Tag Archives: AfPak

A Marshall Plan for South Asia

The war of words between the United States and Pakistan in recent weeks has put in stark relief the two core strategic conundrums Washington has vis-à-vis Islamabad, as well as the integral role India plays in both of them. The first is to encourage a more constructive Pakistani approach in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as a theater for its endemic rivalry with New Delhi. The second is to steer a nuclear-armed but deeply dysfunctional Pakistan away from failed state status, a harrowing prospect that many believe is all too plausible unless Islamabad is convinced that its prospering neighbor to the East actually represents an economic opportunity rather than an existential threat.

The Obama administration entered office believing that Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan was a function of addressing its acute security anxieties regarding India. Two weeks before the November 2008 election, Barack Obama declared that resolving the perennially-inflamed dispute over the Kashmir region was one of the “critical tasks” for U.S. foreign policy and worthy of “serious diplomatic resources.” It was a valid observation but the manner in which Washington pursued it guaranteed a quick failure. Moves to appoint a turbo-charged envoy (in the person of Richard Holbrooke) with the mandate of mediating the Kashmir issue– similar to U.S. efforts to broker the Middle East peace talks – met with Pakistani approval but proved too much for the sovereignty-conscious Indians to accept.

For the past three years, Washington has struggled to find a way to bring the two sides together and focus them on their common interests. Fortunately, the parties may have found one themselves. Despite the obvious displays of mutual suspicion in both capitals, a consensus is growing in the two countries – especially evident in their business communities – that the time has come for a more normalized relationship.

After a three-year hiatus caused by the 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, India and Pakistan have restarted their peace dialogue. In July, Pakistan’s new foreign minister, the 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar, held unexpectedly warm talks in New Delhi, where she emphasized that a “mind-set change” was occurring among younger Indians and Pakistanis. Last month, for the first time in 35 years, Pakistan’s commerce minister visited New Delhi, bringing with him a notably large business delegation. The trip was especially productive. The two countries pledged to more than double their two-way trade flows – to the $6 billion annual level – by 2015. They agreed to ease visa rules for business travel and to open a new customs post at the Wagah border crossing that lies midway between Lahore and Amritsar. Islamabad also committed to extending “most favored nation” trade status to New Delhi, reciprocating the status India earlier conferred upon Pakistan. This last development promises to enliven the 2006 South Asia Free Trade Agreement which up until this point has been all but a dead letter. India’s commerce minister, Anand Sharma, captured the spirit of the meeting when he exclaimed that “only shared prosperity can bring lasting peace.”

The annals of India-Pakistan relations are filled with numerous false dawns and the current moves toward greater economic engagement could well founder upon the sharp historical animosities that regularly bedevil bilateral affairs. But things may be different this time. Reports out of Islamabad indicate that the Pakistani government realizes the country is in desperate economic straits and that closer ties with India constitute a much needed lifeline. The military establishment is also said to understand that the eastern border needs to be stabilized so resources can be focused on combating rising internal security threats.

If enhanced trade ties were to develop between South Asia’s largest economies, they would produce significant economic and (eventually) security dividends for both countries. Despite the common civilizational and historical bonds that permeate South Asia, as well as the unified market forged by the British Raj, the region today is remarkably fragmented economically. Trade flows between India and Pakistan, for instance, represent a miniscule fraction of each country’s overall trade portfolio.

Wagah is the only vehicle crossing along the 1,800-mile-long international border. The two-lane road there is only open a mere eight hours a day and the cargo that passes through it must be unloaded and transferred to local trucks. Indeed, the crossing, which some refer to as the “Checkpoint Charlie of South Asia,” is better known for the Kabuki-like displays put on by the border guards than as an efficient transit point.

The pervasive barriers to bilateral economic cooperation have also spurred circuitous and highly inefficient trade patterns. A booming India requires cement for its construction sector yet is forced to import it from Africa instead of Pakistan, where the cement industry has excess capacity. Off-the-books trade – the value of which easily rivals official levels – is also conducted via third countries like Dubai, Singapore and Afghanistan. According to various studies, a more liberalized trade regime would increase bilateral exchange at least 20 times above current figures as well as boost economic prosperity in both countries.

