to listen to the voices of his ancestors. It might also help if he spread the model Michelle Obama has introduced in the White House: Organic Gardens.

 

[ajtr]

Are U.S.-India relations oversold?​

The biggest disappointment of President Barack Obama's Asia trip was his failure to strike an agreement on the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement in Seoul. His biggest success was his embrace of a transformative partnership with India. The president can now claim ownership of a relationship that has been on the rocks since he took office, and he deserves considerable credit for arguing that India's rise and success as a future democratic superpower is a core interest of the United States.

The president's vision of a far-reaching partnership with India -- to manage global diplomatic and security challenges, tie the two countries together in a mutually beneficial economic embrace, and promote freedom and rule of law in Asia and beyond -- was bracing. Obama's warm reception by the Indian parliament, commentariat, and public bodes well for future ties between the world's oldest and the world's largest democracies.

In New Delhi, Obama made a strong case for strengthening Indo-U.S. ties -- and to create an "indispensable" partnership that would help define the course of the 21st century:

Now, India is not the only emerging power in the world. But the relationship between our countries is unique. For we are two strong democracies whose constitutions begin with the same revolutionary words -- the same revolutionary words -- "We the people." We are two great republics dedicated to the liberty and justice and equality of all people. And we are two free market economies where people have the freedom to pursue ideas and innovation that can change the world. And that's why I believe that India and America are indispensable partners in meeting the challenges of our time"¦ The United States not only welcomes India as a rising global power, we fervently support it, and we have worked to help make it a reality"¦ [P]romoting shared prosperity, preserving peace and security, strengthening democratic governance and human rights -- these are the responsibilities of leadership. And as global partners, this is the leadership that the United States and India can offer in the 21st century.

Obama's expressed ambitions for Indo-U.S. ties came just in time to check a growing chorus in Washington of pessimism toward the relationship. Most prominent among the skeptics is George Perkovich, the esteemed vice president for studies of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, whose foundational book on India's development of nuclear weapons was an inspiration for this author, and many others, to embrace the study of India. Dr. Perkovich was an India expert long before it was popular, so his arguments carry great weight. That is why his recent Carnegie report arguing that India cannot be the partner the United States wants it to be -- and that ambitions of the kind Obama expressed for the relationship are actually harmful to it -- deserves attention.

In brief, Perkovich argues for a more "realistic" Indo-U.S. relationship that treats India in many ways as the impoverished, non-aligned, defensive, and even hostile country it once was. India does not want to be an Asian balancer, the report maintains; alleged U.S. efforts to maneuver India into position as a counterweight to China will only create discord between Asia's giants and upset China's peaceful rise. Indian and U.S. interests diverge on a host of important issues, from climate change to Iran. The best thing India can do for the world is not partner with the United States to fuel its rise and shape an international system tilted toward freedom, but instead to make its own economy an example for other developing powers. The United States' embrace of India is actually detrimental (for instance, by alienating China and Pakistan, or by upending the established global nuclear order) or only marginally useful. By this logic, both countries therefore should scale back their visions for global partnership, and Washington should invest more in relations with Beijing and other emerging powers rather than lavish such policy attention on India. At the end of the day, India will set its own course, often in ways that do not align with U.S. interests -- and Americans will need to live with that.

Eminent Indian strategist C. Raja Mohan implicitly takes on this argument in an important new paper for the German Marshall Fund. Rather than being only a peripheral or even harmful influence on India's great power future, Mohan argues that the nature of U.S. engagement with India will decisively shape its ability to lead the subcontinent to peace and prosperity; contribute to stability and balance in Asia; develop a framework for use of force abroad; participate constructively in the making of a new international order; and recast its own international identity. Mohan convincingly argues that India's embrace of the enlightenment tradition in its domestic politics, and the country's geopolitical interests and ambitions, align it with the Western-led global community of democracies -- not with its Third World and anti-Western fellow travelers of yesteryear, and not with the BRICS -- as China is emerging as India's global competitor. In light of this shift in Indian power, identity, and aspirations, Mohan provocatively maintains that India may be considered a "Western" power rather than an Asian one -- and that intensive U.S. engagement will fundamentally impact India's own diplomatic, developmental, and strategic choices.

Renowned India expert Ashley Tellis also weighs in on this debate with a superb report for the Carnegie Endowment making a grand strategic case for an Indo-U.S. partnership that shapes an Asian balance conducive to the interests of both countries, anchors an international system that is peaceful and pluralistic rather than hierarchic and conflict-ridden, promotes prosperity and an open international economy, and catalyzes the dynamism and prosperity of Indian and American societies in mutually reinforcing ways. Tellis cites a National Intelligence Council estimate that India will be the world's third most powerful state by 2026 to argue convincingly that smart American engagement with New Delhi is necessary now to frame a partnership with a country whose impact on the international system is already dramatic. (As Obama put it, India is not just rising -- it has risen.) And rather than diverging, Indian and U.S. interests across the spectrum -- from defeating terrorism to maintaining equilibrium in Asia to securing the freedom of the global commons to strengthening a liberal international economic and political order -- are strikingly convergent, and will only become more so as India's capabilities and strategic horizons expand.

