The Bush administration will start working with Congress next month to lift sanctions placed on India after its 1998 nuclear tests, clearing the way for greater military planning, joint operations and eventual sharing of weapons technology with New Delhi.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said State Department officials have held preliminary talks with Capitol Hill and will move forward "at a speed visible to the naked eye" in easing sanctions once Congress returns from summer recess.
The move is aimed at strengthening ties between the world's two largest democracies and would accelerate their evolving military cooperation in various areas, including joint exercises, officer exchanges, and coordinated efforts to combat piracy and protect navigation through the crucial sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. The two countries are already cooperating in planning for peacekeeping operations.
"It would give us a wider range of flexibility in moving forward in these areas," said Adm. Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, which covers India. This cooperation is expected to get a major boost late this year when the two sides resume high-level discussions over defense policy and joint operations. "You've seen some seeds sprouting. With the [upcoming discussions], we now have a way forward with these activities," Blair said.
American military and diplomatic officials point to the benefits of improving often-strained relations with India because it is a major regional power with a professional army increasingly led by Western-oriented commanders. Though U.S. officials won't say so, some experts outside the government stress that Washington is also looking to beef up these military ties with an eye on China, seen by some U.S. strategic planners as posing a mounting challenge to American interests in Asia.
"Both India and the United States have a common interest if China becomes a danger or a threatening state. That's what's behind the military-to-military relationship at the highest geopolitical level," said Stephen P. Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the newly published "India: Emerging Power."
U.S. officials are scrupulous about not depicting their emerging ties with India as an initiative to counter China -- an objective that could also offend many Indians long proud of their independent role in world affairs.
"For us to have a sustainable relationship with India, it must be based in and on India and not be a relationship which we try to develop with India to face a third country," Armitage said.
American officials say Washington and New Delhi share a particular interest in ensuring free navigation through the Indian Ocean. An increasing proportion of Persian Gulf oil passes along those sea lanes, as does much of India's trade, which has soared since it began to reform its socialist economy.
Military cooperation with India could also help enhance U.S. military readiness by offering training in the Indian Ocean. American forces have no facilities for training between the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia, defense officials said. U.S. officials also are careful to say that their aspiration for closer ties with New Delhi does not represent a snub of Pakistan, an American ally during the Cold War and a longtime rival of India.
Much of the military cooperation sought by the United States and India is stalled by the sanctions imposed after the May 1998 nuclear tests. Those restrictions preclude military sales and the transfer of weapons technology to India -- one of New Delhi's prime objectives in improving ties. It is also politically difficult for the United States to justify other forms of military cooperation while India is blacklisted for its nuclear weapons program, a senior Defense Department official said.
The United States, however, has already waived the sanctions to allow Indian officers to receive American training as a way of maintaining relations between the two militaries, the official added. This year, the United States plans to spend $500,000 bringing Indians here for military education and training.
"Where the rubber hits the road is how do we address sanctions," a Pentagon official said. "Both sides will move as fast as they possibly can given the legal considerations we have to work through. There is now a common desire to have a much closer, much better relationship."
The two countries have made a modest start within the past year. In June, they conducted their first joint exercise, albeit a table-top peacekeeping game in which no troops participated, and a joint search-and-rescue exercise at sea is scheduled for this year. The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpen made a rare American appearance in an Indian port in February, participating in an international naval review in Bombay.
Indo-American ties began to pick up steam during the final year of the Clinton administration, especially after the White House and State Department dropped their objection to renewing military contacts, said James M. Bodner, undersecretary of defense for policy under Clinton. "The new administration has picked up the ball and run with it," Bodner said.
That interest has not been lost on Indian officials, who are delighted by the attention the Bush administration is paying them.
"Ever since the new administration took over, we have received very encouraging signals at all levels of the administration that they would like to build on and continue the momentum of Indo-U.S. relations," an Indian diplomat said. "Both sides are moving ahead fairly expeditiously."
During an April visit to Washington, India's foreign and defense minister, Jaswant Singh, was given an unscheduled 45-minute audience with President Bush, who took him for a stroll in the Rose Garden before they retired to the Oval Office for a discussion of missile defense. At the Pentagon, Singh was welcomed with a full military honor guard by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is traditionally sparing in his reception of foreign dignitaries.
India was added to a number of allies and friends briefed in May by senior officials about the administration's thinking on missile defense, dispatching Armitage to New Delhi. "We put India into the category with our allies -- she's not an ally, of course -- but we consulted with her in that vein and that was pleasing to our Indian hosts," he said. "They saw the United States acknowledging that India is a country poised to take its place on the world stage."
Under the Bush administration, U.S. officials no longer view India primarily as an international scofflaw undercutting efforts to limit nuclear proliferation, but rather as a potential supporter of American missile defense development. The Clinton administration vigorously pressed India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but Bush has made no secret of his skepticism about the agreement.
American officials, however, remain concerned that India's military planners have not fully moved away from the notion of using nuclear weapons in conventional warfare. "There's still some undeveloped thinking about using nuclear weapons," Blair said. "The trend is right, but it's not complete yet."
Though India first conducted a nuclear test three decades ago, U.S. officials said its doctrine for using the weapons and the procedures for deploying them remain "immature." They say this continues to raise the prospect of nuclear escalation in South Asia, one of the most dangerous places on earth because of the Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir, pitting two nuclear powers against each other.
But Congress has been growing increasingly sympathetic to warmer U.S. relations with India, in large part because of the growing political might and savvy of the Indian American community.
India, meanwhile, has been one of the few major countries that has not objected to Bush's proposal for a ballistic missile shield, perhaps the administration's top foreign policy priority. "We are quite open-minded and want to hear more about missile defense," an Indian diplomat said.
On Friday, after U.S. officials finished a round of discussions with their Russian counterparts about missile defense and nuclear weapons, an Indian delegation was among the few invited to be briefed by the Pentagon. This is a small club of countries that did not include India until recently, a senior Defense Department official said.
Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, became the highest ranking U.S. military officer to travel to India since 1998 when he visited New Delhi last month. He gave a major boost to the military relationship when he informed his Indian counterparts that the Bush administration had decided to reinstate the Defense Policy Group, a forum for regular, senior-level military discussions that was suspended three years ago, Pentagon officials said.
That group, which could convene by December, is expected to take up Asian security issues of mutual concern and map out a program of future cooperation. These could, for instance, include training American soldiers at Indian centers for jungle counter-insurgency and high-altitude warfare, U.S. and Indian officials said. For its part, India has been seeking American instruction in electronic warfare and cryptology.
The discussions could also lead to more joint exercises and coordination in fighting piracy, responding to natural disasters, peacekeeping and conducting search-and- rescue missions at sea, officials from both countries said. Given India's vast coastline and American security interests in the Indian Ocean, much of the military relationship will focus on maritime coordination, these officials said.
"I expect we'll have a whole series
of port visits in the year to come," said Ashley J. Tellis, a former Rand
Corp. analyst who this month became a senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador
to India Robert Blackwill. "Navy-to-Navy cooperation is going to take off."