India has allowed the US to carry its charade of a 'strategic partnership' a bit too far. Allowing itself to be co-opted in a sham exercise can have disastrous long-term consequences for the nation, argues Rajiv Singh

Last year, in July, Hillary Clinton spelled out the nature of the strategic dialogue the two nations would embark upon as being based upon five pillars, such as areas of strategic importance, agriculture, healthcare, science and technology and education.

The sheer banality of the formulation made everybody yawn out loud and forget the 'strategic agenda' even as the lady was through mentioning it.

Certainly, nobody felt enthused enough to question the charming lady as to what should constitute 'normal' dialogue, if matters such as agriculture, healthcare, science and technology and education were elevated to the 'strategic' level.

After all agriculture, healthcare science and technology and education are normal bread and butter stuff that all governments talk to each other about on a routine basis. One would assume there's more to government-to-government interaction than mere validation of traveller visas.

It would now appear that even Washington realises that the sham of the so-called Indo-US 'strategic partnership' is being carried out in too slipshod a manner.

In a 29 May report from Washington, a PTI correspondent quoted assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia, Robert Blake, as saying, ''The main purpose of the next week's Indo-US strategic dialogue here is to think big and think strategically and not to focus much on deliverables.''

"There will be deliverables; I don't want to talk about the deliverables now. But we are really not focused that much on deliverables.

''The purpose of this dialogue is really to think strategically and, again, to get the key people who work on these issues together to think ahead to the (US) president's visit and to think strategically about what we can do," Blake said.

"It's not so much to have a review of all the things that we have done. We know what we have done. It's really to think ahead.''

Apparently, when the ''defining relationship'' of the 21st century was announced last year in a big hurry, some folks forgot that ''big thinking'' and ''strategic thinking'' remained to be done.

The tendency of the Delhi establishment to persist with policy patterns that are patently designed to take the country for a ride is a very dangerous one and needs to be questioned by all politically- neutral Indians. This pathetic charade – the so-called Indo-US 'strategic dialogue'- now promises to strip away the last shreds of dignity that Delhi's UPA government may have retained in its foreign policy options.

The reasons for the cynical policy play deployed by the Americans are not too difficult to fathom, but certainly Delhi's wholesale capitulation to Washington's compulsions is rather difficult to understand.

Beating a retreat
In the course of the bitterly contested 2008 American presidential elections it had become an article of faith for the Democrats that they would exit Iraq at the very earliest. No other issue had given them as much political capital as this unpopular war. But exiting Iraq at the earliest would also have left an indelible impression around the world that Pax Americana was now in full-scale retreat - buffeted by unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a domestic economy that was in a tailspin.

A stand had to be made, lines had to be drawn and the finger was pointed at Afghanistan. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama pilloried Republican George Bush for ensuring that the United States "had taken our eye off the ball" by invading Iraq instead of concentrating on Afghanistan and promised to increase troop levels in this land-locked nation even as he drew down force levels in Iraq.

The promise ensured that Obama would not be perceived to be a wimp by members of the American National Rifle Association, whose guns are more precious to them than their wives, and that American commitment to the Global War on Terror (GWOT) would not be lessened in any way.

But in making this commitment he also made an implicit promise – he would exit Afghanistan at the very earliest and would not repeat his predecessor's mistake in getting bogged down in an unwanted war. Of course, he reassured his constituents, all this would be done in consonance with the advice of his force commanders and the ground realities, etc.

"I'm not here to lay out a comprehensive military strategy," Obama said in 2008 with respect to Afghanistan. "That's the job of our commanders on the ground. I can tell you what our strategic goals should be. They should be relatively modest. We shouldn't want to take over the country. We should want to get out of there as quickly as we can and help the Afghans govern themselves and provide for their own security."

In keeping with this overall strategy, force reductions in Iraq were speeded up to the point that Pentagon generals could point out in February 2010 that not only was the plan to remove combat troops in Iraq on schedule, it was actually ahead of schedule.

By late May 2010, the Pentagon said more US forces were serving in Afghanistan than in Iraq - at 94,000 and 92,000 respectively. These would increase to 98,000 by the end of the year and keep increasing till de-escalation began in mid-2011.

Indeed, it is a truism that any American president's foreign policy is basically an extension of his domestic policies.

Even as leaders around the world, particularly in the NATO constellation and the central Asian and Indian sub-continent regions, look at Afghanistan through the prism of their own perceptions and tell the Americans how long they ought to remain engaged here the fact is that Barack Obama has miles to go and promises to keep - for his domestic constituents. After all, they have voted him into office, not NATO, India or Pakistan.

Nobody likes body bags coming home and neither does Obama. According to reliable counts America suffered its 1,000th fatality this month in Afghanistan. With a bellicose Taliban and a recalcitrant Pakistan Army establishment gearing up for further escalation of combat in the coming weeks and months, the flow of body bags is only set to increase.

