Posted on 05/21/2005 8:52:02 PM PDT by quidnunc
Its logic is inescapable yet the idea has been inconceivable: a strategic partnership between the two great democracies, the US and India, long divided by distrust and the Cold War.
Yet it is happening. George W. Bush has reached out to India and one of the coming debates in global politics will be over the manner and meaning of his decision to support India's quest to become a global power.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Washington in July, with Bush reportedly saying this will be treated as a "grand event", and at the year's end Bush will visit India.
A round of interviews in New Delhi this week elicited a plethora of views as India's political elite debates how far it should enter the US embrace. But India is being wooed and its pride at this is palpable.
The Bush administration, far more cohesive with Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, has launched a diplomatic offensive with India that is stunning in its rhetoric and serious in its content. "India's relations with the US are now the best they have ever been," says Rajiv Sikri, the senior official on East Asia at India's external affairs ministry.
When the two leaders briefly met in Moscow this month at celebrations to honour the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, Bush introduced his wife Laura to Singh, saying, "This is the Prime Minister of India and I'm going to take you to his country this Christmas-New Year so you can see the most fascinating democracy in the world."
The message in New Delhi is that Bush and Singh can do business. How much business they do remains to be seen but the US has set the bar very high. When Rice visited India in March she said: "This is my first stop as Secretary of State in Asia. The President has personally put a lot of time and energy into the relationship. The US has determined that this is going to be a very important relationship going forward and we're going to put whatever time we need into it." The aim was to take US-India ties "to another level."
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A heavily populated ally in Asia as a buffer against Chinese aggression...seems like a good idea to me.
That's hilarious!
An India - US strategic alliance is a no brainer. We share mutual goals in containing China and radical Islam. Furthermore, India may well surpass China in economic power. India's economic model is likely more sustainable than China's.
If one can take their attention off of the Middle East for two seconds, I think the scope of the Indian/Australian/Japanese/Taiwan re-alignments would capture our breath. China has long been perceived as a threat by those on the right. With little fanfare Our President is creating an alliance in that corner of the world to contain China to our benefit and to theirs. This while freeing millions in the arab world, as well as seeking to topple the aging grip of Liberalism in this country represented in our Judiciary, Social security, etc.
G.W. said this would be Liberty's century. He's well on his way to putting measures in place that will make that reality for everyone economically, socially, as well as democratically.
Maybe Dubya just wants to outsource his White House staff to safe a few budget dollars.
Makes eminent sense to form a strategic partnership between the world's two largest democracies. India has slowly moved away (some ways to go yet) from the socialist model of governing.
India is a powerhouse when it comes to highly educated population. The American style capitalism and Indian college educated masses will be a highly synergist combination.
read that SYNERGYSTIC.
The magnificent obsession in New Delhi about gaining permanent, veto-wielding membership of the United Nations Security council (UNSC) is increasingly dissociated from the ground realities. New Delhi’s anxiousness to win support for its UNSC bid has put many important visitors to the capital in an unenviable position.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in New Delhi a couple of weeks ago, was trying to get across the sophisticated point that Beijing will oppose Japan’s permanent membership of the UNSC, but will not stand in India’s way. He could not effectively convey the complexity of Chinese political considerations on UN reform.
Late last year, President Vladimir Putin was virtually compelled by our media to state Russia fully supports Delhi’s entry into the UNSC with veto powers. One wonders why Russia would want to further dilute its standing in world affairs by having more veto-wielding permanent members.
Unfortunately, the headline winning endorsements are unlikely to do the trick for India. All indications from New York are that the proposed reform of the UN is going nowhere, especially the plan to expand the permanent and non-permanent membership of the UNSC.
Many important countries today believe the creation of new centres of privilege in the UNSC is not what the global body needs. The so-called “Coffee Club”—that includes Pakistan, which opposes India’s permanent membership, Italy, which does not want to see Germany make it, and Egypt, which does not like other African powers gain new global standing — has ensured that there is no consensus in favour of UNSC expansion.
The Bush Administration has refused to show its hand on UNSC expansion. But it stands to reason that Washington which has had little time for an increasingly ineffective UN want to expand it and make it even more irrelevant.
India’s problem lies in its lack of enough power and influence in the international system. It does not lie in not being one of the permanent members with a veto. For nearly a decade, India has not even tried to contest for the biennial elections in the UN General Assembly for two-year terms on the UNSC. The last time it tried, in the mid-1990s, India was roundly defeated.
In its obsession with the Security Council membership, India has contributed little to the new debates in the UN on the great global issues. The biggest of them all relate to the definition of the new threats to international security the use of military force. When, how and who should use military force in the modern world?
India has largely ducked this debate between Europeans and liberal Americans on one side and the Bush Administration on the other. The Bush Administration believes that terrorists and rogue states acquiring weapons of mass destruction is the biggest threat and must be addressed vigorously. The Europeans believe that failed states and violations of human rights on a mass scale are the real threats.
The Europeans and American Liberals want to make the UN into a supra-national organisation that defies the traditional notions of sovereignty. It would intervene in failing states and launch nation- building on a large scale. They also insist only the UNSC should authorise the use of military force.
The Bush Administration believes the power to use military force cannot be handed over to a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats in the UN, and democracies like itself should have the power to decide, unilaterally if necessary, on use of force.
Truth be told, India’s position, for all its rhetoric on multilateralism, is closer to that of the Bush Administration rather than the liberal brigade in North America and Europe.
As a large nation, India sees sovereignty as supreme and has refused to let the UN muck around in matter of security concern to New Delhi—Kashmir, Nepal, Sri Lanka, to name a few.
The real Indian dilemma is deeper. As an aspiring great power, it demands a change in global rules and improve its standing in international institutions. But it is torn between finding an immediate accommodation with the Yalta system designed during the second World War, or waiting until it withers away from natural causes, such as the changing global balance of power.
It is now apparent that tinkering with the Yalta system is not going to work. As its relative economic weight in the world increase, India can afford to wait until the Yalta system collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. In any case, New Delhi must recognise, there are no short cuts to great power status.
The writer is professor of South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
That the United Nations grants veto power to Russia and France while denying it to India--effectively considering India the equivalent of Tuvalu--only exemplifies the irrelevance of the United Nations.
And don't forget China.
China's standing in the United Nations exemplifies the organization's repeated practice of kowtowing to tyrants--its decadence, not its irrelevance.
Ok.
As a reward to the "handing over" of Pakistan's ISI-protected terror operatives.
China is Pakistan's No.1 ally, by the way.
Well for the facts-as Pakistan is getting 20 odd F-16s,it will get nearly 150 Chinese built FC-1 fighters(specially developed for Pakistan),4 frigates,tanks.....The 2 nations have recently finished the first part of a joint deep water port,on Pakistan's coastline near Iran-which could complicate matters when China seeks to project power.
The new F-16s,if they are block 50/52s with new toys could be of interest to the PLAAF.Afterall there is plenty of suspicion that Pakistan handed over an F-16 or 2 to China in early 90s/late 80s which helped in part to develop new aircraft like the FC-1 & the J-10.
yeah - imagine how many more domestic spies Rove could afford if they were all foreigners.
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