The Obama administration would do well to reinforce the current stirrings by launching a Marshall Plan-like initiative geared toward the expansion of cross-border economic linkages between the two countries. One of the keys to the Marshall Plan’s far-reaching success was the major financial inducement it gave European countries devastated by World War II to frame their economic futures in conjunction with their neighbors. By putting an emphasis on reconstruction projects that crossed national frontiers, it was an important catalyst for the historic reconciliation between France and Germany and paved the way for the deep economic integration embodied in today’s European Union.

A similar vision should inspire a U.S. effort to bolster cross-border economic cooperation between India and Pakistan. This initiative would be aimed at helping the two countries, on a joint basis, upgrade and expand the meager transportation infrastructure presenting connecting them. It would support projects that increase road and rail linkages, as well as the number and capacity of customs posts. It would help provide resources for modernized seaport facilities that enable more two-way trade. And with each country plagued by chronic power shortages, it would help bankroll cross-border energy projects such as joint electrical grids or the proposed natural gas pipeline connecting Central and South Asia via Afghanistan.

This effort would dovetail well with the “New Silk Road” initiative that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in Chennai this past July, to foster the economic integration of Central and South Asia. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was born in what is now Pakistan, has spoken eloquently of the powerful role stronger economic linkages can play in bridging South Asia’s deep political fissures. In early 2007, he spelled out his vision for regional integration:

I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That was how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.”

For his part, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has even expressed the hope that India and Pakistan could one day join together in an economically-unified zone like the EU.

The original Marshall Plan entailed a staggering sum of money – well over $100 billion in today’s terms – and an austerity-minded U.S. Congress would certainly balk at any scheme with a similar price tag. But the initiative outlined here need only entail a modest level of expenditures – say, $50-75 million per year over a five-year period – and could be paid for by redirecting funding already authorized under the 2009 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act. Better known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, the act provides $1.5 billion annually in non-military assistance to Pakistan through 2013. But due to a variety of factors, much of its economic development funds remain unspent.

To avoid potential concerns in New Delhi and Islamabad that Washington might try to extract diplomatic concessions from specific funding decisions, resources could be routed through the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, where professional staff would assess the viability and impact of proposals submitted jointly by the two countries and make final judgments on which projects go forward. Additional countries, such as those assembled by Secretary Clinton in New York last month to discuss the New Silk Road plan, also could be invited to contribute resources.

Obviously, this initiative offers no magic bullet for transforming the singular intensity of the India-Pakistan strategic rivalry. But it would be a creative investment in nurturing promising developments already underway in both countries, which if they take root over the long term would help lead to a game-changing situation in South Asia: One in which Islamabad looks upon New Delhi more as a partner than as an outright enemy. If such a development came to pass, U.S. interests in the region would be vastly easier to safeguard than they are today.

US-Pakistan Relations: The More Things Change …

After the fusillade of accusations and denials between Washington and Islamabad, things remain pretty much the same as before.

Precisely a decade after the 9/11 attacks, US-Pakistani relations appeared for a moment to have come full circle. As the ruins of the World Trade Center smoldered, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage read Pakistan the riot act, threatening war if Islamabad did not turn against its Taliban allies in Afghanistan. In his memoirs, Pervez Musharraf describes how Armitage crudely warned that failure to comply with Washington’s demands meant that Pakistan would be bombed “back to the Stone Age.”