But it is Senator John McCain who said it best:

India and the United States share common values"¦ It is for this reason that we are confident that the ongoing rise of democratic India as a great power -- whether tomorrow or 25 years from now -- will be peaceful, and thus can advance critical U.S. national interests. Furthermore, it is because of our shared values that we view the rise of India as inherently good in itself. At a time when many have become enamored with an authoritarian model of state capitalism and its ability to generate wealth and power, there can be no greater demonstration that political pluralism, free markets, and the rule of law are a morally and materially superior way to organize diverse societies than the success of democratic India. Who can believe in "Asian values" or doubt the universality of democratic capitalism in a world where India exists? Therefore, contrary to the old dictates of realpolitik, we seek not to limit or diminish India's rise, but to bolster and catalyze it -- economically, geopolitically, and yes, militarily. In short, the United States has a compelling stake in the success of India.

 

[ajtr]

U.S. and India take their relationship beyond South Asia​

Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, November 15, 2010 - 2:51 PM Share
President Obama's 10-day trip to Asia kicked off with a three-day stay in India - and that's no accident. The administration has been expanding its cooperation with India on a range of issues outside the South Asian subcontinent since this spring, when it began a high-level dialogue led by the State Department regarding how the two countries could collaborate in East Asia.

The effort, led jointly by the State Department's East Asia and Pacific (EAP) and South and Central Asia (SCA) affairs bureaus, has involved two high-level meetings between U.S. and Indian officials. The first meeting, held in New Delhi last spring, was led by Assistant Secretary of State for EAP Kurt Campbell but also included Derek Chollet, deputy director for policy planning, and SCA's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Owens. The second round, which took place in Washington in September, also included Assistant Secretary of State for SCA Robert Blake. Defense Department and National Security Council officials participated as well.

The U.S.-India dialogue on East Asia is the first of a series of new consultations between the United States and India. Two State Department officials tell The Cable that similarly structured dialogues are planned for coordinating U.S. and Indian policy on Afghanistan, Africa, and elsewhere. But the East Asia-focused dialogue is the first and the only one that has had formal meetings so far.

"One of the reasons the president went to India is to consecrate this notion of India as a global power," one State Department official said. "Asia is one of the key areas where we see India increasing its role and its influence and its engagements overall."

Along with Obama's endorsement of India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, the joint statement issued by Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh codified the idea that the U.S.-India relationship was expanding to tackle global problems, specifically those in East Asia.

"The two leaders agreed to deepen existing regular strategic consultations on developments in East Asia, and decided to expand and intensify their strategic consultations to cover regional and global issues of mutual interest, including Central and West Asia," the statement read.

The officials made it clear that the U.S.-India dialogue on East Asia is not meant solely to devise strategies for combating China's political and military rise.

"Both the Indians and the U.S. would 100 percent agree with the idea that the most important thing we have to do is we have to get China right. But this is not some conspiracy theory on containing China," one official said. But he did say that "India's role can become very important when it comes to managing a variety of shifts that are taking place in the Asia-Pacific."

So far, the discussions have centered around how the U.S. and Indian approach to regional organizations like the East Asia Summit, and how the two countries can cooperate on issues like climate change, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response.

Many East Asia experts, however, suspect that the dialogue's primary purpose is ultimately related to China's growing power.

"It all comes down to China," said Patrick Cronin, director of the Asia Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. "China is right now an absolute ascendant power, even to the point where people are over projecting China's rise. If you can deny China its two ocean strategy, you have the potential to enlarge the chess pieces."

The move is part of an overall administration effort to develop a more cohesive U.S. strategy in Asia, Cronin said.

"What the State Department has done is break down the previous geographical barrier that was raised between East and South Asia," said Cronin. "India just gives you so much more maneuvering room. State is trying to take advantage of that, deliberately so and wisely so."

He warned that the Indians might not be able to move toward such seamless coordination as quickly as those in the United States might want them to.

"There's a massive hedging going on in Asia both for and against the U.S. and China. The Indians don't want to be drawn into a tight alignment against China. They want to play it both ways," Cronin said.

Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that the dialogue represented "a significant change" in the countries' cooperation in East Asia.

"India not only wants to be part of that game, they want to make sure the United States is. The United States is very interested in having India being part of that game," she said. "This is a shift of emphasis for both countries."

 

[ajtr]

In search of America's liberty and India's dharma​

It is one thing to win power, another to wield it. Two dispirited leaders met in Delhi this week. President Obama was chastened by dramatic electoral losses in the US Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh disheartened by never ending corruption scandals. Both seemed to have forgotten the fundamentals of what created their respective democracies. Just as one cannot understand America without the concept of liberty, so is India inexplicable without the idea of dharma. At the end, their spirits did lift but both leaders have much work to do to restore confidence in their ideals.

