Indo - US relations: From “Estranged Democracies” to “ Natural Allies”

Dennis Kux: ​“ … A half century relations between India and the US have been uneven
- on occasion friendly, sometimes hostile, but more often, just estranged.”
-Root cause can be found in the clash over national security issues
- Cold war rivalry
- US-Pakistan strategic partnership, Indo-Pak hyphenation policy of US
-Nuclear issue, blind eye towards pakistan.
There were many events that ensured the ties never took off for several years after
India gained Independence.
● 1948 - India had rejected American mediation in resolving the Kashmir dispute
with Pakistan that started immediately after Independence. It did not like the
partial approach of US. In jan 1948 when India took the Kashmir issue to the UN
for securing a peaceful settlement of the dispute, it expected that america would
support the legal accession of kashmir to india. Contrary to the expectations, US
supported Pakistan
● Further, India refused to follow American diktat not to recognise the 'Communist
China'. This despite the fact that the US assisted India with loans and free food in
the immediate period after Independence, to cope with an economy exploited for
decades by the British Raj.
● 1959 - Dwight D Eisenhower became the first US President to visit India, to take
bilateral ties forward. He, among other things, assured India that the US would
stand by the South Asian nation against Chinese Communist aggression.
● 1962 - The US stood by India during the 1962 India-China war, which the South
Asian nation eventually lost. The US dubbed China's action as "blatant Chinese
Communist aggression against India" and helped the country with arms and
ammunition, and civilian supplies. US saw in India a strategic partner.
● 1971 - Under President Richard Nixon's period, the ties reversed and hit a new
low when the US backed Pakistan during the 1971 war. The Nixon administration
had been helping India's foe by aiding it militarily and economically, and during
the 1971 war indirectly threatened India by deploying aircraft carrier USS
Enterprise in the Bay of Bengal. While Nixon's ties with Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi were nothing to talk about, India's decision to test a nuclear weapon at
Pokhran in 1974 further worsened relations.
● Ties between the two nations improved under the stewardship of President
Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Morarji Desai, whose government was
anti-Soviet Union. Carter even made a state visit to India.
● 1979 - Soviet intervention in Afghanistan - India criticised
● 1998 Nuclear test - ​However, in May, 1998, the decision of Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee's government to conduct nuclear tests at Pokhran saw the ties
 with the US return to a new low. Pakistan responded with its own nuke tests in
the same month. And, amid fears of a regional nuclear arms race, the US and
other western countries, including Japan, slapped wide-ranging sanctions against
India.
● In the 1999 Kargil war: the US supported India's response and pressured
Pakistan to withdraw its troops from the Indian territory across the Line of
Control.
● Bill clinton’s visit to india in march 2000 - announced partial easing of sanctions
imposed on India.
● 2001 - Indo-US strategic Partnership

Natural Allies - why?

● Compatible political economic ideology: both are democracies, market
economies
● India as a contributor to stable balance of power in Asia - potential counter to
balance the rising china
● A unilateral America and a revisionist India had a solid strategic fir in the post
cold war era.
C Raja Mohan - Impossible Allies
- India will neither be a dependent state nor will become a close ally like britain,
rather it is more likely to emerge as an asian france
- US has a “Habit to lead” and India has “ no experience of being a junior partner”,
inequality of power
- Indian is more likely to emerge as an Asian france: a state with which we have
many share interests, and even an alliance relationship, but one that sees the
world through its own prism to the US. However, shared interests do not mean
that india will subordinate its national interests.
Difference between both countries cannot be overlooked:
- India is a “sovereignty- conscious country”, while US has no history of sharing
leadership.
- Differential in raw power
- Competing national preferences
- Differences in negotiating styles and tactics
- Absence of any tradition of cooperation
- Diversity of domestic interests
- no experience of being a junior partner in alliance