President Clinton’s five day visit to India in March 2000 could hopefully in the
years to come be looked as the "Advent of the Inevitable (term borrowed with thanks
from Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Head of Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic studies referring
to US shifts in South Asian Policies) in terms of an India-USA strategic partnership. For
more than fifty years the United States and India stood apart as ‘estranged
democracies’ when there were more than enough political and strategic compulsions on
both sides in the late 1940's and early 1950's to have entered into a strategic
partnership.
To be fair, it must be recorded that the United States was the
first to make overtures on this account, only to be rebuffed by the India’s first
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with his obsessive attachment to the policies of
non-aligned. The "mantra" of non-aligned followed by Nehru and his successors
could not prevent three wars on India by Pakistan and one by China besides a host of
insurgencies on the peripheries. In the darkest hours of India’s military history,
the 1962 debacle of the Sino-Indian War, it was the United States which promptly responded
with military and equipment aid and a fleet of C-130 transport aircraft to ferry Indian
formations to Ladakh and the North-East. India’s policies of non-alignment during the
Cold War were suspect in American eyes and on certain issues critical to USA, Indian
pronouncements were perceived as anti-USA. Indian foreign policies under Nehru and Indira
Gandhi were highly personalized to build a healthy relationship with the United States.
The United States too has to shoulder a fair share of the blame
and especially in the 1970's and 1980s for the estrangement. US policies then made
possible the intrusive entry of China in South Asia’s political and strategic
calculations. In the 1990's President Clinton and his advisers have to shoulder blame for
their permissiveness in allowing China to complete the nuclear weaponisation of Pakistan
and the build-up of its missile armoury, which besides strategically discomfiting India,
could some day impact on US strategic interest in the Gulf and Central Asian Republics.
President Clinton’s visit to India last month was therefore,
preceded by misgivings on its outcome especially with mutual reservations on a host of
contentious issues- Pakistan, Kashmir, Nuclear Proliferation, CTBT etc. Retrospectively,
it now seems that in terms of future India-US relations, President Clinton’s visit
was worthwhile. No spectacular results may have emerged, but in the eyes of the Indian
public, a perception that was hither-to-fore missing was that India does have a friend in
the United States. To those who can dispense with existing mindsets , a ‘vision’
was on the horizon that this friendship could be emerged into a partnership and that too a
strategic partnership in the years to come.
There are many factors and considerations on both sides, which
should prompt the emergence of a strategic partnership between the United States and
India.
United States- Factors that should prompt seeking a strategic partnership with India.
The "New World Order" and "Peace Dividends"
envisaged by the United States policy makers at the end of the Cold War, and perceived as
a US victory by them, did not come about. Admittedly the United States emerged as the
unipolar global super power with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but this was also
accompanied by newer and greater strategic uncertainties due to the shattering of the
predictable bi-polar strategic template.
Moving into the 21st century, a whole new set of
complex strategic developments stare the United States in its face and these could and
should prompt it to seek a strategic partnership with India. These are:
* China’s emergence as a major military threat in the Asia
Pacific with enough manifestations and indications that it would wish to challenge US
predominance in the region.
* Russia’s potential re-surgence as an assertive player not
only in the European affairs but more so in the Asia-Pacific and with possibilities in the
Middle east alter the 2000' global strategic equations.
* Emerging strategic partnership between Russia and China,
complicates strategic equation on the Western rim of the Pacific.
* Islamic fundamentalist challenges in the Gulf, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and some of the Central Asian Republics, seem hell bent on challenging the United
States and West.
* US forward military presence being diluted in vital strategic
regions by withdrawal of base facilities particularly in Asia-Pacific, affecting sea-lanes
security.
* Pakistan’s potential Talibanisation and fouling up the
South West Asia scene along with Afghanistan.
All of the above factors make a call on the United States to seek
newer strategic partnerships wider a field than its erstwhile Cold War alliances and
relationships. Military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and sheikhdoms cannot provide
USA with the sinews to face the emerging global challenges. Natural partners for such
challenges for USA can only be vibrant democracies, where changes of power are peaceful
and where economic growth is assured.