John Boehner, who will be speaker of the House of Representatives and is an architect of the Republican recapturing of power, explained Mr Obama's fall from grace. He said that President Obama had "ignored the values that have made America—economic freedom, individual liberty and personal responsibility". It does not matter if Mr Boehner is right; half of America believes it. Every nation is an imagined community and what voters `imagine' is what counts. America's image of itself is a land of opportunity and entrepreneurship — it is not a European style welfare state with a culture of entitlement. Mr Obama forgot liberty in his pursuit of equality, say his critics.

Just as America's founding fathers were obsessed with liberty, so were India's founders deeply attached to dharma - so much so that they placed the dharma-chakra in the middle of the Indian flag. The Congress party still does not realize how much it is diminished by the relentless series of corruption scandals. People insistently ask, `where is dharma in our public life?' This is a sad because we placed so much hope in a prime minister, who is personally honest and who promised good governance as his primary goal in his first three major speeches when the UPA came to power in the middle of 2004.

The ideal that exists in the Indian imagination is of a ruler guided by dharma. In this context, dharma does not mean religion, as was first used in 19th century Bengal by Christian missionaries claiming that "Jesus' path was the true dharma". Hindus countered their challenge, claiming that theirs is sanatana or eternal dharma. The meaning of public dharma, which inspired the makers of our constitution is `doing the right thing'.

Although India and America's economic circumstances are different, the answers to their problems are surprisingly similar. America is a rich country, which is stuck in a jobless recovery - wages have been lagging for decades. Its best and brightest prefer to work in services and its industrial base is fast eroding. India is poor but rising rapidly. Like America, its high growth rate is driven by services, not by industry. In our euphoria over India's growth we forget that we still have to create an industrial revolution. Only through low tech, labour intensive industry will we be able to create jobs for the rural masses.

Both India and America have to get their best and brightest to go into industry rather than glamorous jobs in finance.

Instead of creating bogus jobs through employment guarantee schemes, India needs to create genuine jobs through private enterprise. To do this we need to reform our labour laws; pass the land acquisition law; remove `inspector raj', which encourages bribery but discourages entrepreneurs; and push massive skills training through public private partnerships. Our current high growth will only take us to middle-income status - $5000-$7000 per capita. After that India will get stuck like many Latin American states, unless we improve governance and create an industrial revolution. "Let us not take high growth for granted", says the respected economist, Ajay Shah.

India should also emulate Mr Obama's obsession to improve the `quality' of primary education in order to build our industrial base. He is the first Democratic president to say that bad teachers should be fired if they can't train kids to succeed. India's problem with government schools is much worse than America's. One in four government primary school teachers here is absent and one in four is not teaching. Yet, our new Right to Education Act is silent on outcomes. Mr Obama's courage to take on teachers' unions in America should inspire our leaders to also speak out about the "dharma of a teacher".

Mr Obama's visit ended on a high note and two politicians have since been sacked. The real work must now begin. To restore dharma in public life, Dr Singh must drop corrupt members in the UPA cabinet; push civil service reforms to make officials (including school teachers) accountable; enact labour reforms and the land acquisition bill; stop the dangerous Food Security Bill, which holds the potential for becoming the biggest corruption scandal in India's history. Only then will he begin to restore dharma and make India deserving of `great power' status.

Read more: In search of America's liberty and India's dharma - The Times of India In search of America's liberty and India's dharma - The Times of India

 

[neo29]

US India relations : The elephants mating

Sceptics of the US-India engagement, who had contemplated President Obama's recent state visit to India with noisy lip smacking in the gleeful anticipation of failure, have been left bemused by the outcome. On the one hand, there was friction and public jostling, including American-style homilies on free trade and the duty to foster democracy in Myanmar; and Indian-style obstinacy on the nuclear liability bill. On the other hand, Obama greatly pleased India by linking Pakistan with terrorism, and by backing an Indian permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Welcome to elephant mating, the coming together of fractious democracies. The grass gets trampled, but there are tangible, positive outcomes. A polarised Indian intelligentsia, and a trivialising media, which have made an easy living from milking positional divergences to predict doom for the US-India relationship, must learn to abandon such simplistic linkages. Trampled grass could also indicate a great communion.

The ardour and pace of the US-India courtship has been apparently masked by the friction that has accompanied it. Compare the relationship of a decade ago --- the blink of an eye in strategic time --- with where we are today. In 1999, reacting to India's nuclear weapon tests, Republican senator Jesse Helms, the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared that "The Indian government has not shot itself in the foot. Most likely it has shot itself in the head." That Quixotic statement was positively respectful compared to America's Cold War view of India. On 5th Nov 1971, as India readied for war with Pakistan, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, heartily agreed that Indians were "a slippery treacherous people" and "the most aggressive goddam people around". Kissinger referred to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as "a bitch"; Nixon termed her "an old witch".

