Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
any hint of anger or disappointment over the 1998 tests. Instead, the candidate
called for the removal of all Glenn amendment sanctions against India.
A Bush administration, the
Telegraph
informed its Indian readership, would
have a 'less absolutist view' of New Delhi's nuclear aspirations. The nettlesome
nuclear issue would no longer be permitted to dominate the relationship, or to
impede cooperation. Respected analyst Raja Mohan predicted that the new Bush
team would bring 'greater political sensibility to bear upon its nuclear dialogue
with India that has been dominated for too long by non-proliferation
fundamentalists in Washington'.
9
Commentators in India found other reasons to applaud the Texan's narrow
electoral victory. The impression that Bush would be more ready than Clinton to
confront China led some to speculate about a growing 'strategic convergence'
between the two countries. Washington might come to view India as a useful
counterweight to China. This in turn could produce a US administration that would
be 'more sensitive to Indian security concerns, and more willing to accommodate
India's own aspirations to be a great power'.
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And it would ensure there would
be no repetition of the joint US-Chinese criticism of India's nuclear program that
had so infuriated New Delhi at the time of the 1998 tests.
The new administration's senior appointments further cheered New Delhi.
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Colin Powell, Bush's appointee as
secretary of state, spoke warmly of the value of solid US-India ties and expressed
doubts regarding the efficacy of sanctions. The new US ambassador to New
Delhi, Robert Blackwill, was seen as a figure of substance and, better yet, as
someone with close ties to the president. Bush's new assistant secretary of state
for South Asia had been a senior aide to Senator Sam Brownback, who had
authored legislation easing the Glenn amendment sanctions against India and
forcefully argued for closer US-India relations as a strategic counterweight to
China.
Other top appointees had also voiced support for lifting sanctions and
otherwise promoting a more collaborative partnership with New Delhi. The well-
known distaste for single-issue bureaus held by the new deputy secretary of
state, Richard Armitage, was a sign, New Delhi speculated, that the department's
nonproliferation bureau would no longer exercise so much influence in decision-
making. Everywhere one turned in Washington, there was talk about maintaining
the momentum of the relationship, consolidating the gains of the past several years,
and putting flesh on the institutional architecture erected during the two summits
of the previous year.
First Encounters
Within days of assuming office, Bush initiated contact with Vajpayee,
telephoning to express his condolences following a devastating earthquake in
