American Reams

She is also the head of a South Asia programme at a leading think tank in Washington DC and has been actively involved in promoting a new agenda for Indo-US relations. Therefore,her judgment on the future of bilateral relationship is also of great interest.

Despite the extraordinary salience of the US factor in Indian foreign policy during the past two decades,and the kind of political difficulties that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh confronted in defining a new framework for bilateral relations,there has been very little scholarly work or accessible analysis of Indo-US relations from the Indian point of view. For the moment though we have to settle for the American perspective. Unlike many other India hands in Washington,Schaffer is not burdened by the traditional sense of pessimism about Indo-US relations. Nor does she underestimate the difficulties in building a genuine partnership between the two countries. As a result,we have a solid and balanced assessment of where the ties between the two nations are headed.

In the first half of the book,Schaffer surveys the intensification of Indo-US engagement since the end of Cold War. Three issues dominate her back story. The first is about the change in Indias economic orientation,without which there would have been little advance in Indo-US relations. As the US saw India as a big emerging market in the 1990s,the expanding economic engagement provided a strong foundation for a relationship that could weather political turbulence. The second factor was the expanding security cooperation between the two countries. If India and the US were ranged on opposite sides of the Cold War,the demise of the Soviet Union opened the door for tentative defence exchanges and security cooperation. The third element relating to non-proliferation and high-technology cooperation was at the heart of Indo-US contention after the Cold War. Schaffers narrative captures the prolonged and in the end successful efforts to resolve the nuclear tension between the two nations.

In the second half of the book,Schaffer examines the current convergence and divergence of Indian and American interests in a range of issues and concludes with the kind of partnership the two nations could build.

Her review of South and Central Asian theatre ends with the perennial question about the impact of Indo-Pak conflict on Indo-US ties. If her expectations for fresh Indian initiatives towards Kashmir and Pakistan might get the predictable cold shoulder from Delhi,her hopes for stronger Indo-US partnership for a stable balance of power in Asia now find greater resonance with Indias foreign policy establishment.

Schaffer also looks at the challenge of reconciling many differences between India and the US on issues relating to global governance that are likely to endure despite Obamas support for Indias permanent membership in the UN Security Council.

In the end Schaffer is optimistic that the rapidly changing international dynamic will bring the two nations together. But she is too pragmatic to ignore the expectations gap that continues to divide Delhi and Washington.

Schaffer notes the sense of exceptionalism that animates both the countries and complicates the bilateral ties. While the gaps in mutual perceptions and hopes cannot be eliminated,Schaffers valuable work helps us think through the challenges of Indo-US relations.