President George W. Bush, right, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of their meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Sept. 21, on the sidelines of the U.S. General Assembly session. A Bush visit to India is expected as early as next year. (Photo: AFP)

The return of George W. Bush to the White House for another four-year term will ensure a degree of continuity in the long-term strategic relationship with India that the White House had underlined in the beginning of the first Bush term in early 2001. This was formally noted in the document ‘National Security Strategy of the USA’ released in September 2002 which added inter-alia:

“The United States has undertaken a transformation in its bilateral relationship with India based on a conviction that U.S. interests require a strong relationship with India. We are the two largest democracies, committed to political freedom protected by representative government. India is moving toward greater economic freedom as well. We have a common interest in the free flow of commerce, including through the vital sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. Finally, we share an interest in fighting terrorism and in creating a strategically stable Asia.”

One may infer that given the importance accorded to the centrality of democracy by President Bush ever since he came to the White House and the healthy economic profile that India now exudes, there will be no change in the strategic orientation to the relationship. However, the challenge will be to harmonize what may seem to be a degree of inconsistency in the U.S. policies to the region, wherein Washington finds it necessary to work closely with the military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf even while outlining a very ambitious macro project about democracy in the Greater Middle East. This dichotomy in the conceptual framework of the long-term and the reality of the short-term is one of the more distinctive features of U.S. policy toward Southern Asia and has muddied the nature of the India-U.S. relationship.

On the face of it, there are some important convergences in the security challenges that the world’s two largest democracies face in the post-9/11 global system. The anxiety about terrorism is palpable on both sides, as also the complex challenge about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation, more so after the revelations associated with the Abdul Qadeer Khan episode.

However, till recently –– that is, before the U.S. elections –– there was a compulsion for Washington to treat Pakistan with great discretion so that the U.S. retained the support of the Pakistan military in the fight against Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda. As has been often pointed out, the U.S. intelligence agencies have abundant information and proof of Pakistan’s involvement and complicity –– both state and non-state –– in exacerbating these security challenges to the detriment of both India and the U.S. Yet, immediate political compulsions have not allowed the White House to take what may be deemed the most logical course of action.

In the immediate future, U.S. policy toward South Asia will to a great extent be determined by the way in which Iraq is stabilized, and the January elections will be a significant punctuation that will shape the degree of U.S. involvement in that country in the Bush second term.

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It is relevant that India also shares an interest in the swift return of normalcy to Iraq and its citizens, and it remains to be seen if the U.S. will be able to facilitate such joint effort under the appropriate multilateral banner. India’s abiding concern about radical Islamic militancy and its supra-national aspirations is the more complex element and this will be the common template for the long-term security relationship that will add substance to the bilateral relationship, notwithstanding the immediate divergence over Pakistan and its military DNA.

The Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) that was agreed to by India and the U.S. in January 2004 at the political level is now slowly acquiring some shape. The next round of meetings in late November will give an indication of how effectively this political intent will be translated into tangible action on the ground. The civilian nuclear and space programs of India will benefit from this consensus in the long-term, as also the dialogue on missile defenses. However, this will be a long and contested process and the WMD profile that New Delhi seeks will have to be persuasively conveyed to the U.S. side so that in the long run India is seen as being part of the global management cluster that ensures consensual stability in the strategic domain.

However, the old adage about there being no free lunches in the U.S. schema and the relentless pragmatism that characterizes the American strategic culture will pose a fundamental challenge to the way in which India deals with the pre-eminent military power. Many aspects of the Bush team in the first term have caused considerable disquiet –– particularly the penchant for assertive unilateralism where U.S. interests are perceived to be impacted. The neo-con agenda is against the Indian grain and this dissonance will cast a shadow on the manner in which the bilateral relationship unfolds.

But for the immediate, the momentum generated in the security and strategic domain between India and the U.S. is likely to be sustained and the Indian prime minister has suggested that the “best is yet to come” in the bilateral relationship. The nature of the prevailing global systemic wherein both the U.S. and India are inexorably linked to the compulsions of economic and trade globalization is a domain that is to a great extent outside the control of the respective governments. India is emerging as an important service provider in the new economy and a mutually-beneficial relationship with the U.S. has considerable potential. The real strategic underpinning will be reflected in the manner in which the shared dependency is nurtured. On current evidence it is hopeful augury, but the essential dialectic in the bilateral relationship will call for dexterity on both sides so that the contours of the big picture are not lost sight of in the pursuit of the short-term objective.

(The writer is Officiating Director, Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal)