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Gladiator · #9 Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Indo-US nuclear alliance

In Dawn Oct 29 by Afzaal Mahmood
During his recent visit to New Delhi, the US under-secretary of state, Nicholas Burns, assured his hosts that the US was fully committed to implementing the nuclear deal with India. Addressing a joint press conference with the Indian foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, on October 21, Mr Burns stressed that the United States saw India as a “great power” which would work with it in promoting “peace and stability” in the world.

Acknowledging that the implementation of the nuclear deal was a complicated matter, the Indian foreign secretary affirmed that both countries were committed to completing the task before US President George Bush’s visit early next year.

Before examining the significance of the Indo-US nuclear handshake, it will be worthwhile to briefly look at the real objective of Mr Burns’s mission to India. The purpose of his recent visit was to assess how far India had delivered on some of its commitments under the July 18 nuclear deal with the United States and discuss the modalities of implementing the agreement. During his meetings with Indian officials, clarifications were sought by both sides which would be “reflected upon” and another meeting would be held on the issue “very soon”.

Interestingly, the US under-secretary of state warned Iran on Indian soil that if it did not come back to the negotiating table, there would be another vote against it at the November 24 IAEA meeting. Media reports say many US Congressmen would like to wait and see how India will vote at the November IAEA meeting before approving the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The July 18 nuclear deal represents an astonishing reversal of American proliferation policies towards India. After abandoning its age-old insistence on New Delhi capping or reversing its nuclear weapons programme, Washington, all of a sudden, has expressed its willingness for a nuclear handshake with a country whose growing strategic importance it is keen on harnessing. According to neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, India’s nuclear arsenal does not pose any threat to US power; on the contrary, it can help in the larger game of containing China and foiling any effort to keep the US out of any Asian security architecture.

However, India had to pay a political price for the Indo-US nuclear handshake. To begin with, it had to support the European-US resolution against Iran at the IAEA board meeting last month. But there are straws in the wind indicating that the much-flaunted Indian plans of looking at Iran as a land and energy bridge to reach Central Asia and Afghanistan are now reported to be on hold and will perhaps peter out. Despite New Delhi’s disclaimers, the odds are that the same fate awaits the Iran-India gas pipeline.

In the short span of seven years, US foreign policy towards Asia, particularly South Asia, has undergone a sea change. In 1998, during his China visit, US President Bill Clinton publicly conceded that Beijing had “legitimate interests” in South Asia. With the Clinton visit to India in 2000 began a thaw that led to a softer American policy towards India’s nuclear ambitions, including plutonium production and the development of the Agni missile. It also resulted in the de-hyphenation of India and Pakistan and the adoption of separate American policies for the South Asian rivals.

The pro-India policy that began in the last years of the Clinton administration got a further boost with the coming of the Bush administration. The most important change in the American thinking with regard to India, which has since been the motivating force behind Washington’s South Asian policy, occurred in the second Bush term when the administration came to recognize India’s centrality to the balance of power in Asia.

According to the knowledgeable Indian strategic thinker and writer K. Subrahmanyam, “these views of the US, developed and matured during George Bush’s second term, were communicated to India only in March, 2005”. Consequently, an India-US summit was fixed for July 18 to give final approval to the new US policy. Subrahmanyam also says that the US offer to revise its nuclear policy to enable India to have access to international civil nuclear technology came as a surprise to New Delhi, the reason being that when Mr Vajpayee was prime minister, India’s attempt was restricted to getting fuel for Tarapur in exchange for placing some Indian reactors under safeguards.

The most significant gain for India is to get rid of technology denial of various kinds. As a result of the Indo-US nuclear handshake, Russia and Britain have already lifted nuclear sanctions previously imposed on India. The US has already removed India’s reactors from the list of banned entities and New Delhi can now obtain civil nuclear technology from Russia, the UK and France.

The nuclear handshake is only the beginning for India of a highly productive engagement with the United States. President Bush’s visit to India early next year will provide an excellent opportunity for New Delhi to expand and enhance bilateral relationship at various levels. Most experts and analysts agree that the Indo-US nuclear deal has put India in the big league.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has explained the linkage between long term US economic interests and the interaction of these with India as a rising economic power. Until recently, US businessmen were seeing a great potential in India, especially in the services sectors. But now they are seeing India as a base for manufacturing.

Last year, US merchandise exports to India rose by 22.6 per cent over 2003, and imports by 18.4 per cent. More than 50 per cent of the top 500 American companies now outsource some of their information technology needs to Indian firms.

With Sino-US relations deteriorating “fairly rapidly”, having an economic alternative in India gives the US leverage with China on a host of issues. But foreign direct investments in India are still nowhere near China’s, which gets 13 times what India gets. But unlike India, China’s banking sector is in deep crisis which, according to experts, is “technically insolvent”.

When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says India is a counterweighing force against China, she or anyone else in his senses does not mean that the US wants to use India in military terms against China. Washington has neither the capability nor the intention to deal with Beijing in military terms.

To some extent, the Indo-US economic relationship is beginning to look a little like the one between US and China and it is in the economic arena that India can prove to be a counterweight to China in the years to come. The raison d’etre of the Indo-US strategic partnership is based on three points: the US focus on India’s rapid economic growth, New Delhi’s role as an important player in the Asian balance of power, and India’s contribution to American economic pre-eminence.

The US strategy with regard to China is of engagement and building an Asian balance of power wherein India will be an important factor. Unlike the Europeans, the Asian nations, particularly those in South Asia, continue to be pre-occupied by their relations with each other and the emergence of one of them as a ‘great power’ is bound to instil fears and misgivings in the smaller and weaker neighbours. Conditions in Asia are radically different from those in Europe where the emergence of Germany and France as great powers from the ruins of the second World War was welcomed by their smaller neighbours who regard the former as their protectors rather than as predators.

Since gaining independence, India’s ambition has been to acquire the status of a world power and play an increasing international role. Its goals are analogous to those of Britain east of Suez in the 19th century : it will seek to prevent the emergence of a major power in the Indian Ocean and, with American backing, even in Southeast Asia which China regards as part of its sphere of influence. Under the new Indo-US deal, India’s geopolitical interests may impel it to assume some of the security functions now being exercised by the United States.

It is more than a coincidence that India does not enjoy really friendly and close relations — even tension-free relations — with any of its smaller neighbours, let alone Pakistan. If the history of the past 50 years is of any relevance, it shows that the South Asian giant is seen by its smaller neighbours as a threat rather than as a protector against other predators. Whenever New Delhi adds a new device to its military muscle, its smaller neighbours watch with a high degree of nervousness as most of them have experienced, in one way or another, India’s regional hegemonic aspirations. It is unfortunate that the rise of India as a great power, with American backing, is likely to have a disturbing effect not only upon its neighbours but also the littoral states of the Indian Ocean.