Experts see US and India developing strategic affairs

Experts see US and India developing strategic affairs
(AP)

15 July 2005

WASHINGTON - By the time President George W. Bush leaves office, the United States will have helped India achieve a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and will be supporting India's nuclear program, weapons supply and space exploration, Bush's first ambassador to New Delhi says.

Robert D. Blackwill said Thursday he might be wrong, but �I�m optimistic. I feel the momentum.�

The former ambassador was speaking of a redesigned US-India relationship, highlighted by the signing two weeks ago of a �New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship� by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and India�s defense minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

It will be the main topic when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes to Washington next week for a three-day visit.

�From where I sit now, this is bipartisan American enthusiasm,� said Blackwill, who represented the United States in India from 2001-2003 and is now president of a Washington lobbying firm. �The next president will have it as well.�

He spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at the release of a study titled �India as a New Global Power.� Blackwill and other experts indicated that India�s nuclear weapons capability will be no hindrance to a strategic US relationship.

�I want to say now that the route (involving India) is changing. It�s not about to change or going to change; it is changing,� Blackwill said.

Asked his vision of the coming years, Blackwill said to pretend it is Jan. 20, 2007, Bush�s last day in office. This will have happened:

- At the United Nations, India will be a permanent member of the Security Council, supported by the United States.

- The United States will be providing assistance to India�s civilian nuclear program. The Bush administration said last month it was looking into the possibility of setting up nuclear power plants to help India deal with its electrical power shortage.

- The United States will be selling extensive stocks of weapons to India. That already began in March, when the Bush administration offered India modernized versions of the F-16 jet fighter.

- The United States and India will cooperate significantly in activities in space.

During the Cold War, India considered itself nonaligned - its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a founder of the Nonaligned Movement. For decades after its independence from Britain in 1947, however, it was much closer to the Soviet Union than to the United States.

The blossoming US-India relationship is one �nobody could have imagined 15 years ago; even 10 years ago,� said S. Enders Wimbush of Hudson Institute, another expert at the Carnegie Institute. He credited the convergence of US and Indian interests and India�s increased ability to counter a rising China as Asia�s dominant power.

Wimbush said in traveling through Asia he often hears comments about China�s potential to become too powerful. �No one wants to poke a stick at China,� but many leaders want the United States or others to rein in the Chinese juggernaut. And among the others mentioned, he said, �Increasingly, I�m hearing India.