Has a strategic alliance been concluded between the United States and India?

Great Debates
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Bombs Rock a City Holy to Hindus, Killing at Least 15

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/i...r=1&oref=slogin

From outward appearances, a strategic decision has been made that India is ou
rlogical ally in the “long war” (as the administration has recently taken to calling the war formerly known as the Global War on Terror)

Consider India’s reward for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: Carte Blanche to aggregate new Nuclear Weapons–a unique franchise, not even exercised by the hegemon itself.

Contrast the receptions afforded Bush by India’s PM and Pakistan’s PM"s daughter…

Just to make things interesting, bombing is afoot in India, with at least a passing acknowledgement from Muslims that they are aggrieved by Bush’s visit.

Looking at the action around the Durand Line (Afghan-Pakistan Border) and the slurs thrown back and forth between Karzai and Musharref (nominally allies, no?), might a prudent commander in chief not think to himself, “Hm, if that Musharref is deposed, I better have a friendly country in mind to stage from, especially with Iran in my sights…India has already fought a war with China, our challenge in waiting, and they are certainly relliably anti-pakistani if that country turns on us. Why not let them have all the nukes they can build, up to a point?”"

Has a deal been done? Is it a good thing geo-politically.? It is frightening to contemplate anything that would inflame intercommunal tension in India, where more muslims live than anywhere else in the world. (nb:the cite mentions the Gujurat Train Arson but fails to point out that dozens of people were intentionally burnt alive in that incident–there is, let us say, a lot of history here…)

If today’s bombings are the foundation of yet another cascade of out of control and over the top intercommunal conflict that has marked the cartoon controversy, et al, an already parlous world will surely grow exponentially so.

I would submit that for Bush openly to embrace India’s nuclear future was a reckless act in a variety of ways,. not the least the potential ramifications in the struggle for hearts and minds.

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Yes, I think Bush has made it quite clear that the US wants to consider India a strategic as well as a commercial partner. Although I am troubled by certain aspects of global trade liberalization as well as the implications for nuclear non-proliferation, I think that this is overall a good and timely idea, and I give Bush some credit for pursuing it. (However, the negative consequences with respect to Pakistan might be serious.)

No, I don’t think that this is seriously going to alter the balance of power between India and Pakistan, unless Musharraf is deposed/assassinated. India has been dealing with the border war and with internal communal violence for a long time; I don’t think this setup, or the recent atrocious bombings, are going to change any of India’s policies.

IMO the terrorists behind the Varanasi bombings are hoping to stir things up in Pakistan more than India. They want to magnify an image of India as an anti-Muslim hostile power and as a US lackey, in order to push Pakistan away from its official anti-terror and US-ally stance. What the bastards are hoping for, if you ask me, is that Indian Hindus will respond to the bombings with anti-Muslim violence that will enrage Pakistanis.

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i think you correct on virtually all points; alas, I would have to put the likelihood of restraint from the bjp and its ilk at a very low fraction of one. Ayodhya is, of course, the location of prior revanchist (if that term can be applied to religions) temple razings.

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  • Musharraf is deposed/assassinated*

as we go out further in time, given the steady ratcheting up of tension and no real prospect for a US victory in the frontier areas, isn’t M. essentially doomed, merely as a matter of time?

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Mosque razing, right? It was the 16th-c. Babri Mosque in Ayodhya that was destroyed by BJP militants in 1992. If there actually was originally a Hindu temple on that site, which appears unlikely, its destruction took place centuries ago.

I wouldn’t count on it.

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Of course “the BJP and its ilk” are not in charge of the federal government now, the Congress party is. And aside from a few of the more hardcore members, I doubt they’ll do anything to stir up violence, since after the mosque incident they were booted from the state government in the next elections.

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I should amend. Either party has been known to use religious violence to score political points in the past. I’m not sure they can afford to do so in the future, since there are political reprocussions both domestically and internationally for them doing so.

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On further thought. It’s 50/50 that some politician will use this latest round to stir up something. Hopefully, the federal government will be on it and stop it immediately.

As for the OP, I’m not really sure what it is your wanting to debate. It’s pretty obvious that the Bush administration has been trying to tilt US foreign policy to a more neutral or even pro-India stance for awhile. The nuclear deal I think it completely short-sighted.

But you seem to think this deal will lead to a general cycle of violence in the Muslim world? That seems dubious to me. South Asian politics seem to operate in a sphere of their own. I’ve never gotten the impression that very many people in the middle east give any thought to the India-Pakistan conflict. And India tends to crack down on inter-religious violence relatively quickly, depending on the state. Unless there’s a nation-wide spasm of violence, I don’t really see this as escalating out of control of the government. If it ends quickly enough, then I don’t see it spilling into other Muslim areas of the world.

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India never signed the Nuclear Non-proflieration treaty. Therefore they can’t violate it.

The only hearts and minds that would be seriously affected by this deal in any way are in India. I doubt Muslims would be too shocked to hear that the US has gone so far as to have a certain standard for one country and an entirely different standard for another country on the same issue.

Indians, on the other hand, are in a much different position than the US as a slowly rising global power. The small border war India fought with China was forty years ago. In addition, given India’s relatively friendly relations with Iran, many Indians are wondering whether they want to antagonize China, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries by concluding an open and broad alliance with the US. Except for US military hardware, which India will soon get anyway, India would not gain that much particularly since the US continues to supply and support Pakistan.

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Or non-proliferation for that matter.

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Democratic, multicultural, English-speaking ndia strikes me as much more of a “natural” ally for the US than rule-by-coup, Muslim dominated, non-English-speaking Pakistan. That said, I don’t see why the US can’t function as an ally of BOTH nations in anything short of all-out war, trying to influence both away from all-out-war and toward generally progressive policies.

Of course, the Bush admin. is pretty much for war and against progress, so that does pose a problem.

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Nitpick: India is “English-speaking” in that about 5% of its population can speak English, it has historical ties with British colonial rule, and English is designated as one of its national languages. Pakistan also has a few percent English speakers, has historical ties with British colonial rule, and uses English as an official administrative language.

However, India has a much larger total population, meaning a much larger raw number of English speakers, and has somewhat better average educational achievement.

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Why are we framing this as an alliance against Middle Eastern nations?

India is also a logical ally against Red China.

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  • I’ve never gotten the impression that very many people in the middle east give any thought to the India-Pakistan conflict*

i think the old paradigms vis-a-vis the tendency for co-religionists to raise locally the banner that first arises from some remote insult have been fractured, first by cable news, then by the internet.

Surely the cartoon crisis can be seen as the Satanic Verses brouhaha cubed; The reverberation of the israeli-palestinian issue, of course, is endemic whereever any other intercommunal irritant is felt, etc.

I hesitate to rely for future tranquility upon the previously recorded local character of these conflicts

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Should we rename this thread:

Bubba Smiles? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Why? I mean, what real conflicting interests do India and China have?

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Umm…besides the fact that they’ve almost gone to war several times since the 50s?

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Well, they’ll both need women, considering the large-scale female infanticide practiced by their populations.

19

I knew that, but I’ve never been clear on why.

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Border issues. When the British drew the MacMahon line, it included a sizeable chunk of what China claims as being part of Tibet ( i.e. most of Arunchal Pradesh ) as being part of India. India declared it the border after independence, China declared it an illegal occupation and there it sits ( albeit at much reduced tension these days ).

It was a sufficient sore spot to provoke an actual shooting war ( albeit a minor and highly localized one ) in 1962, in which India got completely thrashed. Which may have been a good thing for India, because it caused them to seriously overahaul their military which subsequently performed considerably better a few years later in the more serious Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

  • Tamerlane