US security strategy reaffirms ties with India

United States President Barack Obama's first National Security Strategy, unveiled in Washington, DC, on Thursday has reaffirmed that the US is building a strategic partnership with India (the US-India strategic dialogue begins next week) and has included India with other '21st century influencers.'

The 52-page document, in a section on building relationships with these '21st century influencers,' also lauds what it describes as 'India's responsible advancement' and holds it up as a template to developing nations, saying that India and these so-called global 'influencers' provides 'an opportunity for increased economic, scientific, environmental, and security partnership."

The NSS, which compares India favourably with China, although Beijing is given thrice as much or more ink in the document than is New Delhi, nonetheless says, "We value India's growing leadership on a wide array of global issues, through groups such as the G-20, and will seek to work with India to promote stability in South Asia and elsewhere in the world."

The report, mandated by Congress requires the president to provide both the US House and Senate with an annual strategy statement -- although past presidents have hardly kept to their mandate, with former president George W Bush providing only two such reports in his two-terms.

Both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama's National Security Adviser Retd Gen Jim Jones in separate appearances at the Brookings Institution and the Foreign Press Center respectively, in reinforcing the contents of the report, also acknowledged India as one of the 'Big Three' with Russia and China that the US wants to cultivate as strategic partners. 

Clinton in her remarks bemoaned, "There's too often kind of dismissal of dialogue or of creating some ongoing diplomatic framework in which to discuss a whole range of issues."

"I happen to be a big believer," she said. "I  think that deepening our engagement with key countries like Russia, China, India and others gives us a better understanding and also to our counterparts."

Clinton said, "It also puts the relationship on a broader framework than just the usual hotspot crisis, emergency that then marshals everybody's attention. And we have seen how just in this last year, using those dialogues has helped to address some serious common problems, but it has also helped to keep the relationship on an even keel going forward."

She said, "We have, as you know, built on the work of prior administrations with respect to China," and pointed out that "now have probably the biggest exchange of government officials and sharing of insights that we have ever had, not only with China, but probably with any country."

"We took over 200 American government officials to Beijing for the second round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue," which took place last month, she added.

Clinton, who will co-chair the US-India Strategic Dialogue with India's External Affairs Minister Washington, DC, this week, said this would be "the first time that we've had a ministerial strategic dialogue."

Jones, echoing Clinton's sentiments about developing strong alliances, said, "By expanding cooperation with 21st century centers of influence, such as Russia, with which we have reset relations, we've agreed to a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and forged cooperation on issues ranging from Afghanistan to Iran."

With India, Jones predicted, "Our growing relationship will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century," and then, in what some analysts believe very soon could be the new zero-sum game in Asia, vis-à-vis US policy towards New Delhi and Beijing, the senior Obama aide said, with China "we have forged a strategic and economic dialogue to advance mutual interests on areas such as global economic recovery and nonproliferation."