All that ice is turning rapidly into steam. From Jaswant Singh's dialogue with Strobe Talbott, through the Clinton and Bush visits, the 18th July 2005 declaration; the defence pact of that same year, the nuclear deal of 2008, and now Obama's cool-but-enthusiastic embrace of India, US-India relations have hurtled along dizzyingly. But India's strateratti has been so fixated on the inevitable differences, while Washington and New Delhi try to harmonise issues like (a) commercial and trade relations; (b) civil nuclear commerce; (c) intelligence sharing and homeland security; (d) defence trade and partnership; and (e) technology sharing; that analysts have overlooked the convergence on the really big issues: counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing, a rising China, India's ambitions in the Indian Ocean and East Asia, and --- in private discussions --- even on the future of Pakistan.

The US-India relationship will continue to be misread until India recognises that relations with a democratic superpower --- tossed about by the expectations of two separate electorates --- will be inevitably more complex than the stolid handshake of the Soviet Union, or the posturing and sloganeering of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

India's expectations from the American partnership remain coloured by the India-Soviet Union experience, where superpower partnership was essentially a free ride. During the Cold War, India had only to provide the Soviet Union with the badge of political support from a third world leader, to reap rich dividends of development, technological and military aid. This was often politically embarrassing, especially when the Soviet Union indulged its proclivity for invading neighbouring countries, but New Delhi held its nose and shut its eyes and was repaid by unwavering Soviet support at crucial periods, such as the 1971 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, Article IX of which invoked Soviet intervention if a foreign power --- China or the US were key concerns then --- intervened militarily during India's liberation of Bangladesh.

Today, with India's foreign policy based on simultaneous, and synergistic, engagement with every global power centre --- call it multi-alignment --- New Delhi's careful engagement of Washington is radically different from its old, no-questions-asked support to Moscow. Not even the staunchest enthusiast of US-India partnership advocates that New Delhi hitches its wagon --- poodle style --- to Washington, backing its foreign policy follies and participating in its military adventures. But Indian expectations are asymmetric: many Indians expect that New Delhi can legitimately choose where it will support Washington, but the US must support India everywhere.

While this is clearly unrealistic, America's image in this country is challenged by the fact that Washington's imperatives in AfPak --- an emotive symbol in much of India and, especially in policy and media circles --- are damaging to Indian interests. Diplomats contrast this with the Soviet Union, recalling its hands-off policy towards South Asia, and correctly pointing out that Moscow never imposed political costs on India by its actions in our region. But the world has changed, our backyard is a key battleground against terrorism, and so pragmatism, not petulance, will bring Washington around.

Given Pakistan's control over land routes into Afghanistan, there is a practical logic behind Washington's tolerance for Islamabad, even knowing that it is being backstabbed. That contradiction between America's imperatives in Afghanistan and its frustration at Islamabad's double-dealing will work to India's advantage after a US military pullout. But India has its own contradictions: New Delhi wants US troops to remain in Afghanistan, knowing well the dependence this creates on Pakistan.

These complexities make AfPak the most challenging of diplomatic tightropes for Washington and New Delhi. That Obama publicly linked Pakistan with terrorism may have gratified his hosts, but that statement says less about any willingness to block India-directed terror, than it does about Washington's intense desire to place the India relationship on a firmer footing. Post-Obama, the partnership is in cruise mode, being carried along by the sheer breadth of the engagement, especially the people-to-people dynamic. All that can derail this momentum is another major blunder like Obama's ill-considered G-2 offer to China, essentially offering it the role of assistant superpower, which would presumably lord it over India. But Obama, it seems, is learning on the job.

ajai shukla

 

[ajtr]

Obama's Nuclear Evolution And The Indo-US Nuclear Partnership​

Over the past four years, US Senator, now President, Barak Obama's public policies towards nuclear non-proliferation in general and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal in particular have shifted. How and when did Obama change from a critic of the Deal in 2006, to a supporter with reservations in 2008, to an advocate in 2010? Has the translation of a personal commitment to nonproliferation into pragmatic politics hampered the Obama Administration from actively strengthening the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime? Obama's announcement on Saturday, 6 November 2010, that the US would support India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) indicates that he will continue to work around the NPT legal regime with regard to India. However, the announcement also confirms a sustained commitment to the NPT normative framework - NSG membership is considered quite important even to a nation for whom it is largely symbolic since it is not a nuclear supplier.

In the run up to the 2008 Indo-US Nuclear Deal, some US Democrats, including (then) Senator Obama, argued against the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement. Obama supported an amendment proposed by Senator Jeff Bingamen (D-New Mexico) which would only allow US nuclear exports to India if New Delhi stopped producing fissile materials. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) called the Bingamen amendment a "killer" precondition as India was certain not to accept it since neither Pakistan nor China had halted fissile material production. When the bill in its entirety came before the Senate, Obama voted for it, but he supported two different revisions (that entered the final deal) which brought the bill more in line with the norms of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. Obama expressed his reservations: "I have concerns with potential non-proliferation consequences of this agreement"¦I remain concerned about the issue of nuclear testing. A decision by the Indian government to conduct such a test could trigger an arms race in South Asia that would be extremely dangerous and destabilizing."