Obama's America, today, is in the economic doldrums and has no use for wars and enterprises that further inflate the out-of-control budget deficit. Such is the predicament of the administration that the chief mission these days of a Republican Party hold-back in the administration like Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, is to convince overzealous congressmen on Capitol Hill to cut back on the defence spend.

Unstated and low key it may be, but a drawdown of American power is already in progress.

The fact remains that the glory days of American power projection are over. A bankrupt nation cannot continue to pretend to be a super power if its very existence is dependent on foreign nations - including arch enemy, China - buying its debt to help keep its economy afloat.

America will fight in Afghanistan, strictly as long as it is necessary – it can no longer afford the luxury of hanging around the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan to prove a point that as a super power it is not a spent force.

Winding down fast in Iraq, where he is ahead of schedule - and escalating in Afghanistan, as per promise, it also stands to reason he will seek to de-escalate here, as per promise. Global or regional concerns, accordingly, can go take a jump.

The road to Islamabad
The bad news for India was evident even before the Obama administration was sworn in. As policy formulators for the new administration put on their thinking caps in late 2008, soon after the US presidential elections delivered a landslide win for Barack Obama, and focused hard on foreign policy objectives it was evident to them that as far as national and international security issues were concerned they would have to stick to the script as laid out in Obama's presidential campaign. These had gone down well with the voters and were reasonable enough formulations.

In the campaign the president's publicly stated priorities were that engagement in Iraq had to be wound down fast and that in Afghanistan ratcheted up. The crucial difference from the Bush era would be that Afghanistan would not be allowed to become another Iraq and disengagement would begin even as troop deployment was approaching its peak.

This was an effective way of convincing the voters, already reeling under the impact of a collapsing economy and the war in Iraq, that the Democratic administration would unwind all of George Bush's vastly unpopular initiatives.

If Afghanistan was the new focus then obviously Pakistan assumed centrality - for all the strings that manipulated the puppets in this landlocked country originated in this nation - its army establishment in particular.

Islamabad, accordingly, was deemed a priority that superseded all others.

This implied that Delhi would now be told to play second fiddle to Pakistan and its sovereign concerns were of no consequence – it could like it or lump it.

Bruce Riedel, the man who chaired a special inter-agency committee in 2009 to develop Barack Obama's policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, had this to say in a recent interview with the Council for Foreign Relations: ''...I think the Pentagon understands that Pakistan is crucially important to the logistics of our war in Afghanistan; more than three-quarters of everything that we shoot, drink, and eat in Afghanistan arrives via Karachi. And second, that Pakistani cooperation against the Taliban, against al-Qaeda is absolutely essential. We cannot win this struggle without Pakistani support. So it's bringing the Pakistanis onto our side 100 per cent and that is the ultimate challenge here.''

Baldly stated by the policy maker himself, it should now be amply clear that Delhi's sensibilities, as far as Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, or anything else for that matter was concerned, were of little or no consequence for the about to be sworn-in Obama administration.

Bush's policy outreach, in bringing India out of nuclear hibernation and pulling it onto the world's centre stage, was a game changer. The initiative was about to receive the third degree by an administration that was very clear about where it was headed.

Delhi was yesterday's news. All roads now led to Islamabad.

Making the elephant dance
A string of policy 'leaks' followed, making public new policy formulations.

There would be a plenipotentiary, Richard Holbrook, who would play overlord in the region. Pakistan would be offered just about everything, civil and military, that could be provided without having the US Congress rising in revolt and the Indians breaking relations altogether.

It may be mentioned here that Delhi gave Holbrook's vice-regal pretensions the short shrift -but this was about the only worthwhile resistance it managed to put up.

Such was the desperation, or the determination, of Obama's policy drafters that even a hot potato like Kashmir was put on the table as a diplomatic counter to be brought into play should India decide not to behave. Leaks then suggested - and now, of course, it is openly bandied about by the state department - that India and Pakistan should resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir.

Such cynical assertions were calculated to stir up trouble in the Kashmir Valley and put India on the defensive. Separatist forces, concentrated primarily in and around Srinagar, took the cue that no less a power than the USA was now an active player in the game and a vastly heightened separatist-linked violence has been evident ever since. Also on cue, Jihadist / terrorist organisations located on Pakistani soil doubled their efforts to infiltrate into the valley.

It's a different story that Delhi and the state government in Srinagar have managed to control violence levels in the valley through a vastly more efficient security management system. A jihadi surge, particularly along the Line of Control, has been checked with near-daily intercepts of infiltrating terrorists.

A series of calculated snubs soon followed the policy 'leaks', which, more or less, have continued to this day.

The outgoing Bush administration had suggested that amongst the very first engagements with other nations that an incoming administration should make ought to be India.

