Call for 'bold leap' in US's India ties
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - On the eve of United States President Barack Obama's maiden voyage
to India early next month, an influential think-tank is calling for "a bold
leap forward" in ties between the two nations.
In a report released here Wednesday, the Center for a New American Security
(CNAS) expressed concerns that the momentum in building such ties that was
gained during the two previous US administrations "has stalled" and that both
countries need to take concrete steps to restore it.
The 12-page report, entitled "Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of
US-India Relations," calls on Washington, among other things, to publicly
support India's permanent membership in an
enlarged United Nations Security Council; seek a broad expansion of bilateral
trade and investment; "greatly expand the security relationship and boost
defense trade"; and liberalize US export controls on goods that have both a
civil and military application.
For its part, India should, among other steps, act quickly to fully implement
its Civil Nuclear Agreement with the US; raise its limits on foreign
investment; reduce barriers to defense and other forms of trade; enhance its
rules for protecting intellectual property; and cooperate more closely with the
US in international fora, according to the CNAS task force that approved the
report.
The report, which was released amid a three-day "strategic dialogue" here
between officials of the US and India's traditional rival, Pakistan, also comes
two weeks before Obama's scheduled visit to India, part of an Asian tour that
will also take him to Indonesia; South Korea, where both he and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh are expected to play key roles at the Group of 20
(G-20) summit; and Japan, which is hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation summit.
This week's US-Pakistan meeting is expected to result in Washington's agreement
to provide a five-year, more than US$2 billion aid package for Islamabad, in
addition to the nearly $2 billion it is supplying the Pakistani army this year.
India has historically opposed US military assistance and sales to its western
neighbor, fearing that the aid will eventually be directed against it. The two
nuclear-armed countries fought three wars between 1947 and 1971 and another
limited conflict in the Kargil district in disputed Kashmir in 1999.
Washington is thus seeking assurances from Islamabad that all of the current
and forthcoming assistance will be used only for counter-insurgency and
counter-terrorist operations against Islamist militants, particularly along
Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Washington and its North Atlantic Treaty
Organization allies have been engaged in a nine-year conflict there against the
Taliban, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates.
The new aid package appears designed primarily to induce greater cooperation
from Pakistan in denying safe haven and other forms of support to the
militants, some of whom are also closely associated with anti-Indian groups;
among them, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which two years ago carried out a commando-style
attack on high-profile targets in Mumbai in which nearly 200 people were
killed.
While the CNAS report does not focus on Pakistan, it stresses that the US and
India should "deepen their dialogue" on both Pakistan and Afghanistan and
expand their anti-terrorist cooperation pursuant to a memorandum of
understanding signed by the two countries in July.
The Obama White House has sought to make India a major diplomatic priority, but
its preoccupation with events in Afghanistan and Pakistan has largely
overshadowed those efforts.
Last November, Manmohan was the guest of honor at Obama's first state dinner
since his inauguration 11 months before and, in November, the president
participated personally in the opening session of the two countries' first
"strategic dialogue" held at the State Department last June.
"Never has there been a moment when India and America mattered more to one
another, and never has there been a moment when partnership with India and
America mattered more to the rest of the globe," said then-under secretary of
state William Burns at the time.
The CNAS report, however, suggests that progress in forging that partnership
is, in its words, "falling short of its promise".
The non-partisan task force that produced the report was co-chaired by former
deputy defense secretary Richard Armitage and former under secretary of state
under both George W Bush and Obama, Nicholas Burns.
Task force members included leading experts and former South Asia policymakers,
including Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution; former assistant
secretaries of state for South Asian affairs Karl Inderfurth and Teresita
Schaffer; former US ambassador to New Delhi Frank Wisner, and Ashley Tellis, a
former Bush adviser now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
CNAS, which, along with the Brookings Institution and the Center for American
Progress, has played a key role in staffing the upper foreign policy ranks in
the Obama administration, also included a number of its experts on the task
force.
The report asserts that India's "rise to global power is in America's
interest", and that Washington should not only seek a closer relationship with
Delhi, "but actively assist its further emergence as a great power".
Both countries have a "vital interest" in maintaining a stable balance of power
in Asia, according to the report.
"Neither seeks containment of China, but the likelihood of a peaceful Chinese
rise increases if it ascends in a region where the great democratic powers are
also strong," it said, adding that India will also "play an increasingly vital
role in addressing virtually all major global challenges", from international
trade and finance, to energy and climate change, to nuclear non-proliferation
and the exploration of space.
The report put special emphasis on what it called "an expanded US-India
military partnership" and expressed disappointment that "bureaucratic inertia
in both countries" has hampered growth in that the defense sector.
During his November 5-9 visit, Obama hopes to oversee agreements totaling
between $10 and $12 billion in US sales to India, most of it in the form of
advanced weapons, particularly in military-transport aircraft, the Wall Street
Journal reported earlier this week. The CNAS report also noted the ongoing
competition for India's next fleet of tactical fighter aircraft, which could
earn US companies as much as $10 billion.
The administration also hopes to shore up a landmark 2008 deal that would
enable US companies to build nuclear power plants in India. Those companies,
however, have been discouraged by the Indian parliament's failure to enact
legislation that would exempt manufacturers from liability for accidents.
That failure, warned the report, "will undermine the most important agreement
the two countries have negotiated and pose grave risks for the relationship at
the political level."
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
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