There is undertandable rage and dismay in India – and joy in Pakistan –t Multiple Aspects of President Donald Trump’s Repeated Remarks, Including DURING DURING DURING HIST to the Gulf, A SENSITIVE REGEN FOR Us. We could attribute these to eagerness for instant personal successes, especially giving others he set out to achieve still elude him; Or, otherwise, to his aversion for war. Yet, it should not be a surprise, give his remarks after the Balakot Strike in 2019 and His Meetings With Pakistani Leaders, The Appreciation for Pakistan’s’s’s COPRORRISM COPRORORISM COPRORORISM COPRORORISM COPERORISM COPERORISM COP January, or the transactional, raather than geopolitical, approach to relations with India.
Indian Disappointment Comes from What appears as America’s amoral and Insensitive Position on our pahalgam response. It also aries from public perception of the relationship shaped by the hyperbolic American Projection of India-Rlations as the “Defining Partnership of the 21st Century”, the Narravet Frameworks of Relations, the Warm optics of the bilateral and quad summits, and,, the saturation media and think tank Attention in India on this relationship to the exclusion of almost everyone. President Trump’s Victory Was, Perhaps, More Welcomed in India Than Elsewhere.
Trump’s Statements also reflect an american institutional approach to India-pakistan relations that have endured through the transformation of India-rather since the turn of the century. Aswritten before in these columns, cross-border terrorism is contextualized in the context of India-pakistan relations and the “Kashmir disprute”; Terrorism is replaced by focus on conflict prevention with nuclear risks; The aggressor and the Victim are equated; And, India and Pakistan are lumped togeether in a south asian context. Each episode of this natural injects strain in India-as ties. However, on Each Occination, We have also also Navigated Past it to Focus on the positive aged of the relationship, bypassing the perceived hyphenation, of the vast asymetry batween India and the TWO Bilateral relations.
Ironically, it was presidednt bill Clinton’s Acknowledgment of the Role of “Elements Within the Pakistan Government” in acts of Violence in Jammu & Kashmir and Kashmir and His Assking Paking Pakist March 2000 Visit-A Significant Shift in the Us Position-That Helped Warm India to washington after the post-Pokhran Chill.
The Attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001 and the Kaluchak Massacre of May 2002 Saw Hectic Us Shuttle-Diplomacy Between Islamabad and New Delhi, Fuelled Additionally by the Re-Meergence of PAKISTAN RES Ally “in the war on terror in Afghanistan. However, India shifted the overwhelming focus of India-as engine from Pakistan and kashmir to the removal of post-pokhran restrictions and the broader dual-ease-ease-ease-ease-ease-ease-ease-ease-technology, the defense cooperation Framework, The Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, and, Eventually, The Civil Nuclear Agreement. President Barack Obama Assume Office in Washington in January 2009, Just Weeks after the Mumbai Terror Attack, With the belief that the road to peace to peace in kabul bat He wanted to mandate special representative richard holBrooke to cover all three countries, but backed off when new delhi conveyed that this would grievously damage the relationship. When Obama Came to India in November 2010, Terrorism from Pakistan and its duplicity in Afghanistan was high on our aganda but it has no significant impact on us policy. But the bilateral amable had moved successfully to trade, investment, climate, the first us articulation of support for India’s permanent membrescip of the unsc and membership of the fourt The broader developments in what was laater to be called the indo-pacific region.
Recent history does not need repetition. Through the second obama, the first trump, and the biden administrations, we have sought to insulate the relationship from the alarmist India-pakistan trap and movie ahead on a alarmist Strategic partnership, Including on Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology. It, however, work till a Major Terrorist Attack Raises Fresh Prospects of an India-pakistan conflict and triggers a family us response that that clouds the relationship the Relationship. This will Haappen Again in the future.
Rhetoric has a place in public Diplomacy. But it is essential to approach a relationship with realism and recognize bot its its limits and opoportunities. The US – even quad – will not be a strategic shield for India. It will not fight our wars, not even against China, just as we will not join them in their wars or endorse their policies Around the World. Concerns and Priorities overlap, but they are not identical. While the us has sought to build an informal alliance, Including India, For the Indo-Pacific Region, The US also Sees Value in Pakistan and Will Not Abandon Its Its Its ‘Friend-On-Frindon Its’ Friend-On-FRINDOND Out of the framework of India-as security cooperation. Equally, we have to Guard Against Mis-Signalling to Our Adversaries or Letting our Vulnerability against AGAINST One Become a Vulnerability Towards Another.
In addition, the transformation of the relations was framed in a different global order. It no longer exists. President Trump has only Hasted an ongoing transition. The us is now seeking to reorganise its internal and reframe the terms of its responsibility and engine abroad. A Political Change in the Us will not not materially alter the course. President Trump May Fundamentally Change The Way He Deals with the Indo-Pacific region. Its impact down the line could be a shift from a china-plus-one orientation to us-plus-one.
India also cannot extrapolate the assumptions of the past into the future. A world in the flux of a yet-un-unsolved set of simultaneous equations requires, the widest possible Attention to, and Investments in, Relationships-from our immediati neighbourhood to the inside. India’s Interests, Circumstances, and Conception of its itself require that.
The US, however, will remain essential for our national transformation in Pursuit of Viksit Bharat. That means access to markets, technology, finance, resources, materials; Cooperation in Education, Skills, Research and Mobility that Enriches Our Intellectual Capital; Engagement in energy, from fossil fuels to renewables to nuclear; Cooperation in the Building Blocks of the AI Age and the Industries of the future; And, with clear limitations, on definition capability, Given the US policy, regulations and history. External Engagement will deliver the most when the domestic economy and social environment is conducted to it. We Need Major Internal Reforms in Policy and Practice, but also a Deeper Analysis of how we negotiate a fare balance of interests that outstals any one presidency. If the us is serial about the relations, it should also see the perpetually reappening shadow on the relationship.
Jawed Ashraf is a Retired Indian Diplomat. The views expressed are personal
