Tag Archives: strategic partnership

India-US Relations Blog

Ties Estranged or Ties Strengthened: U.S & India

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In the shifting dynamics of international relations, situations are meant to be handled with the utmost care and this is evident in numerous occasions. After all, ties are porcelain-delicate and brittle. During the Former American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger recently stated that the US-India ties ‘should not be conceived as a military relationship but a political and economic relationship [where] each side looks at its security interests, but they do not have to be merged in a common structure’. He added, “I think India should pursue its own perception of its national interest. And I hope that on key issues we (India and the US) can find a parallel policy.” Regarded as one of the most prominent statesmen who has witnessed and reported on some of the most turning political events in the 20th century, he was anti-India in the 1970s. However, he changed his stance; he ardently supported and lobbied towards the Indo-US nuclear deal. He has also supported the cause of India being a permanent member of the UN.

While the winds of change blow, there are tidings that the U.S.-India ties are falling apart and both these countries are drifting away from each other. ‘China’s Nightmare, America’s Dream: India as the next global power’ by William H. Avery, former American diplomat, reveals that the relationship is not at a stage where India and the U.S. could cement stronger ties; the friendship has dulled. It is only a matter of time when the leadership from both the nations would be put to test.

While India prepares for the new American Ambassador, Nancy J Powell’s posting in India, she has declared her agenda ahead; she has mentioned that economic ties between the U.S. and India remain her priority. She would also participate in the ‘India-US Strategic Dialogue’ this year. She has shown her alacrity in business ventures between the U.S and India. In the meantime, one could only feel that this is the way ahead to better times in the not-so-distant future.

India-US Relations Blog

Missed Opportunities, Promising Trends

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The year was filled with missed opportunities but also promising developments in U.S.-India relations.  2012 is shaping up to be the same.

 

President Obama’s state visit to India in early November 2010 appeared to impart new dynamism to a bilateral relationship that had been listless since his inauguration. The trip offered an effective tonic for Indian concerns that he had forsaken New Delhi in pursuit of G-2 collaboration with Beijing. The president spoke of India as “an indispensable partner of the 21st century” and dramatically endorsed its long-standing bid for permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. Reporting on his giddily-received address to a joint session of the Indian Parliament, the Times of India noted that the “audience lapped it up, with no less than 25 rounds of applause in a barely 45-minute speech. The cherry on the cake, of course, was the ‘Jai Hind’ [Hail India] with which he concluded.”

But the promise of re-energized partnership quickly dissolved as leadership capacity in Washington and New Delhi dramatically waned. In retrospect, the trip’s maladroit timing and messaging should have been a tip-off. That the president’s Democratic Party received an electoral “shellacking” just days earlier meant that he arrived in India a much diminished political figure – a condition that became increasingly evident as time progressed. The White House also put out the word that the trip was essentially a jobs-hunting mission rather than one connected to grand strategy, telegraphing how domestic economic anxieties would continue to take attention away from the foreign policy agenda.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also was about to undergo his own political declension. A week after the state visit, the multi-billion dollar 2G telecommunications scandal exploded, igniting a crisis of governance and corruption that continues to engulf Mr. Singh’s administration. For the past year, Singh has been forced to deny that he is a lame duck even as his Congress Party colleagues openly pine for his replacement by Rahul Gandhi and his coalition partners – especially Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress – feel increasingly free to defy him. As 2011 unfolded, it became more and more clear that Singh’s government was adrift and ineffectual.

The leadership void has contributed to the “Delhi disillusionment” that is now a staple of Washington’s foreign policy conversation as well as the transactional approach some advocate vis-à-vis India. Experts now debate just how steadfast this “indispensable partner” really is. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns even felt it necessary to make a rhetorical nod to this discussion with this title to a recent address: “Is There a Future for the U.S.-India Partnership?”

