Prospects for Indo-Us Partnership

Prospects for Indo-US Partnership

The topic of Indo-American partnership elicits strong reactions - either optimistic sound-bites of shared economic and political values at the political level or pessimistic dismissals and accusations of double-standards at the level of Indian commentators, particularly in the shadow of the US Congress' attachment of extraneous conditions to the Indo-US nuclear partnership, the proposed arming of Pakistan to the tune of $5 billion and the high-level penetrations of the Indian intelligence service by its American counterparts. Despite these acts of bad faith on the part of the Unites States, neither the Indian government nor market nor society has abandoned its engagement with it. Since the US is the larger and more powerful partner in this duo, it is worthwhile to examine its strategic outlook and to look at India's potential through its eyes. One may then see the emerging contours for India's participation more clearly and maneuver accordingly to safeguard our interests. This Op-Ed examines two possible trajectories in the US' engagement with the world and seeks to extrapolate the implications for Indo-US partnership in either case.

Scenario I

Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the strategic dilemma for the US has been whether to focus on the threat from failed states or to focus on preparing for the next near-competitor, a la the Soviet Union. Thomas Barnett's book, "The Pentagon's New Map - War and Peace in the 21st Century" 1 provides a ringside view of this debate and its seeming tilt towards the former threat scenario. Barnett, a professor at the US Naval War College, is a respected voice in the American strategic community 2. He contends that:

(a) The threat of true global wars between large powers has effectively died with the end of the Cold War. This is due to the fact that there are no longer two competing economic ideologies jostling for supremacy.

(b) The incumbent political powers - the West - have bought into the idea of economic globalization and do not seek to replace it. The emerging political powers like Russia, China, India and Brazil also have bought into the idea of globalization. The increase in the issue-focused working groups among the G-7/8 and strong emphasis on compliance 3 with agreed-upon benchmarks, illustrate this trend of co-operation vividly. While there may be specific disagreements that reflect their society's needs (farm subsidies, import tariffs on steel/timber/textiles, patent rights on life saving drugs etc.), they are willing to use their membership in world bodies like the WTO and regional trading blocs like the EU, ASEAN and NAFTA to negotiate their demands, instead of breaking those bodies. Thus, competition between the world powers has moved one rung above to supra-national entities or to the "system" stage from the level of nation-states. Therefore, the challenge of accommodating new members like India, China, Russia and Brazil into "the Core" will be dealt with in peaceful ways, not by war.

(c) The progress of globalization has been highly uneven and has resulted in a many exclusions, like Africa, the Middle East, parts of Latin America and the CAR region, which form "the Gap". The exclusions are so severe that entire societies and nations in "the Gap" can be mobilized to fight the process of globalization, with Islamic fundamentalism being one example. The level of violence has now moved one rung below that of nation-states to the level of individuals or networks.

(d) The challenge for the US military is not to defeat a competitor in full-scale war; no real military competitor exists or is likely to in the medium term. The recurring burden for the US military, one that it is not equipped to handle, is the continuous deployment of US troops in regions of "the Gap", from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Korean border. As Barnett points out, the number of American military's crisis deployment days increased 70% from the 1970s to the 1980s, although the number of incidents increased only 20%. From the 1990s to 2003, the US military engaged in 140 military responses, 80% of them concentrated in Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia.

(e) The American response should be to bridge the divide between "the Core" and "the Gap", not merely to keep "the Gap" from intruding into "the Core", like it did on 9/11. In this endeavor, it cannot go it alone, because the burden is too enormous for any one country to shoulder. The scale of political and economic investment required will need the buy-in of Europe, Russia and Asia.

In the first scenario, we accept that this will be Washington's worldview, and extrapolate the prospects for Indo-US relations, as viewed by Washington, in the next 25 years or so.

(1) India's value to the US will lie in functioning as "the Core" for South Asia that pulls "the Gap" - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Burma - into the orbit of globalization. In this regard, the US is helped immensely from India's own acceptance of this methodology of dealing with its neighbors, even the troublesome ones like Pakistan and Bangladesh. In other words, India didn't need to be convinced of this responsibility; we have already donned that mantle. The best-case scenario is the recreation of the economic transformation of the Far East in the 1980s that was driven by the engine of Japanese economy; in other words, economic integration without erasing political boundaries. One could argue that the US could instead invest directly in the development of "the Gap" countries in South Asia and reap the political rewards, rather than act via India. However, the way to secure India itself within "the Core" is to strengthen the process of globalization here and share the burden of integrating the South Asian "Gap" with India.

(2) Another Indian trait that is of great value to the US and to "the Core" in general is our willingness to be part of and strengthen the "system" i.e. the supra-national entities that will govern rules of conduct in the future.