In a manner that even suggested an element of vindictiveness at undermining one of the rare policy successes of the Bush administration, this piece of advice was given the cold shoulder and newly installed secretary of state Hillary Clinton did the rounds of a few nations that were publicly declared to be to be old and new allies.

India figured as neither.

India was soon informed publicly that it would have to ensure troop reductions in Kashmir and its western borders so that close ally Pakistan would shift troops to the tribal areas where they were actually needed.

The Delhi establishment, under one guise or another, obliged.

Delhi's role in Afghanistan was constantly brought under question, in sync with Pakistani susceptibilities, and American military officials keep arguing to this day that Indian involvement in Afghanistan causes unnecessary tensions in Islamabad and that its role in this country ought to be curtailed.

Not much headway has been made by the Obama administration in this regard - probably the realisation has sunk in that India and all things Indian are more popular with the Afghans than the Pakistanis or the Americans.

The biggest snub was delivered from - of all places - Beijing, when a joint communiqué issued at the end of Barack Obama's first visit to China, called on the Chinese to play an active role in reducing tensions in South Asia. If anything, this vicious snub ought to have told Delhi a few things it was still pretending not to know.

The overlordship denied to Holbrook was handed over to Beijing.

Incredibly, such crudity still drew mild protestations from Delhi which was quickly assuaged through some adroit word play.

Success of the appease-Pakistan policy demanded that both nations be yoked together into 'peace talks' so that unnecessary confrontations were avoided and the Pakistan Army went ahead with the job that it was being asked to do.

The disaster at Sharm-el-shaikh followed where a Delhi, desperate to appease, gave away so much that a public backlash in India forced an overly anxious US administration to mark time before it could seek another bout of 'peace engagements'. This was achieved at Thimphu.

Of course, by now the whole process stands thoroughly discredited and exposed in public eye as a US-inspired move that is devoid of any credibility.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh's much-hyped state visit to Washington was another clear indicator how cynically the whole game was played out. Scratch their heads hard as they might not one analyst or commentator of any persuasion has been able to pinpoint one achievement of note from that trip. About the only talking point remained the state dinner and the seating arrangements.

Going through the statements issued at the joint press briefing by both the leaders is an instructive exercise. While the Indian PM devotes at least two, if not three paragraphs, of a brief statement to the nature of the 'security related' or 'strategic' discussions he has just held with his US counterpart, Obama's statement is devoid of the word 'security'. It is as if both of them sat at different meetings.

There is another dinner, full of 'significance' being offered to the Indian delegation headed for the 'strategic talks' this week, when Obama apparently will drop in at the state department hosted dinner for the Indian foreign minister SM Krishna.

It is likely that by the time this administration is through with its first term, India will have been fed the maximum number of dinners amongst all nations – of course, each one more 'significant' than the previous one.    

The undeclared war
The David Coleman Headley episode is another indicator how cynically indifferent the Washington establishment can be to Indian concerns. Access to this goon is being granted only after the Indian media got rather active questioning American motives. Of course, for Washington it's all about the ''extraordinary'' co-operation that both sides are exhibiting these days.

The fact of the matter is that this Jihadi goon knows the players from the ISI / Pakistan Army who are directly involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attack. The Mumbai attack is all about the undeclared war that Pakistan has been waging against the Indian state for decades. It is part of its declared boast of "inflicting a thousand cuts."

Headley's expose of the players actually involved in the Mumbai and other attacks will blow away the fig-leaf that the attack was a game played out by non-state actors, such as the LeT and that Pakistan is not involved in a proxy war against India. The implications are too serious. Headley would involve the Pakistan Army and the resulting trouble, as India seeks accountability, will be an unacceptable fall-out - for the Americans.

Time to check the UPA
The fact of the matter is that Washington is in a forced march mode, where policy objectives for this part of the region have been laid down and India identified as potentially the biggest obstacle that cannot be allowed to do anything that upsets the American applecart.

Since India is no banana republic and a bit too big, and a bit too powerful, to be handled like one, charades such as 'strategic partnerships'' are now being played out. Hopefully, for Washington, gullible folks will swallow all that is on offer, egos will be appeased and policy objectives will be attained.

This elephant too will be made to dance. In this it has not been disappointed as the Indian elephant appears quite inclined to do the foxtrot when asked just to shuffle. It certainly has swallowed enough insults, snubs and indifference that would have made even a banana republic squirm out of its skin.

The charade of the Indo-US strategic dialogue tells us that Delhi is now hell-bent on pursuing policies that degrade the country's prestige and are an insult to its citizens who have borne Pakistan's undeclared war with patience and an extraordinary degree of stoicism.

A majority in the Parliament, whether real or acquired, does not mean that it can play with their sentiments or barter away the nation's prestige, indefinitely.