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Finally the United States has a President; more importantly, for India, the new President says the United States must pay more attention to India. The road ahead?
In the days to come India is likely to feast on a full- course meal of American diplomacy, with the promise that it will continue to grow in stature and importance as a political and economic Asian power in the eyes of the world's sole superpower. For starters, New Delhi would be pleased at the likely inclusion of friends like Condoleezza Rice in the Bush cabinet who have been more than vocal about the need for the US to engage India beyond the Kashmir-Pakistan-Nuclear logic. Add to that Mr George Bush Jr's indicator that Washington's diplomacy track to New Delhi would not be routed through Islamabad. For dessert, it is comforting to know that for the next four years India and the US would be addressing nuclear non-proliferation sans the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty irritant that has been the cornerstone of US security policy towards the "India-Pakistan" duo since May 1998. And finally, Mr Bush's statement about the lifting of sanctions against India, even if it does not come through immediately, provides the adequate dash of sweetener in the Republican Administration's forthcoming relations with New Delhi.
The attention paid to India by Mr Bush in his foreign policy speech has surprised leading American analysts, who while waiting for the outcome of the Bush-Gore legal tussle, had observed that Mr Bush's political ignorance and inexperience in dealing with international affairs would be a major hurdle in India hitting it off with the new administration in the manner it had with the politically savvy Bill Clinton. While observers both in India and in the US recommend restraint in interpreting Mr Bush's foreign policy speech, suggesting that the new administration may take months or even years before addressing international relations, especially India, the Republican drift is far too certain to be missed.
For one, Mr Bush's foreign policy advisers, on whose wisdom the new President is overwhelmingly dependent, have outlined a framework within which India fits rather prominently. Predictably, the primary focus is on the more uncomfortable tracks the US must negotiate in Asia, especially vis-a-vis China. Mr Bush's acknowledgement that India has been "often overlooked" in Washington's "strategic calculations" in Asia, is a pointer to the direction his advisers are likely to take his administration in. It is no secret that Mr Bush's chief foreign policy adviser, Ms Condeleeza Rice, who appears set to take over as the National Security Adviser, is an India-friend. At various fora, Ms Rice has regretted the fact that US policy towards India has been frontloaded with the nuclear issue, Pakistan and Kashmir, a posture that has often overshadowed the immense potential of economic cooperation between India and the US. With Ms Rice likely to assume a policy-making position in Washington, New Delhi can be assured of a fairly reasonable bilateral engagement with the US in its capacity as an important regional player and a dependable global economic power.
That the Bush Administration intends to take India seriously, beyond the logic of the subcontinent and New Delhi's strained relations with Islamabad, was made more than apparent by Mr Bush when he said, "we should work with the Indian Government, ensuring it is a force for stability and security in Asia. This should not undermine our longstanding relationship with Pakistan, which remains crucial to the peace of the region." For once a US policy statement goes beyond the clichid American response to India and Pakistan as inseparable twins of the subcontinent fighting border battles who need to be periodically reprimanded for threatening peace in the region. If Mr Bush's foreign policy advisers are to be believed, India's relations with Pakistan would be only one among the many issues that will interest the United States in the 21st century.
Some hardliners in the Clinton Administration have expressed the fear that the Republicans' well-known antipathy to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty could have dangerous consequences in South Asia where two nuclear capable states continue to be far from friendly terms, a reason they cite for the United States' need to retain the CTBT stick for India and Pakistan. With Mr Bush, the CTBT appears all set for a decent burial, India and Pakistan notwithstanding. Ranking it along some of the "unwise treaties" of the world, Mr Bush has emphasised that the treaty "does not stop proliferation, especially to renegade regimes. It is not verifiable. It is not enforceable. And it would stop us from ensuring the safety and reliability of our nation's deterrent, should the need arise". Despite India's well-publicised intent to sign the CTBT upon reaching a national consensus, New Delhi gets a breather for the next four years, not altogether unwelcome since no State Department speech on South Asia in the Clinton regime, even at the height of India-US bonhomie, was ever complete without the mandatory "India and Pakistan must sign the CTBT" rhetoric. More importantly, the Bush regime would be too preoccupied with its commitment to develop and deploy missile defence systems, both national and theater, to revive a treaty it has declared clinically dead.
What further paints a promising picture for India-US relations, even if Mr Bush were to take some time to go through his foreign policy primers, is the fact that China would be of overwhelming strategic concern to the new Administration, indicated by the fact that Mr Bush does not exactly intend cozying up to Beijing. Listing reasons why the Chinese Government can be "alarming abroad, and appalling at home", America's new President in his foreign policy speech has declared that China is "a competitor, not a strategic partner. We must deal with China without ill-will but without illusions," attaching the cautionary postscript that China will be "unthreatened, but not unchecked," by the US. Given India's own share of concerns over China, bilateral engagement notwithstanding, the US can prove to be a useful listener in the foreseeable future as far as India's national security concerns go.
This is not to suggest that India and the United States will walk into the sunset, hand firmly in hand, under the benign gaze of the Bush Administration. As pointed out by a prominent member of a policy-wielding US thinktank at a seminar on Asian security in Hawaii recently, the US has not one but three foreign policies political, economic and military. While India appears on comfortable territory with regard to the first two, the third, which dictates the US view that Kashmir is a major nuclear flashpoint in South Asia, would prove difficult for India to dismiss overnight. It was pointed out that while the Republicans may seem to have a radically different foreign policy approach from the Democrats, little or no change is likely in the US policy as far as its security perception in the South Asian region is concerned. This, it appears, includes maintaining consistent pressure on India to come to the negotiating table with Pakistan. It is unlikely however that this will be an insurmountable issue in a relationship that otherwise promises to be fulfilling.
Postscript: "This coming
century will see democratic India's arrival as a force in the world", says
America's 43rd President. India has been aware of that fact for a
while now. It is heartening to know that the world's sole superpower
knows it too.
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