Whatever its technical merits, New Delhi’s rejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s bids in its lucrative fighter aircraft competition – an issue on the Obama administration lobbied aggressively – was handled so ineptly that it reportedly hastened Ambassador Timothy Roemer’s departure from New Delhi. Indeed, many discerned a deliberate snub of Washington. Ditto for the stringent nuclear liability law that is so divergent from international norms that it effectively locks out U.S. participation in India’s nuclear power sector – something that the nuclear cooperation agreement was suppose to bring about. Last week’s debacle on retail sector liberalization underscored U.S. concerns that New Delhi has permitted domestic political concerns to impede closer economic interactions, while the WikiLeaks revelations about the Indian debate over the nuclear accord further undermined confidence in New Delhi’s credibility as a serious strategic partner.

All of these episodes only sharpened questions in Washington about whether New Delhi is as compelling a geopolitical collaborator as the Bush administration had envisioned. They also help explain why the Obama administration has yet to bother nominating Roemer’s successor.

To be sure, the Indians have valid reasons to complain about the paucity of American leadership. President Obama’s announcement of an accelerated disengagement from Afghanistan – a decision driven more by the exigencies of domestic politics than by a careful assessment of U.S. security objectives in South and Central Asia – affects India’s security interests in unpalatable ways. Looking towards the exits, Washington does not seem overly concerned about the exact details of a possible political settlement while New Delhi is all too focused on how the strategic terrain in its neighborhood is shifting to its detriment. This lack of solicitude explains why, according to one analysis, “few tears are being shed in the top levels of the Indian establishment over the state of ties with the US.”

Yet beyond the top-level ructions, the past year also witnessed the growing density of bilateral affairs, especially the accelerating pace of economic interactions. Even with the global economy in the doldrums, 2010 was a banner year for the trade relationship, with two-way goods exports surging nearly 30 percent to $48.8 billion. Merchandise exports were also up significantly in the first half of 2011 compared to the same period last year. All told, India is now America’s 12th largest goods trading partner and one of the fastest-growing destinations for U.S. exports. This is a welcome trend, as increased private-sector linkages are key to limiting the risks that today’s political and diplomatic frictions could escalate and disrupt the overall partnership.

Notwithstanding the disappointments over the fighter competition, the United States has also become a critical player in the ambitious military buildup India is undertaking. New Delhi was the third largest buyer of U.S. weapons this year, with purchases amounting to $4.5 billion – a level ahead of such long-time American allies as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Japan. Indeed, over the past year or so the Indian government has either purchased or taken possession of a number of key weapons systems: the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft, and the C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft.

Finally, as the constant parade of Cabinet officers and senior officials between the two capitals attests, bilateral relations have acquired a scope and depth that were unimaginable less than a decade ago. Among other things, Washington and New Delhi now hold regular consultations on policy vis-à-vis China, Deputy Secretary Burns has just concluded talks in New Delhi about strategic and economic cooperation, and a trilateral U.S.-India-Japan security dialogue will meet for the first time next week. Indian foreign policy elites are growing more comfortable with the notion of strategic intimacy with the United States. And the expansion of Chinese strength will undoubtedly push New Delhi to tighten its security relations with Washington in the years ahead, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many Americans would like.

All of these factors are contributing to the steady accumulation of bilateral bonds. The key question for the approaching year is whether Washington and New Delhi will exhibit the constancy of leadership needed to capitalize on these favorable developments. Alas, the prospects do not appear promising. With 2012 shaping up to be one filled with turbulent politics in both countries, the focus of President Obama and Prime Minister Singh will continue to remain inward.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Afghanistan Antagonists

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai

India has begun maneuvering to fill the potential power vacuum in Afghanistan.

As an earlier post argued, the quickening U.S. disengagement from the Afghan conflict that President Obama signaled four months ago will inevitably spark an intense regional scrimmage for influence as that country’s neighbors scramble to fill the resulting vacuum. The last few weeks have witnessed India making its opening moves in this jockeying by signing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan and by repairing strained relations with Iran.