During the 2008 Democratic primary, facing attacks from Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain that he was lukewarm in his support of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, Obama affirmed his support for the deal and admiration for Senator Lugar's efforts in facilitating its passage. When he was elected, Obama's top foreign policy picks - Clinton for Secretary of State and Robert Gates for Secretary of Defence - were strong supporters of the Deal. However, lower level administration appointees were not as united in their support. Robert Einhorn was chosen as State's Special Advisor for Non-proliferation and Arms Control. Einhorn had argued that the second Bush administration "gave away the house" in the Indo-US Nuclear Deal: By making "India an exception to longstanding non-proliferation rules, the Bush administration ha[d] given India virtually all that it wanted and ha[d] run major risks with the future of the non-proliferation regime." While Einhorn ended up turning down the position, his selection signalled (to some Indian commentators) that Obama Administration was sympathetic to non-proliferation traditionalists who had opposed the Deal.

Alongside with Einhorn, another "non-proliferation hawk," (former) Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher was named Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Tauscher was a harsh critic of the Deal in 2008. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Tauscher said that the (then proposed) Deal would "shred" "the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty "¦and India's yearly nuclear weapons production capability would likely increase from 7 bombs to 40 or 50." However, right before the Spring 2010 NPT Review Conference, Tauscher, speaking as a spokesperson for the Obama Administration, made an about face: "We don't believe we weakened the NPT in our peaceful civilian nuclear deal with India," she said at a press conference. With the appointments of both Einhorn and Tauscher, the Obama Administration made gestures that it would place increased emphasis on aggressive non-proliferation. However, with Einhorn's demurral and Tauscher's reversal in opinion, these gestures became more evidence of the Administration's continued commitment to the Deal.

President Obama's oscillation on the Deal from 2006-2008 foreshadowed a pattern of personal investment in serious non-proliferation undercut by political necessity. In a phone interview immediately following Obama's Prague Speech in the spring of 2010, Ben Rhodes - deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and the author of the Prague Speech - articulated that the President's advocacy for non-proliferation was personal and dated from Obama's student days. The Speech was an opportunity to put long held personal beliefs before an international audience.

On non-proliferation and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, Obama has tried to span the divide between hard-line NPT enforcement and NPT regime evolution over time. He has made a non-proliferation bet that the NPT regime is not a currency that can be debased by adulteration; instead, it is a culture that can be enhanced through diversity.

 

[Parthy]

India a natural ally of US: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: Within a fortnight of the highly successful India visit of President Barack Obama, a top Pentagon official has said identified India as a "natural ally" of the US with which the defence relationship is getting stronger.

The state of the defense relationship with India is "very positive and very strong and getting stronger," Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said in an interview to the American Forces Press Service.

India, she said, is the second-most populated nation in the world after China and a natural ally to the US.

The Indians, Flournoy said, want to cooperate with the US. The Indian military frequently conducts exercises with the United States and there is a vital exchange programme between the two nations.

"We're trying to move into areas where we can be more cooperative operationally - like maritime security or humanitarian assistance and disaster relief," she said, adding, "They have a lot of capability and a lot of well-trained people and they are great partners. We are looking to grow that relationship over time."

Meanwhile, she said Chinese have used its military relationship with the US more as a "rheostat" and her country would like to have a military-to-military relationship with Beijing that is as comprehensive and collaborative as they have on diplomatic and economic issues.

"The Chinese have used the military relationship more as a rheostat. It's on when everything is happy," she said.

"When we make a defensive arms sale to Taiwan, for example, the rheostat is turned down. Or if the president receives the Dalai Lama in the White House, the rheostat is turned down," said Flournoy.

Military-to-military relations have instead gone on and off, as if they were controlled by a dimmer switch, she observed.

But the Chinese now are ready to return to military discussions with the United States, Flournoy said, noting US and Chinese officials sat down in Hawaii to discuss maritime security and safety issues. The undersecretary said she was pleased with those discussions.

"I'm going to be welcoming my counterpart in December - General Ma Xiaotian - to Washington and we'll have a very comprehensive and, we hope, candid and productive set on talks on defense policy," she said.

The talks, she said, will pave the way for defence secretary Robert M Gates' trip to China early next year. The talks also are seen as a conduit for a full calendar of US-Chinese military-to-military exchanges and exercises in 2011.

US officials want to separate the US-China military-to-military relationship from the ups and downs of policy agreements and disagreements.

"Transparency and dialogue and de-confliction and sharing of information are so important, given that we both are out in the world operating in Asia," Flournoy said.

"We want to make sure that we are in dialogue, avoiding any possibility of miscalculation, providing greater transparency so there isn't misunderstanding about what one or the other is doing," she said.

Flournoy wants the talks next month to be consistent, continuing, and candid. She also wants the relationship to be strong enough that if there are differences, then the nations' leaders can talk about them.

She said the US would base success in the talks on the degree of candor and the quality of the discussions.

"We're going to talk about some difficult and contentious issues, but we're also going to talk about issues that really have great potential for cooperation and collaboration," Flournoy said.

"So it will be interesting to see if they are willing to depart from the script and engage in a good exchange in areas where we might share interests."

Transparency is the key word in the US-China military relationship, she said, adding that China does not publish the defence budget the way US does.

