Monday, May 23, 2005

Bush's Indian gambit

ITS logic is inescapable yet the idea has been inconceivable: a strategic partnership between the two great democracies, the US and India, long divided by distrust and the Cold War. Yet it is happening. George W. Bush has reached out to India and one of the coming debates in global politics will be over the manner and meaning of his decision to support India's quest to become a global power. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Washington in July, with Bush reportedly saying this will be treated as a "grand event", and at the year's end Bush will visit India. India is being wooed and its pride at this is palpable. The Bush administration has launched a diplomatic offensive with India that is stunning in its rhetoric and serious in its content. "India's relations with the US are now the best they have ever been," says Rajiv Sikri, the senior official on East Asia at India's external affairs ministry. Bush's thinking is shaped by India's democratic values in contrast with China's authoritarianism. Its strategic essence is the US view that India as a second Asian giant, capitalist, multicultural and democratic, will exert a gravitational pull that must limit China's aspiration as a future hegemon and help to balance its rise.

5 Comments:

At May 23, 2005 4:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The trick will be getting over the Pakistan hump. The relations between the US and Pakistani secret services are longstanding. The US will find it difficult to romance the Indian mistress and maintain its Pakistani marriage simultaneously. As of now the US "needs" Pakistan in the Bin Laden chase and to keep the lid on the Islamic bomb, just as it always seems to "need" it for something or other.

 
At May 23, 2005 5:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"anonymous" overlooks the fact that US relations with India and Pakistan are no longer a zero-sum game (if they ever were). If India is closer to the US than it has ever been, the same can be said about India and Pakistan.

 
At May 23, 2005 6:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nations operate in their own best interests; it is important for the US to have a strong relationship with India given China's aggressive behaviors in the far east. Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia have their own agendas and their support against terrorism will last only for as long as their current leaders maintain power. So I agree, Bush's diplomacy is a smart move.

HB

 
At May 23, 2005 9:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Meanwhile the clueless American State Department continues to work against Bush's policy
American Policy Advice in South Asia: Fatal Flaws
http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_040202.htm


An inside story of Modi’s visa revoke
http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_050320.htm

more stuff by the same author

The Art of War on Terror
http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_040812.htm

excerpt from the above article
"This failure was due to the American inability to identify why Iraq or even most of the Muslim nations are under dictatorships. This is due to shortcomings in Islamic ideology. The proper approach should have been first to help reform Islam and then guide Muslim countries towards democracy, and not the other way around "

If you found the above articles interesting
http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_040118.htm

P.S - Disclaimer - I am not the author of the articles mentioned above

 
At May 24, 2005 1:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a joke all the American posters...

India is with its own money paying for its military. Meanwhile Pakistan is gonna start a military shopping spree, with what? With american FMS aid. There is no reason why Pakistan should be given F-16s, P3 Orion's etc. on the American tax payer's dollar.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home