The uncharacteristically blunt charges leveled two weeks ago by Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, do not reach the rhetorical standard set by Armitage. But they are startling enough given how assiduously he had worked to maintain good relations with the Pakistani military establishment, especially the powerful chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Mullen’s statement sparked a fierce war of words between Washington and Islamabad, prompting policy experts to debate whether their epically dysfunctional relationship was this time actually at the point of rupture, and leading some Pakistanis to conclude that the United States was on the warpath with their country.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mullen asserted that “the government of Pakistan and most especially the Pakistani army” along with its Inter-Services Intelligence agency have chosen “to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy” in an effort to exert strategic influence in Afghanistan. In particular, he charged that the Haqqani network, the brutal mafia enterprise/militia group that has emerged as the most formidable insurgent force in Afghanistan, operates as “a strategic arm” of ISI. He further stated that the network, acting “with ISI support,” was responsible for a series of recent high-profile attacks, including the June 28th assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, the September 10th truck bombing at a U.S. base in nearby Wardak province that wounded 77 NATO troops, and the September 13th day-long strike on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul.

Of course, Mullen was only giving voice to what had long been obvious: Pakistan has been an egregiously duplicitous ally in Afghanistan, serving as a vital logistical conduit for U.S. forces fighting there all the while supporting the insurgent groups that have killed and maimed hundreds of these very same soldiers.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama took heat for saying that he would be prepared to order unilateral military action in Pakistan if that country failed to act on its own against Islamic militants. And just a week before Obama’s inauguration, Vice President-elect Joe Biden visited Pakistan and pointedly asked Kayani whether the two countries even “had the same enemy as we move forward.”

But once the administration took office, it has preferred to express its mounting frustrations with Islamabad in private. Just this past March, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially certified to Congress that Pakistan was showing a “sustained commitment” to fighting terrorism, a declaration that was necessary to release the next tranche of military aid to Islamabad.

Mullen, more than anyone else in Washington, labored mightily to implement this behind-the-scenes preference. He calls himself “Pakistan’s best friend,” and has met with Kayani dozens of times in recent years, including hosting in August 2008 an unusual summit abroad the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as it cruised the Indian Ocean. So, his public calling-out was a sharp departure from administration practice. And to reinforce his point, reports surfaced a few days after his testimony – almost certainly from Pentagon sources – alleging that Pakistani border guards had deliberately assaulted a group of U.S. military officers in May 2007 and that Kayani has personally assured the new NATO commander in Afghanistan that he would interdict the plot to attack the base in Wardak.

To be sure, Mullen did not issue a direct ultimatum in the way Armitage did, and it is very unlikely that one was delivered behind the scenes. Still, at the very least, his comments seem to portend a further ratcheting-up of U.S. military activities inside Pakistan. Speaking alongside Mullen at the Senate hearing, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta emphasized that “We’ve made clear that we are going to do everything we have to do to defend our forces.”

Indeed, the trend toward greater unilateral action has been visible for some time now.  Afghan militias, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, have carried out covert missions in Pakistan’s tribal areas for several years. The Raymond Davis affair earlier this year showed that the CIA, frustrated with the quality of information provided by the Pakistani security services, has started to forge its own intelligence-gathering networks in the country. And the lightning commando raid in Abbottabad, undertaken without Kayani’s coordination or even consent, was definitive confirmation of Washington’s increasing willingness to do without Pakistani cooperation and conduct military operations on its own.

Some predict that Washington will now resort to sending special-forces teams into the badlands of North Warizistan, where the Haqqani leadership is ensconced. But it is more likely that the Obama administration will extend its preferred strategy of drone warfare in dealing with militant groups that are resident on Pakistani territory. Until this point, Miranshah, the main town in North Warizistan, has been off limits to drone attacks due to the close proximity of Haqqani fighters with the civilian populace and Pakistani security forces. This restriction is likely to be relaxed.

Pressure is building on Capitol Hill for even further action. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have called for placing the Haqqani network on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. This action, which is being considered by the administration, may help alleviate the clamor to also declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, something that the White House is desperate to avoid since it would entail a complete collapse in relations. But blacklisting the Haqqani network will have little practical effect since the organization’s top leadership has already been designated as terrorists.