"They don't have people testifying openly to explain that budget and explain their program. So we have a lot of guess work to do to try and understand what their military is doing and what kind of capabilities they are developing for the future," she said.

DOD officials have asked the Chinese for briefings on their strategy and doctrine and their plans for the future. "That's the first time we've had that topic on the agenda and we are looking forward very much to what they have to say," Flournoy said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...entagon/articleshow/6974025.cms#ixzz1657x3es9

 

[Parthy]

China, Afghanistan to figure in India-US talks

Shivshankar Menon, national security adviser, kicks off India's first high-level talks with the US after US President Obama's visit, with his maiden meeting with the new US NSA, Tom Donilon, this week.

Menon traveled to Washington on Wednesday in a low-key but, sources said, high content visit. shanka

The India-US strategic dialogue between Hillary Clinton and foreign minister SM Krishna is slated for April Clinton and US defence secretary Robert Gates are due to travel to Delhi in April for the dialogues. These will take off from where the Obama visit left off.

The general approach in India is that things will remain more of the same in Afghanistan this year. Though the US is committed to starting a withdrawal this year, the actual deadline has moved to 2014. Meanwhile, the war has decisively shifted to Pakistan which, according to Indian observers, is going down a slippery slope towards radicalism. That's a source of huge concern to both India and the US, but India certainly finds less and less leverage inside Pakistan.

On the China front, Menon is also expected to brief the US side on Wen Jiabao's recent visit, India's continuing apprehension about stapled visas, trade access, etc. India will also expect a full debriefing on the Hu visit to Washington.

The Menon visit coincides with the US formally removing India's DRDO and ISRO organisations from its entities list, as well as moving India from its previous lists. India used to be designated a "country of concern". An official statement said, "India (was moved) to a preferential Country Group (A:2) under the US Export Administration Act. This country group, which for the first time now includes India, consists of members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)."



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...re-in-India-US-talks-/articleshow/7371220.cms

 

[chex3009]

Menon meets Obama, Donilon

Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon met with his counterpart, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and President Barack Obama joined the meeting, according to a White House statement.

Describing the meetings as a "follow-up on the outcomes of President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Singh's historic Summit in India in November 2010," the White House said Mr. Donilon and Mr. Menon had discussed ways to advance the two countries' bilateral agenda during 2011.

This would include the implementation of initiatives launched in November and building new platforms for collaboration to fulfil "the promise of our global strategic partnership," according to the White House press office.

The interaction was said to have comprised "candid, in-depth discussions on regional and global issues of mutual concern."

Mr. Obama was specifically said to have reaffirmed to Mr. Menon his commitment to building a "true global, strategic partnership with India." He also relayed his priorities for the coming year, including advancing our bilateral economic relationship and making progress on nuclear security efforts.

Report: The Hindu

 

[sonofindia]

Yes. American power in a slow motion decline but USA is still going to remain a great power.It will take China about 50 years more to be at par with USA. Thats the fact. As for India..
It is doing the right thing by focusing on economic growth and sharpening its military power. USA will be friendly with India due to its potential for business and great profits. Pakistan(fuckistan) never had backbone..it has a habit of hiding in the behinds of great powers as its self esteem is very low. Pakistan is getting poor and hungry by each passing day..its becoming a huge liability for the USA. Due to sufferings of Pak public, they may rise against Military and regime..just likn Egyptians did. India should keep a balanced foreign policy..keep old,reliable friends like Russia...stay neutral with China...do business with USA and corrode the only enemy, Pakistan to the point that they realise that chanting Kashmir..Kashmir can not calm their hungry stomachs. India should seize the moment and make Pakistan useless to be used by any great power. Breaking Pakistan into two or three pieces is a noble goal as then, they will keep fighting among themselves and stop terrorist activities in India.

 

[youngindian]

India, US plan several high-level visits ahead of April dialogue

2011-02-02

Washington, Feb 2 (IANS) India and the US plan to exchange a series of high level visits ahead of the April round of their strategic dialogue in New Delhi to keep up the momentum built during President Barack Obama's India visit.

The dialogue headed by Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will include several cabinet ministers with a separate Department of Homeland Security dialogue focusing on counter-terrorism, according to diplomatic sources.

US Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security, Jane Holl Lute was in New Delhi last month in preparation of an April visit by Secretary, Janet Napolitano for the extended dialogue to include Homeland Security.

As part of the preparatory visits, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao would be in Washington Feb 13-15 close on the heels of last week's visit of National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, who met Obama his National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Clinton and Under Secretary of State Bill Burns.

The Menon visit essentially focused on the 'bilateral agenda over the coming year, including the implementation of initiatives launched during the Summit, as well as building new platforms for collaboration that fulfil the promise of our global strategic partnership,' as the White House put it.

Noting the easing of US export controls on Indian defence and space organisations as promised by Obama, sources said besides a review of bilateral ties the Rao visit would draw a road map to India's membership in the four major international non-proliferation groupings - Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, Wassenaar, and the Australia Group.

