The Realist Prism: U.S.-India Partnership Needs Substance, not Rhetoric

Nikolas Gvosdev | 15 Oct 2010

In advance of President Barack Obama's visit to India next month, the administration is sending signals about great and wondrous changes ahead in the Indo-American relationship. But in reading Lalit K. Jha's dispatch from Washington, a term I have come to dread in foreign policy rhetoric made its predictable appearance: Obama's visit is supposed to herald the establishment of a "true strategic partnership." "Strategic partnership" entered the U.S. diplomatic lexicon as a way to find a halfway house between those countries that are formal American allies -- especially those for whom this status is a matter of treaty and Congressional statute -- and countries that might otherwise not be hostile to Washington but who did not enjoy any special or privileged relationship with the United States. The problem, however, is that "strategic partnership" was often applied as a catch-all diplomatic term devoid of real practical applications. The concept was originally drafted into service in the context of post-Soviet U.S.-Russia relations, to provide a basis for cooperation between Washington and Moscow. But comforting talk about Russia and the United States being "strategic partners" often vanished when the relationship ran into real difficulties, particularly after Russia's power began to resurge. Similarly, Georgia's status as a "strategic partner" was a way to promote the illusion that Tbilisi was joining the Euro-Atlantic world. But Georgians keenly felt the absence of concrete security guarantees in the aftermath of the 2008 Georgia-Russia war. The other tendency is for the term to be so widely applied that any real importance or significance of the designation is lost. The U.S. is a strategic partner with both Russia and China, who themselves enjoy a strategic partnership as well. Meanwhile, Russia and India also consider themselves strategic partners, while Pakistan is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Does this imply any sort of a Quintuple Alliance between Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Islamabad and New Delhi? Certainly not. Behind all of the vague protestations of friendship, the reality is that "strategic partnerships" do not carry the same weight as actual, concrete, defined interstate agreements. The relationship between Moscow and Beijing, for instance, is undergirded by a raft of intergovernmental contracts as well as joint participation and leadership of a regional organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization -- not just by the rhetoric of "strategic partnership." So the optics of Obama's India visit may be quite positive, and the rhetoric celebrating the ties between the world's oldest democracy and its largest one might be positively glowing. What's more, Washington and New Delhi have a clear set of common interests that should drive a closer political, economic and strategic relationship between the two powers. But the question remains, What will this trip actually change? What actual agreements on economic relations or on security cooperation are likely to be reached between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? And what sort of private, bilateral "understandings" on Afghanistan are likely to emerge? Indian analyst B. Raman recently expressed concern about a "paucity of ideas" regarding what India and the U.S. can accomplish together: "Apart from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Initiative launched by the two countries during the visit of the Indian prime minister to the U.S. in November 2009, there has been hardly any new idea which could be called Obama's own and over which India could feel excited." He's right. The problem is that Washington is in no position at this point to make any grandiose steps towards New Delhi. Given the state of the U.S. domestic economy, and continued outrage over the "export" of American jobs, any sort of free trade pact is out of the question. The current U.S. strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan to allow for the gradual disengagement of the United States from that conflict rests upon the active cooperation of Pakistan, and Washington cannot take steps to formalize its security ties to India without seriously jeopardizing its relationship with Islamabad. Moreover, the United States' tacit encouragement of Chinese investment in Afghanistan as a way to provide jobs and income to dry up popular support for the insurgency also raises New Delhi's hackles, as did a 2009 statement about the positive role the United States hoped China would play in the South Asian region. The U.S. has tried to focus Pakistan's attention on combating al-Qaida and other militant groups on its territory that plan terrorist attacks against targets in the West. But as Raman points out, Washington's anti-terror strategy is less concerned with "Pakistani Punjabi terrorists posing a threat to Indian nationals and interests, whether in India or in Afghanistan." In fact, both Islamabad and New Delhi have grown impatient with Washington's attempt to placate both sides as "good friends" of the United States. And if the president decides to raise the sensitive issue of Kashmir in his talks with Singh -- even by couching such a discussion within the larger context of the entire Afghanistan-Pakistan theater -- it might create some friction, because India is not interested in having the U.S. serve any sort of mediator role in a process that New Delhi feels might compromise its territorial integrity. We must also be realistic about the many remaining areas of divergence between Washington and New Delhi that prevent the contemplation of any real alliance. As Richard Haass has noted, "Alliances require predictability: of threat, outlook, obligations. But it is precisely these characteristics that are likely to be in short supply in a world of shifting threats [and] differing perceptions . . . " Raman and others, however, have highlighted one promising area for Indo-U.S. cooperation: expanding the two countries' naval relationship. Given the growing importance of the Indian Ocean as a central sea lane of communication for the global economy, this would provide a way for the American and Indian militaries to work more closely together. As Raman notes, "U.S. policymakers and public opinion would be comfortable with naval cooperation with India, but might not like to get involved with India in its territorial conflicts with China and Pakistan." A stronger naval relationship also avoids the pitfalls of the terminology of "strategic partnerships" by setting down concrete areas for U.S. and Indian security cooperation. For instance, the U.S. and India could conceivably reach an agreement about shared operations as defined in a specific geographic zone, just as the NATO treaty specified the area of the world where the alliance was operative. NATO allies in Europe, for instance, need not worry that U.S. security problems in the Pacific region, or Britain's dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, will involve them, allowing for genuine security cooperation within the actual framework of the alliance. Agreements on naval cooperation might also break existing logjams in the types of high-technology goods and services that U.S. defense and civil contractors can export to India, currently a sticking point in the relationship. Giving India a special status as a non-NATO naval ally of the United States might allow for greater technical cooperation in certain designated military fields. The United States has a delicate balance to navigate in seeking closer ties with India without torpedoing already difficult relations with Pakistan and further complicating an increasingly problematic relationship with a rising China. Moving the discussion of the U.S.-India relationship away from a zero-sum approach that portrays India as either ally or non-ally would open the door to creative thinking about how to forge U.S.-India ties in the coming decade. And that will prove far more valuable than the bland, inoffensive but ultimately meaningless rhetoric about "strategic partnership." Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the Navy or the U.S. government. His weekly WPR column, The Realist Prism, appears every Friday. Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a G-20 leaders working dinner, Pittsburgh, 2009 (White House photo by Pete Souza).