A growing chorus of legislators is also demanding drastic cuts in U.S. military and economic assistance to Pakistan and that funding be made specifically conditional on Islamabad’s reining in of the Haqqani clan. Senator James Risch (R-ID) speaks for many when he says “I think Americans are getting tired of it as far as shoveling money in there at people who just flat out don’t like us.” In the House of Representatives, Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) calls Pakistan “disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States,” and is championing legislation that would freeze aid to the country.

But there are sharp limits on Washington’s room to maneuver, starting with the fact that the long supply lines running through Pakistan are pivotal to the on-going conduct of military operations in Afghanistan and that Islamabad is key to the conflict’s political endgame. The White House’s efforts this week to temper Mullen’s remarks (here and here) demonstrate the force of these constraints. A Pakistani newspaper has quoted a US diplomat in Islamabad as saying that “the worst is over” and that both countries continue to agree that a breakdown in ties “is not an option.” And the Obama administration has even reportedly reassured Pakistan that it would not send ground forces into North Warizistan.

Further complicating U.S. action is the dense fog surrounding Pakistan’s exact relationship with the legion of militants that operate from its territory. It’s clear that ISI relies on Haqqani operatives to safeguard Pakistani interests in Afghanistan. But there are major questions as to whether the group is simply a pliable proxy, essentially responsive to ISI’s command and control, or whether it is a fundamentally independent outfit that Islamabad occasionally supports but is also too afraid to confront directly. Mullen has alluded to these uncertainties and in an interview a few days ago Obama conceded that “the intelligence is not as clear as we might like in terms of what exactly that relationship is.”

With the Haqqani leadership close allies of Al Qaeda, the September 13th siege of the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters could very well have been pay-back for bin Laden’s death, timed for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and aided by Pakistani elements wanting to avenge the embarrassment of Abbottabad. But this action also runs counter to Islamabad’s efforts in recent months to mend relations with Washington. Pakistan has a habit of delivering up militant leaders – including, most famously, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – in order to appease bouts of U.S. anger. A month after the Abbottabad raid, Ilyas Kashmiri, whom the United States last year labeled a “specially designated global terrorist,” was killed by a drone strike in South Warizistan. According to one media source, the targeting information may have come from the ISI.

Nor is it clear why the Pakistani military establishment would connive at such a brazen provocation, especially when the U.S. exit from Afghanistan is already in progress. President Obama has just reiterated his commitment to withdraw some 40,000 troops by next summer, and so time is clearly on Islamabad’s side in terms of shaping the future dispensation in Kabul. The date of the September 13th attacks is also problematic considering that General Kayani was scheduled to participate in a NATO conference in Spain just days afterwards. Pakistani officials must have known that Admiral Mullen, also in attendance, would use the occasion to confront Kayani in person (see also photo above).

Mullen’s public statements have elicited indignant denials and defiant warnings from Pakistan. But Islamabad’s options are sharply limited as well. Even if American forces are on the way out of Afghanistan, Washington is still in a strong position to make things difficult for the cash-strapped Pakistanis. Responding to Congressional demands, the Obama administration could withhold additional aid flows, like it did in July when it suspended $800 million in military assistance. It could also block the International Monetary Fund loans that Islamabad says it does not need this year but will almost certainly require in 2012.

Pakistan could always try to ward off U.S. coercion by threatening to cut off the routes that supply U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but this is a diminishing option as Washington increasingly expands its logistics network through Russia and Central Asia.  It would also mean hurting army-linked businesses that profit from the heavy traffic along these lines.

Pakistani elites talk bravely – and even bizarrely – about further cementing strategic links with China. Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani waxes lyrically about ties with Beijing being “higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, stronger than steel and sweeter than honey.” After the Abbottabad mission, Islamabad sought a formal military pact with Beijing and crowed about offering the Chinese navy use of the Gwadar port, only to be rebuffed on both counts. As if on cue, China’s public secretary minister, Meng Jianzhu, showed up in Islamabad earlier this week, with Rehman Malik, his Pakistani counterpart, declaring that “China is always there for us in the most difficult of times.” Tellingly however, the Chinese media was more focused on the inaugural session of the China-India economic dialogue than on Meng’s trip. Beijing’s concern about the activities in Xinjiang of Pakistan-based Islamic militants have dampened Islamabad’s appeal as a strategic partner, as has the news – announced just after Meng’s visit – that a Chinese mining company is abandoning what was to be Pakistan’s largest foreign-investment project due to security concerns.

