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DIPLOMACY:
INDO-US RELATIONS
Hang
On Folks
With domestic
issues dominating Bush's agenda, he may take a while to focus on India.
By C.K.
Arora in Washington DC and Raj
Chengappa in Delhi
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HIS MAN: Bush is relying heavily on his advisers on foreign policy
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Washington's
Beltway wisdom has it that whenever a new President
assumes office, it is "never a friendly takeover". With over
3,000 jobs changing hands in the US Government, including those in the
State Department which oversees foreign relations, there is rarely any
clarity as to the direction in which the new administration is heading.
In President George W. Bush's case, with the legitimacy of his election
victory still being debated, the guessing game is going to be even more
drawn out. In his inaugural address this past week, marred by bone-chilling
wintry winds, Bush talked largely of striving to "build a single
nation".
Foreign-policy
watchers, including those from India, groaned. For it meant that the first
few months may see Bush preoccupied with domestic issues and it would
take a while before he looked abroad. Their apprehensions are heightened
because Bush, despite being the son of a former president and having studied
at Harvard, is possibly among the least travelled US presidents in recent
times. He is said to have been abroad only thrice in his 54 years and
his palpable lack of knowledge of foreign affairs has made divining what
Bush may do a hazardous profession.
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KEY
PLAYERS: Powell (above) and Rice (below) indicated a continuity
in Indo-US relations
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What the
President has done so far is put together a core team that looks a lot
like papa Bush's. The legitimate fear: will Bush see the world through
advisers who were more adept at Cold War stratagems than the new millennium's
realpolitik? Secretary of State General Colin Powell, the Gulf War hero,
was, however, quick to dispel such notions, telling the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee that the Bush presidency would propound "a distinctly
American internationalism". Powell made it clear that while there
was going to be "continuity" in foreign policy, US engagement
in the affairs of the rest of the world would be based on clearly articulated
"national interests". So under Bush, America may not be eager
to play the supercop wherever a crisis occurred as Clinton had tended
to do. Overall though, early indications are that the changes would be,
as a former State Department official says, more "in the accent and
the nuances rather than any dramatic differences with the policy followed
by Clinton".
For India,
Powell indicated there would be continuity in the sea change in relations
that Clinton had put into place in the dying days of his eight-year rule.
He said, "We need to work harder and more consistently to assist
India." But before the cheer got too loud, Powell added, "While
not neglecting our friends in Pakistan." However, Bush's advisers
have made it clear that the new administration is not going to have the
old "hyphenated" relationship in the subcontinent of speaking
of Pakistan in the same breath as India. They have assured Indian policymakers
that America's continued interests in Pakistan is to ensure that it does
not become "a failed state" and go the Afghanistan way.
Powell is
no novice to India. He has known the country first as an aide to former
defense secretary Casper Weinberger and then as national security adviser
in the Reagan administration. After the Gulf War, he paid a "stealth
visit" to both India and Pakistan to familiarise himself with the
region. After he took charge, Powell reportedly spent two hours avidly
listening to the briefing of the State Department's South Asia division.
According to Karl Inderfurth, the outgoing assistant secretary of state,
"The time and attention that Powell is paying to all regions, including
South Asia, are indications that he will be an activist secretary of state."
Yet there are concerns that India may not be a priority area for Bush
and could remain, to borrow a phrase from former under-secretary of state
for political affairs Thomas Pickering, "on the backside of the globe"
in US foreign policy.
"I
hope President Bush will be somewhat more engaged with India," says
Stephen P. Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He also
hopes that the new President will be persuaded to make separate visits
to India and Pakistan in the first two or three years of his administration.
Ambassador Teresetta Schaffer, director of the South Asia programme at
the Center for Strategic & International Studies, talks of India's
economic potential and strong growth, especially in the infotech sector,
and feels that these will not allow Delhi to go off Washington's radar
screen.
Possibly
the good news is that given the Republican aversion to signing the CTBT-the
Senate had already rejected signing it-pressure on India on its nuclear
ambitions may ease. There is hope too that Bush may find it easier to
lift the stifling sanctions on technology transfer that Clinton had imposed
soon after the 1998 Pokhran tests. Newly appointed National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, though an expert on Russian affairs, has recently made
some positive remarks about India, acknowledging its role as a regional
power. But India is also aware that nuclear non-proliferation would continue
to be the cornerstone of US foreign policy. Bush, therefore, may not let
the country off the nuclear hook. Happily for India, Bush made it clear
that he isn't going to pander to China as much as Clinton did.
Policies
apart, a great deal would depend on persons holding key positions in the
US administration. As is the tradition, there is going to be a major overhaul
of the South Asian desk and the new appointees will determine the nitty-gritty
of US policy. Also a new ambassador to India will replace Richard Celeste.
India has already announced that Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh will
replace Naresh Chandra as ambassador when he retires in March. It should
not take long for Mansingh to find his feet. For he had worked in Washington
as deputy chief of the Indian mission for three years in the early 1990s.
Reassuringly, India has plenty of friends in the newly formed Republican-dominated
Congress. The Congressional Caucus on India, a bipartisan grouping, has
124 members, the largest on Capitol Hill. Yet India may have to wait till
summer to know which way the Bush wind will truly blow.
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