| Book review |
| Cooperation and Conflict |
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Ar Commodore Jasjit Singh (retd)
Director, Centre for Strategic Studies and International Studies, New Delhi
India-US Relations: Promoting Synergy
Study by an Independent Core Group
Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies
Pages: 80
Price: Not priced
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| India-US relations have always excited near extreme reactions and judgements ranging from a euphoric expectations of a new strategic paradigm of alliance, or a deeply pessimistic and even antagonistic responses about the
US failing to make a place for Indian interests. A report on the nature of relationship and its future, therefore, remains of abiding interest. This report is a path-breaker for two major reasons. Unlike the
United States, reports by independent study groups, especially on strategic and foreign policy issues, hardly exist in
India. Secondly, this report bases its conclusions not only on an objective assessment of the realities, but in fact focuses on pragmatic goals for future policy rather than go over the traditional ?laundry list? of the past approach. In the process, the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies has rendered yeomen service to the cause of better India-US relations, and, hence, the report qualifies as necessary reading for anyone interested in this relationship.
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The tightly argued report covers almost all aspects of the bilateral relationship. It examines three options for
India in its relations with the
US and
Russia to deal with the international order in conceptual terms within the context of
India?s policy of non-alignment. These options are, retain a core relationship with
Russia, develop a core relationship with the
United States, (and
China could have been included as another option for the future), or pursue a ?nuanced, issue-based policy toward them in a multimodal, if not, multipolar world.? The last is recommended and that is how the major powers of a polycentric world are likely to pursue their policies, leading to concurrent co-operation and competition among them.
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Our national interests demand that we try and vector the international system toward a co-operative peace and avoid the risk of its polarisation. Besides the question of its being realistic,
India as a counterpoise to
China is not only what the
US is not looking for, as the report notes, but one that would not serve Indian interests. It is also not a question of how to deal with a resurgent
China, but more of how to deal with evolving strategic uncertainties connected with
China?s rise to greater comprehensive power in the coming years. There are greater chances of realising the goal of co-operative peace with
China in a multinodal framework provided
India takes care to hedge against a major deviation from that path.
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The bipolar alignments of the Cold War have long dissolved or lost their original context. While the principle of non-alignment may have come under increasing questioning, it is difficult to see it as irrelevant for the future. Only the context in which it has to be pursued has changed. In fact, the events leading up to the Iraq War and the war itself indicate that the world, if anything, is becoming less-aligned. This only reinforces the central logic (beyond the oft repeated emotionalism or even ideological connotations of view points) of the report?s recommendation that ?it would serve
India?s best interests not to pursue any strategic alliance or partnership with the
United States.? And equally importantly, this philosophy would contribute in a much larger measure to enhancing synergy in India-US relations than adopting any other option.
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Specific policy-related issues covered in the report recognise that there is convergence of interests as well as identifiable divergence of national interests between
India and the
US. It recognises that in each case there are subsets where convergence as well as divergence in policy is to be expected. The greatest stimulus for synergy in bilateral relations, naturally, would come from strengthening economic-trade relations while in the strategic-security policy arena the two sides do not have a mutuality of interests. The issues covered by the report are comprehensive in nature and would lose their immense value if I were to repeat them here, or to restate the bulk of recommendation that I see as eminently realistic which need to be vigorously pursued, especially on steps that India needs to take, whether in the economic-trade field or the political-strategic arenas.�
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For the pursuit of national interests it is important that there is broad understanding if not a consensus about what those interests are and how they should be pursued. Very often we in
India treat them in generalities or cover them in a veil of principles. This report forces the reader to reflect on these aspects. Any observer of Indian polity and policy would agree with the candid statement of the report that while there is a bipartisan consensus in the American political system on issues central to its national interests, a similar situation is not discernible in
India. Therefore, the need to think through and come to an internal accommodation so necessary for building an internal synergy to enable synergy in external relations.
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