US-India future relations on US Blog radar

Matt Yglesias, a prominent left-leaning blogger writes about a Cato Institute Report [PDF link] that warns United Status against Pakistan’s dubious claims to be a long-term ally. India, with its rising clout on the economic, strategic, and democratic front stands to be a much more reliable ally of the United States than Pakistan, says Cato.

United States rightly used Pakistan’s volte face with the Taliban to its advantage in the War on Terror but now realizes that in the long run, aligning with an ever-demanding ally might not bode well for its security concerns as well. Let us hope the higher ups listen to Cato.

If this alternate interpretation is correct, the current American relationship with Pakistan is, at best, a short-term alliance of necessity. Over the medium and long term, U.S. policymakers should distance themselves from Musharraf’s regime, seek out ways to cultivate liberal secular reforms in Pakistan, and engage in more constructive relations with India.

Such a policy shift would reflect present-day reality: Westernized and secular India is a stable democracy and a rising regional power, not a de facto client of the Soviet Union, as it was widely presumed to be during the Cold War. With the Cold War order long since dismantled, the United States has a clear interest in establishing strong ties with India, whose political, economic, and military clout places the country in a position to counterbalance even an increasingly assertive China. As the world’s largest democracy and an important bilateral trading partner with the United States, India, not Pakistan, should be the focus of long-term U.S. policy in the region.

On the other hand, Daniel Drezner, another popular blogger points to an interesting article in TNR Online written by Sumit Ganguly. The author looks at US-India relation in the post-tsunami future.

; These anxieties, a product of the cold-war years, have steadily dissipated over the past decade, replaced by willingness to work with, and even court, the United States on a range of issues, from anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean to jointly confronting terrorism. Indeed, the growing scope of military-to-military contacts between the two countries over the past several years (a centerpiece of the new Indo-U.S. relationship) made it possible for the two states to play a leading and coordinated role in post-tsunami relief.

India finally seems to have overcome its apprehension of American assistance and is even willing to take a lead in assisting disaster-hit areas. Some signs of moving from merely a developing nation to becoming a force to reckon with are clearly evident. Like they say, its all in the mind.

“US-India future relations on US Blog radar” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=474] was published Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 8:00 am by Patrix, filed under Politics, and tagged as blogging, foreign policy, friendship, India, United States. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

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http://virtualscribbles.rediffblogs.com/ ashi
and about time too!
http://ipatrix.com Patrix
Ashi – Slowly but surely it is happening. It will take time for the old guard to step down though and the Cold War mentality to fade.
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http://broodingdude.rediffblogs.com Kiran
For long we have been complaining that the US looks at India and Pak in relation to each other. We have wanted to be seen as an independent entity in our own right – only then would the US be able to see us as a true World power (or at least a blossoming one). And yet, every time the US smiles at Pakistan we get a stroke.
While US largesse to Pak is a concern of ours, we must delink ourselves from Pakistan in our own minds in the context of Indo-Pak relations, BEFORE we can expect the US to do the same.
http://ipatrix.com Patrix
Kiran – What impressed me was not that they were exhorting India’s virtues over Pakistan. They were merely pointing out Pakistan’s unreliability, which then naturally leads them to India. Dependence might be bad but equal cooperation is always welcome. Heck, even US needs it fledging ally Britain to justify actions outside its borders.

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US-India future relations on US Blog radar

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