U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue: What Not To Do

Secretary of State John F. Kerry is in New Delhi for the annual U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue.  He’s receiving plenty of good advice (examples here, here and here) on what he and Salman Khurshid, the Indian foreign minister, can do to energize the nascent strategic partnership that just a few years ago looked so promising but which now is stuck in a rut.  But Mr. Kerry might make greater progress in firming up the bilateral relationship if he is guided by a “not to do” list.

This is Mr. Kerry’s first visit to India since assuming his new role a few months ago.  He will arrive in New Delhi without his predecessor’s well-known sentimental attachment to the country and disadvantaged by Indian suspicions (here and here) that he cares more for Pakistan as well as broader concerns that his real focus is the Middle East and not Asia.  Also not helping matters are Indian misgivings over a 2011 speech, which came to light during Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing, in which he accused New Delhi of using Afghanistan as a “second front” against Pakistan.  The BBC quoted an Indian official four months ago as saying that “the jury is still out on Kerry and Hagel.”

On the other hand, developments in the last two months might make New Delhi more receptive to offers of deeper geopolitical cooperation than it was when then-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta visited a year ago.  The first of these events is the three-week military standoff between India and China in the Ladakh region of Kashmir in April.  Although the incident was resolved without violence and even had the feel of a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, it came at a time when New Delhi was still smarting over the 50^th anniversary of the 1962 Himalayan border war with Beijing.  The impact became clear during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan last month, when both countries moved to deepen their security relations as a hedge against Chinese strategic behavior.  At a time when Beijing is trying to isolate Tokyo regionally, Mr. Singh declared that “India and Japan have a shared vision of a rising Asia” and that “We have shared interests in maritime security.”  The agreement to hold regular naval exercises between the two countries was an unambiguous rebuke to China.

Add to this reports that Singh will visit Washington in the coming months, and it appears that New Delhi just may be warming up to the Panetta overtures for closer strategic collaboration as well as the exhortations by Hillary Clinton two years ago that India play a more prominent role in East Asia.

To be sure, New Delhi’s deeply-rooted desire for foreign policy autonomy places real limits on just how closely India will align itself with the United States.  But this doesn’t mean that Washington can do little to enhance the likelihood of greater security cooperation.  Indeed, two essential things come immediately to mind: 1.) Don’t pull an Iraq in Afghanistan; and 2.) Don’t backtrack on the much-ballyhooed strategic re-focus on Asia.

India: Asia’s Geopolitical Sweetheart

Economic doldrums mean that India is not much of a destination for global investors nowadays and the flight of foreign capital is depressing the rupee’s value to record lows vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar.  Even domestic investors prefer to put their money elsewhere.  The country was the toast of the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, with “India Everywhere” emblazoned throughout the conference halls and a Bollywood extravaganza staged as the main social event.  But it was relegated to the sidelines at this year’s gathering.*

Nonetheless, as a series of developments in recent weeks prove, New Delhi is emerging as an important pivot point on Asia’s geopolitical stage.

India and Pakistan: Dangers Ahead for the Revived Spirit of Lahore

Nawaz Sharif’s return to the helm in Islamabad is sparking optimism that a more stable and constructive India-Pakistan relationship is in the offing.  But South Asia is a rough-and-tumble neighborhood that regularly eviscerates the best of intentions.  Indeed, given the potent brew of pernicious forces acting on bilateral affairs – contiguous but bitterly contested territory, sharp historical animosities, internal frailties vulnerable to outside exploitation, and conflicting national identities – the real wonder is why outright conflict isn’t even more prevalent.

Much has been made of the precedent Sharif set during his last stint as prime minister, when he hosted a landmark summit meeting in Lahore in early 1999 with his then Indian counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.  The resulting Lahore process gave rise to hopes that a fundamentally new era in bilateral affairs was at hand, though it quickly expired when the Kargil mini-war broke out a few months later.  But Sharif has now resurrected its spirit, calling the Lahore process “the roadmap that I have for improvement of relations between Pakistan and India.”

Less noticed but worth noting how Punjab province, Sharif’s political base, stands to benefit from increased trade ties with India.  This is particularly so for the Punjab-dominated textiles sector that is the country’s largest manufacturing industry.  It’s relevant, too, that his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the province’s chief minister, last year effusively suggested the creation of free trade zones aimed at fostering bilateral exchange and the opening up of supply-chain links between the port city of Karachi and the Indian states of Rajasthan and Punjab.  He also proposed establishing a common market along the lines of the European Union – something that Manmohan Singh, the current Indian prime minister, has also famously advocated – and declared that the two countries should now concentrate on waging “a war of economic competition and excellence.”