Son of the Nuclear Deal

George Bush and Manmohan Singh set a high bar for US-India relations, which President Obama has to overcome. As Washington and Delhi ready themselves for another presidential visit, the search for the Next Big Idea may actually render the visit less effective.


This was also the message of Richard Haass, president of Council for Foreign Relations, one of a long line of US opinion leaders trotting through India, dispensing wit and wisdom.


"We should not keep a scorecard about the number of agreements to be signed," said Richard Haass, president of the Council for Foreign Relations. Talking at an event for the Aspen Institute here, Haass said there is no history or "habit" of US and India cooperating in the international sphere. That needs to be worked on, because the US-India relationship is a key one for the future.


The trouble, from the Indian point of view, is that the US' laundry list of global problems may not always tally with India's. This is increasingly one of the main reasons for the "divergence" between US and India. For instance, US worries about Iran's "strategic assertiveness" in the greater Middle East, which it sees as a threat. India sees China's greater assertiveness as a threat.


Haass questioned, "what are India's strategic objectives?" It's a question often asked by US opinion-leaders.


Almost always, the Indian answer is inadequate to them.


For instance, India will remain focused on its internal development for some time to come. Its foreign policy too will be deeply rooted in its development and security imperatives.


For India to leapfrog this stage, it will need to access technology across the board. It will need to address the issue of terrorism from Pakistan. India will want to work itself to become a credible counter to China. For all of this, India will need the US.


Haass alluded to Asia's "unresolved disputes" making the Asian dynamism an uneven development, particularly in the absence of strong political-military institutions in the European mould. But the world of 2010, as Haass sees it, is a "non-polar" world, as opposed to multi-polar. In the absence of any one hostile great power, the world, he says, is facing a slew of new, global challenges, for which there are not sufficient institutions to deal with them. He sees a growing India-US convergence to deal with these challenges.