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US Presidential elections and India
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Manjeet S Pardesi
31 August 2012
Mitt Romney has now been formally nominated President Barack Obama's White House rival by the US Republicans. All recent polls predict that the November 2012 Presidential elections will be tightly contested as Obama's approval rating has steadily fallen since 2009 given the current state of the US economy. So what do the 2012 US Presidential elections mean for India?
It is widely believed that New Delhi's strategic establishment is more comfortable dealing with a Republican President in the White House than with a Democrat President. In fact, popular elite opinion in India often say that Republicans are more supportive of India's ambition to play a larger strategic role in Asia while the Democrats still approach India through the lens of Kashmir, and hence from the perspective of the India-Pakistan rivalry. They also raise human rights issues (again in Kashmir and elsewhere in India) thereby making a close partnership with the United States rather difficult.
However, there has been a rapid transformation in Indo-US relations since the late 1990s and there is bipartisan support in the United States today for a close strategic partnership with India. Interestingly enough, one of the earliest signs of the dramatic transformation in Indo-US relations came under the Democratic President Bill Clinton during the 1999 Kargil War when the United States not only supported India's position but also openly criticized Pakistan for violating the Line of Control. Republican President George W. Bush deepened America's nascent engagement with India after assuming office in 2000 by first removing nearly all the sanctions imposed on India after its 1998 nuclear tests and then signing an unprecedented Civil Nuclear Agreement with New Delhi which effectively ended India's status as a nuclear pariah. In fact, during the Bush Presidency, the United States openly declared its "goal" of helping India "become a major world power in the 21st century" while noting Washington fully understood "the implications, including military implications of that statement."
While there were some serious concerns in India on the future of the Indo-US partnership when President Obama was elected in 2008, Obama's first term has shown that he too is committed to a deepened engagement with India. Not only has Obama endorsed India's ambition for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), but the United States and India have also started exchanging regular views on East Asia during his Presidency. India and the United States have been having a bilateral dialog on East Asia for almost three years now while the United States, Japan, and India had their first ever trilateral meeting in 2011 to exchange views on developments in Asia. At the same time, India has also responded favourably to President Obama's pivot to Asia which was announced in 2011, and New Delhi has finally begun to incorporate the United States into its "Look East" strategy given that the United States is the most important strategic player in this important region to the east of India.
Given this trend in the Indo-US relations, it really does not matter who wins the 2012 Presidential elections. For example, the 2012 Republican platform clearly affirms India as a "geopolitical ally" and "a strategic trading partner" while welcoming a strong economic, cultural, and national security partnership with New Delhi. While the 2012 Democratic platform will be released only next week, it is reasonable to assume that Obama will only continue building a stronger partnership with India were he to be reelected given America's engagement with India during his first (current) term.
However, this does not mean that the Indo-US relations have attained a level of momentum that makes a close partnership inevitable irrespective of the leadership in the two countries. While both India and the United States understand the geopolitical and economic advantages of engaging the other, the role of the top leadership in the two countries in fostering a deeper engagement has been crucial. While former President Bush was personally committed to this relationship even before he assumed office, Indo-US relations gained momentum during Obama's current term only after the President understood the strategic advantage of building a partnership with India. Likewise, in India too, the role of top leaders was important. Both former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are committed to this relationship.
That said, three important points must be noted for the future of Indo-US ties. First, there are no "big ticket" items like the Civil Nuclear Agreement or the American endorsement of a permanent seat for India at the UNSC for the Indo-US relationship in the near future. India and the United States now need to move from style to substance in order to build a comprehensive economic and strategic partnership.
Second, India needs to do a better job in convincing American elites that this relationship has not been "oversold", for many opinion-makers in Washington believe that India has not delivered on what was expected of it. For example, India's selection of the French Rafale for the $10 billion fighter jet deal over American firms Lockheed and Boeing (that were offering F-16 Fighter Falcons and F/A-18 Hornets respectively) was viewed by many Americans as a snub and a signal that India was uninterested in building close defense ties with the United States. However, this view is misplaced because India was the third biggest buyer of American arms (after Afghan security forces and Taiwan) in 2011, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency of the US Pentagon. Notably, India purchased ten C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft from the United States in 2011 in a deal worth $4.1 billion-- the largest-ever Indian defense contract with an American company-- that would sustain an estimated 23,000 American jobs in 44 states. Furthermore, India remains interested in purchasing American weapons such as Apache attack helicopters and Harpoon anti-ship missiles in the near future.
Finally, and most importantly, India and the United States need to understand that friends can agree to disagree. For example, India and the United States disagree on their approach towards Iran. While Washington would like to see Iran isolated by the international community, this is not an easy option for India. To be sure, India has reduced its energy imports from Iran while opposing its nuclear weapons ambitions (though India has cautiously supported a civil nuclear program in Iran in accordance with its international commitments). The logic of geography dictates that India will need overland access through Iran to reach Afghanistan and Central Asia, given that Pakistan denies India the passage to this region with which India does not share common land borders. India and the United States must learn how to manage their differences on issues like Iran given that they have congruent views of many other important issues and regions such as East Asia and the Indian Ocean.
(Manjeet S Pardesi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. mpardesi@indiana.edu)
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