US/India: Rocky courtship

Monday, May 13

US-Indian ties have made great strides over the past seven years. The administration of President George Bush aims to seal this perceived "strategic opportunity" by completing several bilateral initiatives before it leaves office. They include:

• ratification of the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement;
• additional military sales;
• further expansion of trade and investment ties; and
• continued high-level political exchanges.

But despite optimistic pronouncements about Delhi as a “key strategic partner”, Washington recognises that building relations with India will be a long-term process. As a senior diplomat observed, the US-Indian friendship will involve "a wider margin of disagreement than we are accustomed to".

Indeed, there have been a series of sour notes in recent weeks over issued such as Washington's purported 'advice' to India about its relations with Tehran and the apparently foundering state of the US-India nuclear deal.

Unfamiliar terrain

The nascent US-Indian alliance would be a major departure for Washington. Contemporary US alliances and close partnerships in Europe and Asia have typically been asymmetrical, with Washington playing the dominant role. (This is especially the case with Washington’s alliances with South Korea and Japan.)

The key US objective in recent years has been to adjust these relationships, in ways befitting altered power dynamics, perception and expectation -- not to mention the demands of emerging threats and changing geopolitics.

The dynamics of building a US-India relationship 'from scratch' today are very different.