Opinion Distrusting the Democrats

India’s foreign policy community were a visible patch of grumpy gloom at the bright dawn of the Obama era. The change he brought seemed to justify that gloom: Obama famously left Manmohan Singh out of his two dozen world-leader phone calls; Hillary Clinton left Delhi out of her first pan-Asian official visit; Richard Holbrooke was almost special envoy to Af-Pak — and Kashmir.

But,this week,the gloom was pierced by the unlikely light-bringing figure of Under Secretary of State William J. Burns. In a speech of enormous significance at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York,just before the beginning of the Indo-US strategic dialogue,he,in uncharacteristically blunt terms for a career diplomat,acknowledged the questions that so many in New Delhi had about the Obama administration’s orientation,and tackled them “head-on”. India need not worry about being “hyphenated” with Pakistan,he said: “the only ‘hyphen’ that we will pursue with respect to our relationship is the one that links the United States and India,” repeating almost word-for-word a statement he made to The Indian Express in an interview on these pages last week.

Is this a tipping point? Is the Democratic establishment that now runs America’s foreign policy willing to notice,deal with,and make space for India,the way the Republicans did?

Wait,you say,this doesn’t add up. The Democrats are more concerned about America’s reputation abroad. Indian-Americans vote Democratic. Why would New Delhi prepare with weary resignation for stalling relations?

There are four reasons to worry. The first: the Democrats’ internationalism manifested as a belief in multilateralism. Yet the post-war structure of constraints on state action,which the Democrats venerate,is a finished product. A rising India will inevitably destabilise a multilateral system that was designed without place for it. The second,and linked worry: the emphasis they’ve traditionally placed on nuclear safety and non-proliferation. India’s record is solid; but the nuclear deal effectively “gutted” the international non-proliferation regime — the word used by the CFR primer,one heard everywhere when Congress was voting. (The negative votes came entirely from Democrats.)

Then there is the fact that the Democratic party’s ideological base is deeply mistrustful of freer trade,and India’s rising international profile is inextricably linked to more open markets for both goods and services. The Republicans are quite happy to accept the influence that power in the marketplace provides; the Democrats begrudge it. And,finally,there’s the larger question about Democrats’ own sensitivity about the uses of American power. Creating strategic space for India won’t happen without wielding that power,nuclear deal-style. That leads to,paradoxically,an essential conservatism about foreign relations; India recognises this,and fears that it causes them to concentrate on those already in power — read China — too much.

The focus-on-China fears were doubled by an institutional feature of the US foreign policy establishment. Everyone running it cut their teeth in the Cold War era. They’re most comfortable with seeking out a big rival with a competing system,and either containing or engaging it. Both Democrats and Republicans have this problem — Condoleezza Rice was a well-known USSR specialist — but there’s one subtle yet problematic difference. While the Republicans have frequently drawn their foreign policy advice from non-standard sources — newer think-tanks,business,intelligence — the Democratic foreign policy establishment is most comfortable in older academic institutions,ones where worldviews are less likely to spin on a dime,where the idea of an institutionalised balance between two competing powers still has explanatory power.

So not only are the Democratic foreign-policy grandees predisposed to view the world in those terms,but in the State Department’s “functional bureaux”,staffed with its tenured full-timers,there are few India specialists. Just about everyone dealing with India is an East Asia hand.

Naturally,therefore,one of the key fears that Burns was forced to address was that “the new Administration is tempted by visions of a ‘G-2’ world,that we’ve ‘downgraded’ India because we see Asia exclusively through the lens of an emerging China.” He said,instead,that DC now saw India as a crucial stakeholder in East Asia,in China’s own backyard. Policing sea routes,free trade with ASEAN,and the soft power of movies,culture and food,meant that the US wanted “broadened Indian participation in the institutional architecture of the Asia-Pacific region.”

Sometimes it seems that India effortlessly identifies a change in mood,a shift in attention,without it changing our behaviour a bit. We can obsess over imagined slights and minor changes in wording in all sorts of joint declarations,but are happy to miss the bigger questions we’re being asked. Fortunately,Burns spelt it out for us. What the US wants is an India that doesn’t think small,that “self-hyphenates”. It fears that “India sometimes has a hard time realising how far its influence and its interests have taken it beyond its immediate neighbourhood”,and that it is “ambivalent about its own rise in the world,still torn between its G-77 and G-20 identities.”

That is pretty incisive. And our traditional approach,of spurning such advice,would be boorish and stupid. It is true: we need to engage East Asia more,we need institutions and exchanges that ensure that our foreign policy establishments are more comfortable with each other at all levels. But above all,we need to recognise the changed climate in Washington — not just the increased respect for multilateralism,but the desire to retreat from what Democrats believe is dangerous overextension. We can’t expect the Bush bounce back. But let’s meet the Democrats halfway,accept their preferences,engage them multilaterally even as we push bilaterally. This is the moment to help create,and embed ourselves,in new multilateral systems,in which we and other partners step up and share with the US some of the burdens that it has taken on since 1991.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com