Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
relationship had been in the past, and suggested that the two countries had yet to
agree upon a common vision for the future. Cooperation in the fields of
biotechnology and civil aviation, telecommunications and health care, no matter
how promising, is not the stuff of 'strategic partnership.'
Moreover, major differences over nuclear issues persisted—symbolized in the
US hope that India would become a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), and New Delhi's reluctance to do so. Thomas Pickering, US
undersecretary of state and a former ambassador to India, candidly summarized
the administration's priorities when he noted that the United States would not be
able to upgrade military ties with India in any significant fashion 'until there is
substantial progress on nonproliferation'.
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Clinton's public designation of the subcontinent as 'the most dangerous place
in the world', and the resentment this statement occasioned in India, also
illustrated the differing perceptions in the two capitals and the obstacles
impeding the establishment of a broad and deep bilateral relationship. Nor could
a genuinely collaborative partnership be formed so long as one party still
imposed economic sanctions against the other. The two-and-a-half years after the
May 1998 tests witnessed a remarkable transformation in the tone and content of
US-India ties. Nonetheless, the declarations about the existence of a new
'strategic partnership' that one heard from analysts, journalists, and politicians in
both countries wildly overstated the congruence of interests and outlooks that
linked the two nations as the United States prepared to inaugurate a new
president.
The Bush Team Takes Charge
The US presidential election of 2000 featured two major candidates with widely
divergent stands on nonproliferation issues. Vice President Al Gore, the
Democratic standard bearer, fell very much within the mainstream of his party's
approach to nonproliferation, and in particular felt a keen commitment to the
CTBT. Texas Governor George W.Bush, on the other hand, harbored
considerable skepticism about multilateral arms control agreements and the
international arms control regime. Candidate Bush opposed the CTBT, arguing
that further testing was required in order to ensure the reliability and safety of the
US nuclear stockpile. Turning to another venerable arms control pact, he called
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty a 'Cold War artifact' and pledged that
the agreement would not constrain his actions as president.
Bush did not have much to say about South Asia during the campaign, but
what he did say seemed calculated to win support from the affluent Indo-
American community rather than to raise unpleasant questions about India's
nuclear ambitions. India is 'emerging as one of the great democracies of the
twenty-first century', noted the Republican Party platform. Nowhere was there
