America, India Forging Strategic Ties

The visit earlier this month by India's Home Minister P Chidambaram to Washington, DC is the latest manifestation of how much the geostrategic picture is changing in South Asia as the India-US partnership deepens, causing consternation in Islamabad as Pakistan's traditional ally cosies up to New Delhi. It is an arrangement that is causing concern in Beijing as well.

The four-day official visit to America focused on Indo-US anti-terror cooperation, technological assistance, an assessment of the security situation in South Asia and a study of counter-terrorism institutions and structures. Chidambaram met as well with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a strong indication that America under President Barack Obama is continuing one legacy of the Bush administration, and that is defense. Doubts that the Obama administration might re-look the strategic depth of Indo-US relations have been removed.

China and India have been engaging in a growing rivalry for primacy across Asia and in South Asia in particular. Beijing's growing concern at the US's deepening relationships with India was manifested last September, when China attempted to scuttle an agreement at the Nuclear Suppliers Group to allow India access to US nuclear technology. China in turn has continued to strengthen its ties with Pakistan and is developing port facilities in Bangladesh and Burma as well as Pakistan to protect its sea lanes.

India has been building on improved strategic ties with America with the civilian Indo-US nuclear deal signed last October as one significant signpost of achievement. Defense and tackling terror are two more areas of growing cooperation. India's defense efforts in the short term look to build an effective arsenal against Pakistan, while in the longer term aim at deterrence against China, which remains far ahead of India in military capability. The two Asian giants have been squabbling for decades over thousands of square kilometers of disputed territory in India's northeast adjacent to Kashmir.

Apart from the business generated by defense contracts (India's defense modernization exercise is estimated at over US$50 billion in the period 2007-12), Washington's strategic interests in the region extend to bolstering India as a counterweight to the influence of China in the Asian continent.

The September 13 revelations of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in an interview with a Pakistani television station that he had ordered the diversion of US aid money intended to deal with Taliban and Al Qaeda to strengthen the country's defense against India has only validated India's resolve to buttress its military. On terror, Washington has been receptive to India's concerns since the Mumbai terror strikes on two luxury hotels in November 2008. Reportedly the Indian military is being given access to classified information by Washington about terror activities in Pakistan as a key to pre-empting strikes.

Meanwhile, some momentum has already been gained in nuclear energy following the removal of international impediments, with India looking to generate 40,000 MW of atomic power by 2020.