I think one of the legacies of Bush would be his adminstration's embrace of India. Clinton started it during his final years, and I thought Bush would be more inclined towards the cold-war stage. After all, India is a socialist country with most parties lauding "samajwadi"(literally socialist) philosophy. But the terrorist attacks of 9/11 altered Bush's approach.
I remember from early 2000, while he was campaigning, Bush was against the more proactive foreign policy. His mantra was that USA was should not and will not police the world. That was too Clintionesque. My, how this has shifted... now the Democrats are against the more proactive US role in the world, while Republicans tend to bring war to the enemies.
"I like Bush," volunteers a young Indian riding a train bound for the capital, New Delhi
Lovely people :^)
My first impression is that the rise of India to superpower status should not cause the kinds problems we see with China. Indian interests have usually been contrained by geography to the South Asian demi-continent - no history of foreign conquests like China, and no cultural inferiority complex which requires foreigners to kowtow (like China).
In future, the area most likely to be impacted by an Indian rise is Southeast Asia - they may feel like they have to chose between China and India, which could result in instability and proxy wars.
All that said, I'm not much of a scholar on India so would defer to an expert.
Over the last few years I only met one I didn't like. The rest of them were really nice young folks with good manners.
Adds Mohandas Pai, chief financial officer for Infosys Technologies, one of India's IT whiz companies in the southern city of Bangalore, "He's good for the world. He's the only person who can stop the spread of al Qaeda." Predictably, India's still-strong leftist parties are planning anti-Bush protests, and some ultranationalists also oppose closer ties with Washington. But the government here seems determined to produce happy images for the Bush visit.
At least the President will be able to observe in person all the new jobs created under his administration.
I love Bush (in a very manly non-gay way)....