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| July 2010 Issue |
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The Fine Print
Bureaucratic bottlenecks restrict progress on Strategic Dialogue
By Balachandran Gopalan |
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The first Indo-US Strategic Dialogue took place in Washington on June 3 and the next dialogue is scheduled to take place in the first half of next year. Initial reactions to the results of this first strategic dialogue have been mixed. While the nine-page joint statement issued after the meeting was not surprising — optimistic about both the outcome of the dialogue and the future course of strategic partnership — analysts outside the government were not so enthusiastic about the outcome of the dialogue.
While there is no question that a strong relationship, even a strategic one, between two countries should go beyond the confines of only military security to include trade, agriculture, education, health and development as well as issues of global concern such as climate change, terrorism etc, nevertheless a strategic partnership must squarely address the security components of the bilateral relationship.
Some of the traditional military elements of a strategic partnership such as mutual assistance agreements and basing rights are absent in India-US relations and are unlikely to come about anytime in the near future. There are many other traditional security-related aspects that need to be addressed in a strategic partnership. To paraphrase the Joint Statement, they should not only continue, as strategic partners, to consult each other closely on regional and global developments but also remain ‘sensitive to each other’s security interests, even if they do not always agree with all the elements of the other’s security policies’.
For a variety of reasons, therefore, while the first inaugural high level Strategic Dialogue between India and the US was a welcome move in the direction of advancing India-US bilateral relationship, it would be unwise to expect too much, in fact even much, from the deliberations, for a variety of reasons.
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For one, it is not clear if both parties have been able to take effective measures to give meaning to the latter aspect of the above requirement for a strategic partnership namely, sensitive to the other’s security interests and policies. Thus while US is sensitive to the Iran issue and India about continued US military assistance to Pakistan, it is not clear if either has been able to convey through any meaningful action about its sensitiveness towards the other’s security concerns.
Secondly, neither country is clear yet in its own mind about the extent of their strategic partnership, even though the leaders of the two countries had committed to a strategic partnership as early as January 2001 and initiated the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP), in January 2004. They had agreed to expand cooperation in three specific areas: civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programmes, and high technology trade. While President Bush took a bold and successful initiative on the nuclear front, progress on the other two fronts has been very slow, with some minor and inconsequential changes made to relax the export control licensing process for India. The NSSP was declared closed by 2005.
The US has a range of classifications for countries with whom they have, or do not have, relations. First of all, there is NATO, which implies very close allies. Then there are the Major Non-NATO Allies (MNNAs). Fourteen countries that fall in this category enjoy some, if not all, exemptions from the Arms Export Control Act enjoyed by NATO members. The third category has six countries that have been designated by the US Secretary of State as terrorist-supporting countries. There is another classification — Friendly Foreign Countries — designated by the defence secretary for purposes of authorising joint defence R&D programmes. Finally, there are 12 lists of ‘Countries of Concern’ maintained by various US government agencies in addition to a classified list of ‘Countries of Concern’ maintained by the State Department.
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