Seema Sirohi / Times of India
WASHINGTON:
India and the United States,
partners in prime, concluded the third round of their strategic dialogue last
week. It was a talk session so vast and varied, it took 13 pages to summarise
the discussions. The comfort level is obvious as is the keenness to help each
other without pushing the wrong buttons.
The discussion has expanded from
geostrategic issues to cover a dizzying array of fields - from agriculture to
education, from science and technology to women's empowerment, from cyber
security to counter-terrorism, from police training to creating virtual
institutes on mathematics - a very large palette is coming alive.
To be sure it is an experiment in
building a new kind of relationship, one never attempted by either country.
Because it is an experiment, finding the right ingredients and a catalyst is a
search. But the fundamental logic of strategic convergence holds. Of that,
there is little doubt. And there is new logic unfolding daily.
Top officials in both governments
have reached a good understanding on how to structure this "special
relationship". The Americans know India will not become an
"ally" and no one is pushing for it. They have enough treaty allies.
Expectations have been adjusted and Washington
well understands that India
wants a partnership of equals. For historical, psychological and philosophical
reasons, India
won't be anyone's junior partner.
Neither is the US egging India
onto adventures it doesn't want to undertake but at the same time it has
determined it would help India
to build capacity. As more US
defence technology becomes available, India
can gather greater "comprehensive national power"- a phrase the
Chinese casually throw around to disparage India.
India
is smartly hunting for strategic autonomy while getting closer to the US. It packages
the alignment differently at different times. This may disappoint the
with-us-or-against-us Americans but they are a minority. The big picture is
good and getting better.
If former president George Bush
cut through decades of diplomatic weed to put India
in clear sight as a partner, President Barack Obama
is shedding years of dependency on Pakistan to
contain it. Bush changed the game by crafting the civil-nuclear deal with India and Obama is changing it further by
relentlessly targeting terrorists ensconced in Pakistan. The slow realisation
about Pakistan's
dangerous designs has solidified into a cold determination to break the habit.
Obama's eyes today are wide open after a year or two of trying to look into the
hearts of Pakistani generals.
The Bush-Obama teamwork in South Asia is
welcome and a source of greater stability in the long run. Pakistan has
lost its primacy as a geographic and strategic blackmailer. Its bad choices in
the past - no strategic reasoning can justify nurturing and unleashing
terrorists - are closing its options in the present. If Pakistan's leadership does not see
the writing on the wall and act positively, the future may be one of solitary
splendour.
Meanwhile, India and the US
will start a trilateral dialogue with Afghanistan. Surely a stark new
reality for Pakistan as Washington begins to think of India
as a net security provi-der in a country Islamabad
considers its backyard. But India
is understandably cautious because for all the "recognition" that India can take on more security-related
responsibilities in Afghanistan, it
was only yesterday that Washington was against
New Delhi marking its presence - at the
prompting of Pakistan
- and issuing demarches. A copy of one such was brought to Washington as a reminder of unhappier times.
Within the span of the Obama
Administration, Washington has courted China, then India,
lectured India for
engagement with Burma
and then made a turnaround. One could call it nimble, fickle or evolutionary.
The important point is that Obama's team is continuing with India where Bush left off despite
some stone-throwing from the margins by those who continue to try to undermine
the US-India civil nuclear deal.
But the "habits of
cooperation" are building. More groundbreaking work can be done
bilaterally, especially in defence production and research, as India wants.
This will help foster trust. Strategic space for India has opened wider with US
help. The question is how to use it wisely, timely and gamely. There is a
lesson for both countries in the exercise.
Finally, the Pakistan hang in US
policy towards India may
have gone but China remains
the biggest complicating factor for both India
and the US.
The Chinese vice-premier's attempt to play India
was baldly obvious when he whispered during the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation meeting that the "real relationship" of the century was
one between India and China. By
implication, India
was wasting its energy on a partner far away.
But China
plays for itself while America
can and does try to play in a team, especially in these times of economic
trouble. India
can help shape the team while gaining in strategic autonomy.
The writer is a senior
journalist.
Jun 18, 2012
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