BUSH’S VISIT TO INDIA REVIEWED

[Guest guest]

UNITED STATES: PRESIDENT BUSH'S VISIT TO INDIA (2006) REVIEWED

 

by Dr. Subhash Kapila

 

Introductory Observations

 

President Bush's visit to South Asia was pre-viewed by this author in

his paper on the subject in the last week of February 2006 (SAAG

Paper No. 1708 dated 23.02.2006). The pre-view was summed in the

following words: "President Bush has a historic opportunity to set

the American record straight in South Asia in terms of strategic

priorities and preferences".

 

It was also stressed that the visit could have been a de-hyphenated

one in that, symbolically, an exclusive visit to India would have

added dramatic dimensions. So without waiting for his visit to

Pakistan, and then present a hyphenated review of the Presidential

visit to the Indian sub-continent, the present paper reviews

exclusively President Bush's visit to India in the first days of

March 2006.

 

The US President's visit to India was the cynosure of an intense

minute-by-minute coverage and intense analysis by the Indian

electronic media. There would be no point in a repetitive review.

 

The US-India nuclear deal emerged as the centre-piece of the visit

both in terms of expectations and concretization of those

expectations. It overshadowed all other agreements arrived at during

this visit, namely in the fields of space, high-technology,

agriculture and defence cooperation. For setting the stage for this

review, the US-India nuclear deal, marked by hard negotiations for

the last seven months, and even to the last minute, the following

could be summed as substantial achievements:

 

India

 

India-projected separation plan wins US approval. It entails placing

14 nuclear facilities on civil list and 8 nuclear facilities reserved

for military programme.

 

FBRs not on civil list.

 

Future supplies of uranium fuel to India assured on a permanent

basis.

 

India will determine which nuclear facilities will in future be

placed on civil or military lists and the latter exempted from

international safeguards.

 

India-specific safeguards will be discussed with IAEA.

 

India's separation plans will be executed in a phased manner from

2006-2014.

 

United States

 

USA views its gains in relation to its non-proliferation policy

objectives.

 

USA views that India, after 50 years, has now been brought into the

purview of international nuclear safeguards.

 

USA views it has gained by Indian responses in passing nuclear export

laws and Indian commitments to assist FMCT and a continued unilateral

moratorium on nuclear testing.

 

Further, the advantages accruing to India in light of the above can

be said to be:

 

India's global nuclear isolation will be ended.

 

Enabled implicit recognition of India as a de-facto nuclear weapons

power. There is a direct recognition of India as a "civilian nuclear

power."

 

India's strategic nuclear weapons programme remains untouched with

its designated military nuclear facilities not open to international

inspections. FBRs as a source of plutonium are untouched.

 

India can continue to build military reactors.

It is indisputable that despite agreeing to place 65% of its current

nuclear facilities under international safeguards, India has made the

most significant gain in not allowing its strategic nuclear weapons

programme to be impacted.

 

Debates will continue in the coming months on the minutiae of the

deal, until a full fledged agreement is approved by the US Congress.

However, the significance of the US-India nuclear deal needs to be

taken stock of immediately, as it has strategic ramifications. The

following needs to be reviewed.

 

United States Historic Affirmation of its Strategic Preferences in

South Asia.

 

The Geo-political Impact of US-India Civil Nuclear Deal.

 

United States Strategic Message.

United States Historic Affirmation of its Strategic Preferences in

South Asia

 

President Bush through his last minute intervention to get this deal

going has made his South Asian visit a historic one by setting the

record straight in terms of United States strategic priorities and

preferences in South Asia.

 

Pakistan would continue to be a blind-spot with US foreign policy

planners in their approaches to South Asia. But it is on India that

USA and President Bush have now placed their bets on in terms of

evolving an effective strategic partnership to ensure American

national security interests.

 

US Assistant Secretary of State, Nicholas Burns affirmed this in a

briefing on March 2, 2006, that the President views it as the

creation of a new strategic relationship and that it is the first

time since 1947, that the United States and India will have a full,

diverse, and a very broad economic, technological and scientific

cooperation.

 

The Geopolitical Impact of US-India Civil Nuclear Deal

 

The geo-political impact of this deal has to be viewed in three

contexts, namely, the global context, the Asian context and the South

Asian context.

 

In the global context, the message that is being sought to be given

by USA is:

 

USA recognizes India as a key global player both in the strategic

sense and the economic sense.

 

In recognition of the above, the United States concedes that as a

responsible power, both political and nuclear, it is conceding a de-

facto nuclear weapons power status to India.

 

India by presenting a separation plan respecting American strategic

and non-proliferation sensitivities is signaling that it is willing

to be co-opted as a strategic partner of USA in the global context.

In the Asian context, the United States seems to be saying that:

 

United States views India as a possible counter-weight to China's

economic and military rise.

 

India with comparable power attributes as those of China has the

potential to be built as an equal power.

 

The United States would assist India in building it as a competing

Asian power with China.

In the South Asian context through this deal, the United States is

signaling:

 

India is the preferred strategic power in South Asia, even though

Pakistan would be given attention. This more in the context of a

possible evolution of a moderate Muslim nation, however remote the

possibilities.

 

Deductively from the above, India is tacitly being recognized by

United States as South Asia's regional power.

United States Strategic Message

 

President Bush's core strategic message through this deal is that he

is committed to assist India's emergence as the South Asian regional

power, a competitive Asian power and a key global player.

 

The wide dimension of the other agreements arrived at during the

current visit is reflective of this strategic message.

 

This strategic message that USA views India as a valuable strategic

partner on the Asian and global stage stands reflected a few weeks

prior to his visit to India – The Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense

Review.

 

Concluding Observations

 

In 2000, this author had written that a US-India strategic

partnership was inevitable (SAAG Paper No. 120, dated 22/04/200),

The inevitable is now taking a more concrete shape.

 

President Bush deserves singular credit that having made his

intentions clear even before his election he has pursued the vision

of a strategic partnership with India in a sustained manner.

 

India needs to play its cards well and adroitly in the management of

its big power relationships. As Gurcharan Das aptly stated in a TV

interview yesterday, that India stood on the wrong side of history

for the last fifty years or so.

 

Concluding, therefore, one could say that India must exploit the

opportunity to stand on the right side of history.

 

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs

analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia

Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila)

http://saag.org/papers18/paper1716.html