---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ram Narayanan
From: Ram Narayanan
If you wish to respond to this message, do NOT hit the "Reply" button; please try ramn_wins@roadrunner.com
http://chellaney.net/2012/05/19/is-the-u-s-india-relationship-losing-steam/
Is the U.S.-India relationship losing
steam?
Posted on May 19, 2012 by chellaney
Brahma Chellaney
WASHINGTON — Was the U.S.-India strategic partnership oversold to the extent that it has failed to yield tangible benefits for the United States? Even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just held detailed discussions in New Delhi, an increasing number of analysts in Washington have already concluded that the overhyped relationship is losing momentum.
The skeptics cite two high-visibility issues in particular: India's rejection of separate bids by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. to sell 126 fighter-jets, and New Delhi's reluctance to snap energy ties with Iran. The discussion over these issues, however, obscures key facts.
.... deleted
Now the U.S. energy embargo against Iran has pushed international oil prices higher, significantly increasing India's oil bill. The embargo also threatens to undercut India's import-diversification strategy by making it place most of its eggs in the basket of the Islamist-bankrolling, Saudi Arabia-led oil monarchies that continue to play a role in South Asia detrimental to Indian interests. In fact, thanks to the U.S. embargo against Iran, the swelling coffers of the iron-fisted oil sheikhdoms are set to overflow, increasing their leverage in the region and beyond.
Lost in the U.S. public discussion is an important fact — the declining share of Iranian crude in India's total oil imports as part of a conscious Indian effort to reduce supply-disruption risks linked with the lurking potential for Iran-related conflict. Since 2008 alone, Iranian oil imports have swiftly fallen from 16.4 percent to 10.3 percent. Given India's soaring oil imports and search for new sources of supply, the Iranian share is set to decline further, even without India's participation in the U.S. embargo.
Make no mistake: India shares U.S. objectives on Iran but the exigencies of its regional situation compel it to toe a more cautious line.
The repositioning of the U.S.-India relationship was never intended to be transactional. Rather it was designed as an important geostrategic move to underpin Asian security and serve the long-term U.S. and Indian interests. But even if the relationship were viewed in transactional terms, the U.S. has reaped handsome dividends.
On Iran, the right course for U.S. policy would be to encourage India to continue reducing Iranian oil imports by granting it a waiver from American sanctions law — as Washington has to Japan and nine other countries — and by helping to finance the retrofitting of Indian refineries that presently have a technical capacity to process only Iranian oil.
More fundamentally, just as the Bush administration exaggerated the importance of a single deal with India, contending that the nuclear deal would be fundamentally transformative, it is an overstatement that the U.S.-India relationship today is losing momentum. The geostrategic direction of the relationship is irreversibly set — toward closer collaboration. Even trade between the countries has continued to grow impressively, from $9 billion in 1995 to $100 billion in 2011. While it is too much to expect a congruence of U.S. and Indian national-security objectives in all spheres, the two countries are likely to deepen their cooperation in areas where their interests converge, such as ensuring Asian power equilibrium.
Barack Obama had stroked India's collective ego by inviting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his presidency's first state dinner, leading to the joke that while China gets a deferential America and Pakistan secures billions of dollars in U.S. aid periodically, India is easily won over with a sumptuous dinner and nice compliments.
The mutual optimism and excitement that characterized the blooming U.S.-Indian ties during the Bush years, admittedly, has given way to more realistic assessments as the relationship has matured. Geostrategic and economic forces, however, continue to drive the two countries closer. Indeed, Obama's recent pivot to Asia has made closer U.S. strategic collaboration with India critical.
(c) The Japan Times, 2012
_________________________
If you wish to respond to this message, do NOT hit the "Reply" button; please try ramn_wins@roadrunner.com
Powered By PanWebMailer Version 2.0 © 2004-2005
http://chellaney.net/2012/05/19/is-the-u-s-india-relationship-losing-steam/
Is the U.S.-India relationship losing
steam?
Posted on May 19, 2012 by chellaney
Brahma Chellaney
WASHINGTON — Was the U.S.-India strategic partnership oversold to the extent that it has failed to yield tangible benefits for the United States? Even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just held detailed discussions in New Delhi, an increasing number of analysts in Washington have already concluded that the overhyped relationship is losing momentum.
The skeptics cite two high-visibility issues in particular: India's rejection of separate bids by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. to sell 126 fighter-jets, and New Delhi's reluctance to snap energy ties with Iran. The discussion over these issues, however, obscures key facts.
.... deleted
Now the U.S. energy embargo against Iran has pushed international oil prices higher, significantly increasing India's oil bill. The embargo also threatens to undercut India's import-diversification strategy by making it place most of its eggs in the basket of the Islamist-bankrolling, Saudi Arabia-led oil monarchies that continue to play a role in South Asia detrimental to Indian interests. In fact, thanks to the U.S. embargo against Iran, the swelling coffers of the iron-fisted oil sheikhdoms are set to overflow, increasing their leverage in the region and beyond.
Lost in the U.S. public discussion is an important fact — the declining share of Iranian crude in India's total oil imports as part of a conscious Indian effort to reduce supply-disruption risks linked with the lurking potential for Iran-related conflict. Since 2008 alone, Iranian oil imports have swiftly fallen from 16.4 percent to 10.3 percent. Given India's soaring oil imports and search for new sources of supply, the Iranian share is set to decline further, even without India's participation in the U.S. embargo.
Make no mistake: India shares U.S. objectives on Iran but the exigencies of its regional situation compel it to toe a more cautious line.
The repositioning of the U.S.-India relationship was never intended to be transactional. Rather it was designed as an important geostrategic move to underpin Asian security and serve the long-term U.S. and Indian interests. But even if the relationship were viewed in transactional terms, the U.S. has reaped handsome dividends.
On Iran, the right course for U.S. policy would be to encourage India to continue reducing Iranian oil imports by granting it a waiver from American sanctions law — as Washington has to Japan and nine other countries — and by helping to finance the retrofitting of Indian refineries that presently have a technical capacity to process only Iranian oil.
More fundamentally, just as the Bush administration exaggerated the importance of a single deal with India, contending that the nuclear deal would be fundamentally transformative, it is an overstatement that the U.S.-India relationship today is losing momentum. The geostrategic direction of the relationship is irreversibly set — toward closer collaboration. Even trade between the countries has continued to grow impressively, from $9 billion in 1995 to $100 billion in 2011. While it is too much to expect a congruence of U.S. and Indian national-security objectives in all spheres, the two countries are likely to deepen their cooperation in areas where their interests converge, such as ensuring Asian power equilibrium.
Barack Obama had stroked India's collective ego by inviting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his presidency's first state dinner, leading to the joke that while China gets a deferential America and Pakistan secures billions of dollars in U.S. aid periodically, India is easily won over with a sumptuous dinner and nice compliments.
The mutual optimism and excitement that characterized the blooming U.S.-Indian ties during the Bush years, admittedly, has given way to more realistic assessments as the relationship has matured. Geostrategic and economic forces, however, continue to drive the two countries closer. Indeed, Obama's recent pivot to Asia has made closer U.S. strategic collaboration with India critical.
(c) The Japan Times, 2012
_________________________
If you wish to respond to this message, do NOT hit the "Reply" button; please try ramn_wins@roadrunner.com
Powered By PanWebMailer Version 2.0 © 2004-2005
No comments:
Post a Comment