And for all of Islamabad’s harsh rhetoric, it is significant that ISI’s chief, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, told a gathering of Pakistan’s politicians the other day that relations with Washington must not be allowed to breakdown.

So, after days of sound and fury in both capitals, where do things stand? Pretty much the same as before. Despite growing frustration and exasperation, the Obama administration has little choice but to carry on with its engagement of Pakistan. Indeed, for all of his exasperation, Mullen himself made this same point in his Senate testimony, noting that “despite deep personal disappointments in the decisions of the Pakistani military and government, I still believe that we must stay engaged.”

As he and others in Washington realize, the words that then-US ambassador in Islamabad Anne W. Patterson wrote in early 2009 still apply:

“The relationship is one of co-dependency we grudgingly admit – Pakistan knows the U.S. cannot afford to walk away; the U.S. knows Pakistan cannot survive without our support.”

Also true is the cliché that Gilani glibly employed last week to describe the American predicament: “They can’t live with us. They can’t live without us.” With the United States beginning its pull-out from Afghanistan, Islamabad will have every incentive to continue relying on its jihadi allies to fill the resulting vacuum, while Washington will remain dependent upon Pakistani influence to secure a minimally-acceptable political settlement.

Blowing hot and cold

As many news reports noted, the past week was significant just for the numbers of Indian ministers in the United States at a given point in time. However, the more did not necessarily make the merrier.

cdn.wn.comNo less than nine members of the Indian Council of Ministers were in the US, including the primus inter pares, PM Manmohan Singh. The PM was in the  U.S. to address a session of the UN General Assembly and  his speech was notable, as one commentator put it, for its reference to “old ideological positions and  old constitutencies,” meant to signal his “disappointment with the West.” The PM seemed to emphasise the point by having a bilateral meeting with an old foe of the West, Iranian President Ahmedinajad, an event described by another commentator as a virtual affront to the United States. What India has to be disappointed about is unclear, and whether the disappointment will be followed up with distancing remains to be seen. Whether that is the most appropriate strategy is also moot in the rapidly changing global scenario.

Many of the Ministers, from Commerce to Power, to Finance were in the U.S. to drum up investment for mega- infrastructure projects back home. There were the usual assortment of think tank reports and seminars that usually coincide with such ministerial visits, but increasingly, they offer only new wine in old bottles, reflecting the current stalemate, if not slump, in relations.  An address by the recently promoted Deputy Secretary William J Burns at the Brookings Institution was even titled “Is there a Future for the US-India Partnership?

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma made a valiant effort to break the logjam on the Totalization Agreement issue but came a cropper. This issue has been attacked from various angles, having earlier being piloted by the Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs. Mr Sharma made the point to his interlocutors that there was no reason not to sign an agreement with India pleading incompatibility between social security systems since India had signed totalisation agreements with many European countries  with which the U.S. had an agreement but this argument cut no ice.  This was not surprising since Under Secretary Blake had made it clear in his last read-out on US-India relations that the U.S. was in no mood to transfer over a billion dollars to India in the current economic mess it found itself in. There was also talk of progress made on a Bilateral Investment Treaty, even though it is almost as if when one side blows hot, the other side blows cold.

The other legs of the relationship, business and the diaspora, can, at best only play a supporting role, and are to an extent affected by the buffeting winds of the strategic relationship. The India-US CEOs forum also held its annual meeting in Washington this past week, but has increasingly less to show for being such a high-powered gathering. While India has a ready-made constituency in the U.S. in the form of the Indian Diaspora, Hillary Clinton’s public diplomacy initiatives are beginning to show results at least in India, with U.S. embassies and missions making all out efforts to engage with the average Indian through all the resources available from   social media to innovative meetups titled Charcha, Chai aur Coffee. The American Center in Delhi even provides a venue for Startup Saturday, a forum for young entrepreneurs to come together to share and learn from each other.