Before that the US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke would be in India Feb 6-11 leading 24 US businesses on a high-tech trade mission focusing on advanced industrial sectors, civil-nuclear trade, defence and security, civil aviation, and information and communication technologies.

Among the companies on the US delegation visiting Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are aerospace giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and other defence and nuclear power majors.

Also planned is a meeting of the defence policy group in Washington March 3-4. The US air chief is visiting India Feb 2-6 and Indian army chief would be in US Mar 7-13.

The two-way India-US trade after a dip from $43.38 billion in 2008 to $37.6 billion in 2009 due to lack of demand has again picked up and reached $45.11 billion in January-November 2010, a whopping 30.79 percent gain. For the first time, trade is expected to cross $50 billion for the full year.

http://www.sify.com/news/india-us-p...-dialogue-news-international-lcck4dfgiii.html

 

[youngindian]

Michelle wants to visit India again, says Obama.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ndia-again-says-Obama/articleshow/7410478.cms

 

[The Messiah]

^ cheap gimmicks that flatters the naive in this country.

 

[Rage]

India raises visa fee hike, but U.S. highlights trade barriers

Union Minister for Commerce and Industries Anand
Sharma with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke

Non-tariff barriers limit trade and investment: Gary Locke

February 8, 2011

While remaining unmoved by India's concern at the visa fee increase for IT professionals, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke expressed concern on Monday at tariff and non-tariff barriers in India.

Mr. Locke, leading a 24-member business delegation, was addressing journalists after meeting Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma here. Besides reviewing trade ties, both sides discussed wide-ranging issues, including the World Trade Organisation, the visa fee increase and outsourcing.

"Even though India has made tremendous strides in opening up its economy, there is much more work"¦ left to be done," Mr. Locke said. "While many tariffs have come down, others remain. Even when there are no outright tariffs, there are non-tariff barriers that limit trade and investment."

Mr. Sharma raised the increase in the fees for some categories of visas (H-1B and L1) that are mainly used by Indian IT professionals and stressed that the Obama administration should not take any step detrimental to their interests. "We hope that there will not be any measure which negatively impacts the movement of professionals between the two countries, particularly our IT professionals in the U.S," he told the press.

Asked whether India would drag the U.S. to the WTO, he said: "I don't think we have reached that stage."

Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said the two countries were trying to work out a solution.

Both sides also discussed the issue of market access, reduction in trade barriers and technology transfer for solar power plants. The bilateral trade stood at $50 billion in 2010.

Mr. Sharma said the U.S. struck the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Defence Research and Development Organisation off the list of restricted entities. The step would enable the firms to import high-end technologies and sensitive items without licence. The U.S. also decided to drop nine Indian companies into space and defence technologies from the list, a move that would boost trade in high technology. "They have removed all export controls. Mr. Locke confirmed that they have completed all their internal procedures, and the Indian companies now stand removed from those lists," he said.

From now, there would be full cooperation in space and nuclear and other high-end technologies between the U.S. and India.

Both sides also discussed the commencement of negotiations for a free trade pact.


http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1165622.ece

 

[chex3009]

Take Indo-U.S. Ties to New Level
Build on Obama Visit's Momentum

Delivering on a major promise that President Barack Obama made while visiting India in November, the U.S. administration has removed the names of nine Indian organizations from its Entity List and opened the doors for the export of U.S. high technology to India.

In an even more significant move, India has been removed from a group of countries that requires strict monitoring under U.S. Export Administration regulations to a group comprising members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). This recognizes India's adherence to the regime and its impeccable non-proliferation credentials, even though India is not a signatory to the MTCR.

India is being wooed assiduously by all the major world powers. In less than two months, Obama and Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao came calling. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron dropped by in July.

And all of them, except the Chinese prime minister, underlined India's growing importance in the emerging world order and spontaneously extended support for India's candidacy for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Even Wen Jiabao remarked that the elephant and the dragon must tango.

While India values its strategic autonomy and recognizes the value of each bilateral relationship, there can be no doubt that the India-U.S. strategic partnership, more than any other, will shape the geopolitical contours of the 21st century.

Perhaps the most important, though understated, aspect of the Obama visit was progress on almost all facets of defense cooperation. Defense cooperation comes in many forms. It includes the sale, purchase and joint development of military equipment; transfer of military technology; intelligence sharing; cooperation for counterterrorism and counterproliferation; jointly providing relief after natural calamities; coordination in transnational anti-drug trafficking activities; joint patrolling of sea lanes of communication against piracy and terrorism; and joint military exercises.

It also includes working together to maintain regional and international peace and stability.

Recent achievements on the defense cooperation front have been remarkable. High-tech weapons and equipment will now be provided or offered by the U.S. to India. Advanced dual-use technologies will give an edge to India over China in security-related and civilian sectors. Transforming the existing bilateral export control framework for high-tech exports has ended the discriminatory technology denial regimes to which India was subjected.

The proposal to lift U.S. sanctions on the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Bharat Dynamics is a welcome step. Perhaps India's Department of Atomic Energy also will be taken off the Entity List soon.

