Ideas for Obama

As President Obama prepares to go to India for a three-day state visit, U.S. policy pundits are busy proffering ideas for the bilateral agenda.  My blogging colleague, Madhavi Bhasin, earlier commented on the report about the future of U.S.-India ties that the Washington-based Center for a New American Security has put out.  Two new Carnegie Endowment reports, authored by Ashley J. Tellis and George Perkovich respectively, are also worth examining.  Both offer thoughtful but starkly contrasting views on the dynamics, prospects and limitations of the bilateral relationship.

Tellis, a Carnegie Endowment senior associate, is one of the keenest observers of U.S.-India affairs.  During his service in the Bush administration, he played a key behind-the-scenes role in the recent transformation of bilateral ties.  He was also a leading champion of the nuclear cooperation agreement that is a cornerstone of the new relationship.  This background endows him not only with a sharp desire to extend the course President Bush embarked upon, but also an appreciation for the political and bureaucratic constraints on both sides that lie upon the way.

Tellis notes that bilateral relations are currently perplexed by a paradox: Despite the extensive diplomatic engagement between Washington and New Delhi, the two governments have been unable to sustain the breakthroughs achieved just a few years ago.  In his view, blame can be assigned equally to both capitals.  Mr. Obama, for example, has paid special attention to developing warm personal ties with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but early errors by his administration and the press of urgent problems at home and abroad have combined to push India down the Washington priority list.  The absence on the president’s staff of strategic thinkers capable of crafting creative foreign policy ideas that capture elite and popular attention has also had an important effect. 

Political conditions in New Delhi are to blame as well.  Despite Prime Minister Singh’s personal commitment to furthering U.S.-India relations, he is neither the master of his government nor of his party.  A significant electoral victory last year has not been enough to rid Singh of balky coalition partners.  An inward-looking Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi is more interested in protecting its political base and securing immediate electoral rewards than in addressing the bilateral issues important to Washington.  Moreover, with U.S.-India relations still in their infancy, many Indian elites are not yet invested in their future.  Finally, India’s own economic success contributes to policy timidity in New Delhi; with a nine-percent annual growth rate, arguments about the need for further reforms find little political traction.  All of this leaves Singh with “the Sisyphean task of sustaining New Delhi’s engagement with Washington more or less alone.”

Yet even if expanding bilateral relations seems difficult right now, Tellis believes that a strong U.S.-India collaboration is in the interest of both countries.  For Washington, New Delhi represents a potent strategic partner in balancing a rising China.  For New Delhi, intensive engagement with the United States would bring about a more rapid increase in India’s own power and prosperity.

Thus, Tellis urges President Obama to view his state visit as a singular opportunity to impart new momentum to relations.  He can do this, Tellis argues, by unveiling two special initiatives that would electrify India.  The first is to voice full-throated support for New Delhi’s claim to permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council.  Tellis notes that Washington considered such a statement during the preparations for President Bush’s 2006 trip to India, but the imperatives of completing the civilian nuclear accord ultimately took priority.  The Obama administration has hinted at its support (see this earlier post), but has yet to come out categorically, reportedly for fear of alienating Beijing.  Such a declaration would “by embodying conspicuous support for the growth of Indian power, assist New Delhi to play the international role that is unmistakably in the interests of the United States.”

A second initiative Tellis advocates that Obama launch is a commitment, in exchange for New Delhi’s promise to abide by international nonproliferation norms, to liberalize access to U.S. dual-use and controlled high technology and to endorse India’s formal involvement in global nonproliferation regimes.  This, too, would have the effect of enhancing India’s influence on the world stage.

Finally, arguing that “perhaps no better assurance of a lasting bilateral partnership exists than the deepening of economic relations,” Tellis adds that Mr. Obama should seek to accelerate the negotiations for an U.S.-India investment treaty that both countries launched last year.  (For recommendations by other commentators on strengthening economic interactions, see here and here.)

Perkovich, however, is much more skeptical of the possibilities for U.S.-India collaboration.  Like Tellis, he is a long-time analyst of bilateral affairs based at the Carnegie Endowment.  But while his colleague wishes to see the Bush administration’s special focus on India continued, Perkovich believes it set an unrealistic and even harmful precedent for policy.  Whereas Tellis wants Washington to work purposively on bolstering New Delhi’s strategic potential, Perkovich counters that Indian fortunes turn more on continuing reforms at home rather than the facilitating actions of a friendly country.  Tellis sees growing bilateral convergence in economic and security interests, but Perkovich perceives significant differences.  If Tellis advocates constructing a close strategic partnership that is directed against Beijing, Perkovich argues for the priority of creating a cooperative global order that can ameliorate U.S.-India-China relations.

In Perkovich’s view, Tellis – as well as similar-minded Indian thinkers like Raj Mohan – overstates the concurrence of U.S. and Indian interests.  In his mind, the growing level of India-China economic interaction matters as much, if not more so, to New Delhi as engagement with the United States.  Moreover, Indian political culture contains “strong strains of anti-American ideology as well as pro-Chinese and non-aligned elements.”  Ongoing strains between Washington and New Delhi in global negotiations on trade and climate change demonstrate how far apart the two capitals are.

The United States is constrained in helping address India’s most immediate security challenge – stopping Pakistan from attacking it through the use of jihadi proxies.  Indeed, from New Delhi perspective, an anti-China alliance with Washington would only deepen Beijing’s incentive to encourage and support Pakistani behavior.

Perkovich takes aim at the Bush administration’s landmark initiative vis-à-vis India, the civilian nuclear cooperation deal that allowed New Delhi to opt out of the nonproliferation norms that the United States spent decades constructing.  By undermining important rules-based institutions of global governance, the agreement did more harm than good.  A dangerous precedent was thereby created that has enabled China, in its pending sale of nuclear reactors to Pakistan, to disregard the Nuclear Suppliers Group.  As Perkovich sees it, the Bush “deal provides an object lesson in the pitfalls of distorting the rules-based elements of the international system to privilege a friend.”

Perkovich concedes that India makes a strong claim for permanent Security Council membership, but cautions that New Delhi is yet not prepared to work with Washington in strengthening global governance.  He cites Indian resistance to Western sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear activities and to sanctions against Sudan for atrocities in Darfur as just two relevant examples.  (For recent criticisms of New Delhi’s approach toward global governance, see here and here.)

Rather than seeing India as a stalking horse for U.S. strategic interests in Asia, Perkovich advises President Obama to value the country in its own right and to work toward a global order that helps it and other developing nations achieve their aspirations.  And in lieu of the robust partnership Tellis envisions, he advises Obama to aim for a more prosaic relationship that would more realistically reflect competing interests and priorities.