Despite a few hiccups in the initial years of the Obama administration, relationship now stands at a comfortable juncture of increased confidence and a substantially high level of cooperation across a host of issues including Afghanistan where the US, despite some initial apprehensions, now increasingly see India's role as positive in nature and pivotal for the economic resurgence of the Afghan people.
From being “estranged democracies”to sharing an “evolving strategic partnership”, India and the United States have indeed travelled a long distance. The increasing profile, regularity and importance accorded to the annual strategic dialogues (three till date) are testimony to the increasing engagement between these two countries. The groundwork that is done today before any Indo-US summit proves the importance accorded to the relationship. Two high stature visits to India preceded the 3rd strategic dialogue held in June 2012 in Washington D.C. Timely visits by the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta added gravitas to the whole exercise and helped silence critics of the relationship. The emerging Indo-US strategic partnership is a vital component in the foreign policies of both India and the United States and is poised to gain increasing importance as Washington seeks to reorient its foreign policy with its rebalancing strategy towards the Asia-Pacific aka the Asia Pivot. The US government sees an inevitable role for India in its “rebalancing”strategy towards Asia-Pacific and in managing China’s rise. America through this strategy intends to “expand”its “military partnerships”and its “presence in the arc extending from Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and South Asia”. And, “Defence cooperation with India”according to Secretary Panetta “is a linchpin in this strategy.”Numerous reports have fairly concluded that the rise of a powerful and democratic India in the Asian region and at the global stage is in the interest of the United States and that the sustenance of American power and influence globally and in Asia is in the interest of India. An effective policy convergence between the two countries is vital and will be consequential for issues cutting across a broad spectrum. President Bill Clinton had said: “India and America are natural allies, two nations conceived in liberty, each finding strength in its diversity, each seeing in the other a reflection of its own aspiration for a more humane and just World.”In fact, in the last one decade, no relationship has been as pivotal and transforming for India’s global orientations as the Indo-US relationship which President Barack Obama aptly called “the defining relationship of the 21st century”. But the moot point remains: Despite the ideational factors that pulls India and the United States together, is there enough substance in the partnership?
No lull period
There are a lot of factors that pull the two countries together nevertheless the ties cannot be taken for granted. “Strategic partnership”is the most frequently, and for want of alternatives, one of the most overused phrases in international relations. But a sober analysis of relations, beyond the glares of high flying diplomatic meets is needed to reassess the various nuts and bolts of any relationship and put them in their proper places, with the prospects and the challenges accurately identified. Carpers of the Indo-US relationship have, of late, come up with the argument that the relationship is seeing a long lull period and that the relationship has been oversold, more than its worth. But officials from both the sides have contended that that is certainly not the case and that the relationship is where it should be. India’s envoy to the US, Nirupama Rao and her American counterpart Nancy Powell during an interaction at the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. in June 2012 sought to dispel the view that the Indo-US relationship has not reached where it should be now.
Powell contrasting her previous posting in New Delhi as a Political Counselor in the 90s to the present contour of the relationship emphasized that, “It is an incredible array of activities that we are engaged with in India, and so much broader, so much deeper than when I was there.”Rao who previously served as India’s Foreign Secretary reiterating the energy and dynamism in this relationship remarked, “The relationship is certainly not oversold, in my view. There is certain logic, a certain rationale for close partnership between India and the United States. That is recognized not only here, but also in India, where there is a multipartisan consensus about the need to progress this relationship forward.”The American Ambassador Powell contradicted the apprehensions of the critics of the Indo-US relationship and those who profess the view that it is not worth the time and energy that is being devoted. She said, “I think people that expected India and the US to be in lockstep probably don’t have any appreciation of the independence of either of us, that we are going to pursue our interests, our policies. But the consultations that go into that, the ability to say we agree on these things, we agree on this goal, we’re going to take a slightly different tactic; I think that piece is increasingly done without acrimony. It’s done routinely. There is a transparency.”
There are indeed areas of concern in terms of the economic outlook in both the countries. India’s growth story has slackened in recent times with many doubting the optimistic picture painted about India. And, the United States is going through a sluggish recovery in the aftermath of a recession that in its severity and impact is comparable only to the Great Depression in the 1930s. And, many questions have been raised on the issue of US foreign orientations and the level of its international involvement in the midst of economic and domestic challenges. But to take a liberal and an ‘ought to be’ view of the relationship, times of adversities like the one that the two countries are facing today should be seen as an opportunity to prove that the relationship is there to endure and that it is not merely transactional in nature. True, there are still many constituencies in the United States that tend to see India as a reluctant partner at best and in India that see the United States as an unreliable superpower. And, there are a host of issues where the two countries have tactical differences. But over the years, the relationship has matured to an extent where they can agree to disagree, keeping in account one’s national interests, over contentious issues without any serious negative impact on the trajectory of the strategic partnership that the two countries have envisioned.
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