India and the US - Implosion: India's Tryst with Reality - page 329

Relations improved in June 2005, when a 'New Framework for India-US Defence Rela-
tionship' was agreed, followed a month later by a visit to Washington by Manmohan Singh,
who was flattered and feted by Bush. The two leaders agreed to 'transform the relationship'
between their two countries, with discussions on trade, science, technology and other areas,
including defence. 13 Three years later, after many setbacks, this led on to the 2008 nuclear
deal. The nuclear potential was then stalled because India's parliament insisted on foreign
contractors taking a degree of liability for equipment failures, which was unacceptable in-
ternationally, especially for the US, which did not like India trying to re-write established
international rules.
It is arguable how much this matters overall because the deal was never really about en-
ergy, even though it was paraded by the Indian and US governments in those terms with
contract-hungry US nuclear power companies that used their lobbying clout and pushed for
it in Washington. Ultimately, the contractor liabilities issue will be solved - US officials in
favour of the deal hope this will happen soon because it would remove a negative point in
the relationship that is often cited by powerful India-sceptics in Washington. India will then
benefit long term from supplies of nuclear technology and uranium fuel from France, Rus-
sia and Australia as well as the US. Meanwhile a new 'Strategic Dialogue' was launched by
the two countries in July 2009, following on from the nuclear deal, and that led to a range
of consultations and links straddling subjects from counter-terrorism and space to clean en-
ergy and climate change, education and health.
Progress - and Myths
The relationship is still developing, sometimes bumpily, and it is not as deep as its sup-
porters would like to claim. India has learned that it can say 'no' to the US, for example,
by not breaking relations with Iran or with Myanmar (before both regimes softened their
stance in 2013 and 2012), and by voting against the US (and Israel) on Palestine's status in
the UN. 14 The US has learned - maybe with some surprise - that India is not prepared to
become an obedient ally, and that it will not dutifully follow American wishes on foreign
policy or on quickly opening up foreign investment regulations to hungry US companies.
Another show of India's independence came in April 2011 on a billion-dollar multi-role
combat aircraft fighter contract that the US had virtually assumed its companies would
eventually win until India short-listed Dassault of France and Eurolighter, not Lockheed
Martin or Boeing. 15 The US had, however, by mid2012 received defence orders approach-
ing $9bn over the previous ten years, with almost another $10bn in the pipeline, which
made defence the most active area of co-operation.
The positives were neatly listed by Hilary Clinton, then the US Secretary of State, at the
end of talks in India in July 2011. 16 'We have worked together for the important task of pre-