The strategic partnership that India and Afghanistan sealed last week – the first of its kind that Kabul has entered into – will significantly enhance New Delhi’s profile in Afghanistan. The arrangement provides for increased cooperation in counter-terrorism operations, as well as for expanded Indian training and equipping of Afghan security forces. It opens the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth (which may be worth nearly $1 trillion) and newly-discovered hydrocarbon resources to Indian companies. New Delhi also pledged to work with Iran to develop trade routes to Afghanistan that bypass Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the agreement during a two-day trip to New Delhi – his second visit this year – praised India as a “steadfast friend and supporter” of his country, while Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that India would “stand by the people of Afghanistan” even after the 2014 pull-out of U.S. and NATO forces.

Although Karzai insists that the partnership is not directed against Pakistani interests, it coincides with a serious deterioration of relations between Kabul and Islamabad. In the past week, the Afghan government has accused Pakistan of being behind the September 20th assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karzai’s chief envoy to the fledgling peace negotiations with the Taliban, as well as a foiled plot to kill Karzai himself. Standing in New Delhi, Karzai termed Pakistan a “twin brother” to his own country, but that was hardly enough to disguise the fact that his government was openly spurning Pakistan’s professions of friendship in favor of a wide-ranging covenant with its arch-nemesis.

The partnership underscores that New Delhi, unlike Washington, has no exit strategy in Afghanistan. Since the start of the Afghan conflict ten years ago this month, India has emerged as the country’s largest regional donor. It has invested more than $1 billion in assistance, mainly in infrastructure and development projects, including constructing the new parliament building in Kabul. It has also undertaken small-scale training of the country’s police, army leadership and bureaucrats. Prime Minister Singh traveled to Kabul this past May seeking to broaden India’s engagement. There he unveiled a significant expansion of Indian aid, committing an additional $500 million over the next few years.

Besides shoring up the precarious Karzai government, New Delhi is also moving to patch up strategic ties with Tehran, whose interests in Afghanistan are roughly congruent. India has traditionally relied upon Iran to help blunt Pakistan’s influence in Central Asia and to serve as a bridge to trade and energy opportunities there.  Relations between New Delhi and Tehran have been strained for the past few years as India, at America’s behest, supported several international censures of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Prime Minister Singh turned down a number of invitations for a state visit to Tehran, and his government engaged in a convoluted exercise to avoid having Indian payments for crucial energy imports from Iran run afoul of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Yet the prospect of a geopolitical vacuum in Afghanistan is driving the two countries closer again. Singh met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly annual conclave in New York last month and pointedly accepted a renewed invitation to visit Tehran in the near future. The two countries have also established a new payments mechanism for Iranian oil exports and are setting up a joint commission to explore even closer economic and security links.

Pakistan has long considered Afghanistan to be its strategic backyard. With so much of its national security posture driven by an obsessive focus on India, Islamabad is bound to regard New Delhi’s growing involvement there as a grave provocation. Pakistan regularly charges (see here and here) that India is using its large diplomatic presence in Afghanistan to funnel covert support to separatists in the restive province of Baluchistan, and the new India-Afghanistan partnership will be taken as further confirmation that New Delhi is intent on encircling and dissecting the country. Likewise, the renewed coordination between New Delhi and Tehran will be interpreted as a return to the role they played a decade, when their support for the Northern Alliance helped frustrate the Taliban regime. (Indeed, there are increasing signs that the remnants of the old anti-Taliban movement are being reconstituted.)

Given the region’s geopolitical dynamics, India has strong strategic interests in ensuring that any government in Kabul is capable enough to be a bulwark against Pakistan. And so India’s maneuvers are predictable enough. Inevitable, too, is the blowback from Islamabad. The nascent thaw in bilateral relations that has developed in the wake of the mid-July visit to New Delhi by Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is now in jeopardy. Also expect increased attacks by Pakistan-based jihadis targeting Indian interests in Afghanistan, like the bombings of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 that killed 58 people, including the Indian defense attaché, and in October 2009 that left 17 Afghans dead.