The blow hot, blow cold phase of the relationship into which we have entered seems set to continue into the foreseeable future with, as William Burns himself admitted in his speech, both governments distracted and pulled in different direction by a combination of domestic and external issues.

Troubles increase for the US-Pak relationship

The post-Osama phase of the US-Pakistan relationship is proving to be extremely turbulent. The swift U.S. reaction to the attack on its embassy in Kabul and the killing of the chief Afghan government negotiator, former president Rabbani, led to an equally strong backlash from the Pakistani establishment.

www.mca-marines.orgIn a scathing indictment of the Pakistan security establishment, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “…the Quetta Shoora and the Haqqani Network operate from Pakistan with impunity. Extremist organizations serving as proxies of the government of Pakistan are attacking Afghan troops and civilians as well as US soldiers. For example, we believe the Haqqani Network – which has long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government and is, in many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency – is responsible for the September 13th attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.”

“We strongly reject assertions of complicity with the Haqqanis or of proxy war,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said. “The allegations betray confusion and policy disarray within the U.S. establishment on the way forward in Afghanistan.” General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff dismissed the charge as “very unfortunate and not based on facts.” Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, warned that Washington “could lose an ally” if it keeps humiliating Pakistan with unsubstantiated allegations.

The international community has known for long that the Pakistan army and the ISI follow a Janus-faced policy on Afghanistan. While pretending to be allies in the ‘war on terror’, they are careful to target only those terrorist organisations that strike within Pakistan, like the TTP and the TNSM, and nurture and support the Afghan Taliban and their sympathisers. In February 2009, David Sanger, New York Times correspondent, had written in his new book The Inheritance that in a transcript passed to Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence in May 2008, General Kayani was overheard referring to Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani as “a strategic asset”. This had led to the first few armed UAV strikes against the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan inside Pakistan’s FATA province.

While U.S. frustration with Pakistani duplicity is understandable, the U.S. still has 98,000 troops in Afghanistan and is still dependent on the two land routes through Peshawar and Quetta for the logistics sustenance of its own and other NATO-ISAF forces. Though it could step up armed UAV strikes and even launch air strikes into North Waziristan, it does not have the capability to launch follow-on air assault strikes. Also, ground strikes will surely lead to war with Pakistan and war, with all its nuclear overtones, is not in anybody’s interest.

What the U.S. can do is to carefully calibrate the aid being given to Pakistan and make the government and the army accountable for cooperation in the war on terror. The Pakistan army and the ISI must not be allowed to get away with impunity for their support to terrorist organisations operating against the US and NATO-ISAF forces as well as in India. It should also consider rescinding its alliance with Pakistan when the bulk of troops are drawn down by 2014. As Stephen Cohen has put it so eloquently, “India is a friend, but not an ally; and, Pakistan is an ally, but not a friend.”

America-India – Did the Bush Administration Oversell or Did the Obama Administration Botch It?

This week Michael Green and Daniel Twining wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post titled Why aren’t we working with Japan and India? It is an attempt to discuss the reasons for, what they call, the current “listlessness in our two biggest strategic partnerships in Asia.” This is a serious article but deeply flawed.

The article’s key paragraph on India begins with “India has also disappointed.”. It ends with the statement “The refrain in Washington is that the Bush Administration oversold the potential for strategic partnership with New Delhi.”

We disagree. The Bush Administration established the Strategic Partnership with India. It was the most far-reaching step taken by any American President regarding India. President Bush viewed China and India as two huge countries that would play a global role in the 21st century. In his simple yet profound way, he asked which of these two countries would be a better partner for America? The answer was simple, India.

So President Bush in his direct, decisive manner made India a Strategic Partner of the USA. The Bush Administration threw away the old, failed strategy of trying to balance India with Pakistan and looked at India as a key ally, an emerging power on par with China and the only counterweight of size to China.