Joint patrolling of the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean already is being undertaken under the garb of joint naval exercises. Other military exercises between India and the U.S. have improved the understanding of each other's military capabilities, and many interoperability challenges have been ironed out.

In the future, joint military operations are possible, but there will be many caveats to such cooperation, as it is not in India's long-term interest to form an alliance with the U.S.

The proposal to undertake joint weapon development also is welcome, as it will raise India's technological threshold. However, no transfer of technology has occurred yet.

Inevitably, doubts about the availability of future technological upgrades and the reliability of supplies and spare parts will linger in the Indian mind. The inability thus far to win U.S. approval for spares for the AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder weapon-locating radar, purchased years ago, has left a bad taste.

India's reluctance to sign the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), intended to guarantee the security of U.S. C4ISR systems, and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), related to the secure exchange of intelligence, will lead to the U.S. denial of many high-tech items, even while platforms are still offered and sold.

Deciding whether or not to sign these agreements should be based on whether India's operational capabilities will be adversely affected if the U.S. does not supply major avionics and communications equipment. If India continues to shun certain equipment simply because the country does not wish to sign the CISMOA and BECA, it might amount to a self-defeating strategy in the long run.

Massive U.S. conventional military aid to Pakistan militates against India's strategic interests. While U.S. compulsions to deal with the failing Pakistani state are understandable, the supply of military equipment unrelated to counterinsurgency operations will inevitably invite a strong Indian backlash.

Recognition of the adverse implications of China's increasing assertiveness underscores the need for future U.S.-Indian cooperation, such as working in unison with the international community to uphold the unfettered use of the global commons - the sea lanes for trade, as well as space and cyberspace. The U.S. and India also view their strategic partnership as a hedging strategy in case China behaves irresponsibly in Asia, or if it should implode.

Finally, after the Obama visit, the India-U.S. strategic partnership can only gain momentum in the decades ahead, though the road will undoubtedly be uphill and dotted with potholes.

Source : Defense News

 

[ajtr]

Alliance with India in U.S. interest​

The future of the Middle East is being rewritten by events that caught policymakers, the usual experts and indeed virtually everyone by surprise. Elsewhere around the globe, developments are unfolding in a couple of places every bit as significant and also with the potential to unsettle U.S. policy. And this time, Washington shouldn't be caught unaware.

At the top of the list is volatile Pakistan. Trouble there threatens U.S. objectives in Afghanistan. Relations have deteriorated to the point that Pakistan's military intelligence reportedly no longer helps the CIA target our enemies hiding in remote areas of the country. The reason is dispiriting: U.S. drone attacks are aimed at the Haqqani organization in North Waziristan, which is responsible for bloody attacks in Afghanistan. It has long been supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as a proxy for its interests in Afghanistan. The ISI also backs Haqqani militants and other radical Islamist groups as surrogates in its cold war with India.

The CIA has developed its own network of information-gathering to direct Predator drone missiles on the Taliban, Haqqani and other enemies in Pakistani border areas. But the numbers show the impact of ISI non-cooperation: Drone attacks have declined since last fall.

The ISI has ruthlessly undermined U.S. interests. The CIA station chief in Islamabad had to flee the country after the ISI exposed his identity. Pakistan has thumbed its nose at international treaties by arresting a CIA operative with diplomatic immunity. This is not unlike Iran's taking hostage U.S. embassy personnel in 1979. U.S. troops have achieved remarkable gains in blunting the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan. But in Pakistan, feverish anti-Americanism and religious extremism — the country's only Christian Cabinet member was murdered recently — threaten to undermine the U.S. war effort.

The other challenge for U.S. policymakers is the increasingly assertive military stance of China. Beijing is pushing up military spending by nearly 13 percent this year. It recently unveiled a stealth jet similar to the U.S. F-22, plans to add 15 vessels to its fleet of more than 60 submarines and is commissioning what will be its first, but certainly not its last aircraft carrier.

China's acknowledged military spending has soared from $17 billion in 2001 to $78 billion last year, and the actual figure may be closer to $150 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. That instills worry among its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region. An Australian defense think tank concluded that China's arms buildup "is potentially the most demanding security situation faced since the Second World War."

Fortunately there's a natural ally for America in countering the Pakistani and Chinese challenges. It's India, the world's most populous democracy. To their credit, Presidents Obama and George W. Bush have cultivated ties with India.

The interests of America and India coincide. India, like America, has been the victim of devastating terrorist attacks. Metastasizing radical Islamism, with the potential to turn Pakistan into a failed state with nuclear weapons, is a vital national security issue for Washington and New Delhi. A U.S. decision to aid India with, for example, missile-defense technology would be a powerful message to Pakistan.

China and India fought a war in 1962, and today their emerging economic rivalry matches their growing military arsenals. Japan, South Korea and other neighbors of China also have been alarmed by China's military buildup and have sought to bolster their own defenses. India constitutes the logical hub for a new American alliance with Asian and Pacific nations to balance Beijing's growing military clout and to maintain stability in the region.

Washington can't anticipate every foreign upheaval, but closer ties with India could prepare for what may be gathering storms on the other side of the world.