This is exactly how India perceives itself. This congruence of vision was the sound long term basis for the America-India Strategic Partnership implemented by President Bush. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, expressed the view of the Bush Administration at that time: “Within 20 years, the rise of the new U.S.-India partnership will be considered among the most important developments in U.S. foreign policy in our time.”

Then came President Obama. His framework for the world was completely different than that of President Bush. The Obama Administration spent its first year in trying to woo China. The Obama Administration was convinced that President Bush had gone too far in favoring India and they restored the old policy of maintaining a balance of power between Pakistan & India.

This was not just rhetoric. This has been the consistent policy of the Obama Administration since the inauguration. Witness the clear statement from Secretary Hillary Clinton in April 2010 that the manner in which India & Pakistan have pursued atomic weapons has “upset the balance of nuclear deterrence”. The Bush Administration had realized and accepted the fact that India was going to build a nuclear deterrence against China. The Clinton statement showed that the Obama Administration considered India only from the old Pakistan-India balance of power framework.

In short, the Obama Administration unilaterally destroyed the very foundation on which President Bush had built his America-India strategic partnership. But neither Government was willing to publicly accept this reality.  So both America and India continued to pay lip service to the concept of the America-India strategic partnership.

The sudden u-turn in America’s framework stunned the Indian Government and the entire Indian Establishment. In their naivete, they had assumed that America as a whole had finally understood India and embraced India’s vision of its role in the world. But where foreign policy is concerned, there may be only one India but there are two Americas. It took the Indian Government a year to realize that the America-India strategic partnership they had accepted was only with Bush’s America and not with Obama’s America. Then the Indian Government began hedging its bets and moving away from the Obama Administration. Since then, the relations between America and India have remained “listless”.

Another factor in the decay of India-US relations has been Washington’s definition of “partnership”. This is borne out by the Washington Post article which assumes a partner of America should not oppose American initiatives but align with them regardless of how the initiatives impact the partner:

Yet, in the first two years of the Obama Administration, the Indians have opposed the United States on climate and trade initiatives (the initiatives were in direct conflict with Indian objectives), failed to enact liability legislation needed for American companies to develop India’s nuclear industry (a political and ethical impossibility in democratic India), resisted meaningful economic reforms (true), cozied up to Burma’s junta with gas and arms deals (a strategic necessity for India just like cozying up to Saudi Arabia is a strategic necessity for America) and rejected U.S. combat aircraft in India’s biggest defense deal to date (the last generation aircraft offered by the U.S. were judged as inferior by the Indian Military).

President Bush had astounded the Indian Government by treating India as a real partner. He understood what India could and could not do. He focused on what was achievable which was plenty. India responded in return and we are convinced that every major Indian deal would have been won by the Bush Administration. In contrast, the Obama Administration kept imposing its own initiatives on India and expected India to to follow. This pressure backfired.

Today, the Obama Administration is facing the virtual collapse of its framework. They have realized that China is a major strategic competitor and perhaps an adversary. So the Obama Administration has gone from wooing China to building a network of allies to contain China. This is the main purpose of Secretary Clinton’s trip to India and Asia.

The Obama Administration’s cherished policy of making Pakistan stronger and more stable has collapsed. But the Administration’s tactical objective has not changed. The Obama Administration still considers Pakistan as their most reliable ticket to exit Afghanistan.

America’s rapid exit from Afghanistan and the Obama plan to give Pakistan all the aid necessary to facilitate this exit remains the most difficult barrier between America and India. Secretary Clinton is trying to get India to steer away from Af-Pak and to get more active against China in the Pacific. The immediate strategic objective of India is to maintain and increase its presence in Afghanistan.

When strategic objectives are in such conflict, how can a strategic partnership make sense? This is the main reason for the current “listlessness” in America-India relations.

(This post originally appeared on Macro Viewpoints and has been republished with the approval of the author.)