Changing US Foreign Policy toward India: US-India Relations since the Cold War

250 Pages·2016·2.1 MB·English

by  Carina van de Wetering (auth.)

CHANGING
US FOREIGN
POLICY
TOWARD
INDIA
US-India Relations since the Cold War
CARINA VAN DE WETERING
Changing US Foreign Policy toward India
Carina   van de Wetering
Changing US Foreign
Policy toward India
US-India Relations since the Cold War
Carina   van de Wetering
International Studies
Leiden University
The Hague, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-1-137-54861-0 ISBN 978-1-137-54862-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54862-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956910
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Based on several years of doing research, writing, and further developing it,
this book has been a culmination of different insights which I came across.
It could therefore not have been accomplished without the g enerous help
and input of various people. Indeed, working at the University of Bristol
has been an enriching and invaluable experience, and at Leiden University
I was able to (re)continue on this path.
One signifi cant debt is owed to my former colleagues at the School of
Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) of the University
of Bristol for providing a stimulating academic environment. I am par-
ticularly indebted to my mentors Jutta Weldes and Andrew Wyatt, who
guided me throughout the process by giving constructive feedback and
encouragement, which allowed me to refl ect upon my work and to grow
as a researcher. Within and outside the University of Bristol, Columba
Peoples and John Dumbrell also helped me with advancing the project. I
am grateful for their thoughtful comments.
At Leiden University, I am also appreciative of several people who
shared interesting insights with me as a student and as a researcher. There
are two people I want to single out. I would like to thank Shalendra
Sharma, a visiting professor at the time, for giving me the inspiration to
write about US-India relations back in 2007. My gratitude also goes out
to Adam Fairclough under whom I explored US foreign policy towards
India during the Cold War.
In order to gain more background information, my research also
brought me to Washington, D.C., and New York to interview experts
and/or foreign policy-makers in the fi eld. I would like to thank all the
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
interviewees, including Stephen Cohen, Teresita Schaffer, Dennis Kux,
Robert Hathaway, Alyssa Ayres, an anonymous person at the Pentagon,
Jamie Metzl, Satu Limaye, Michael Kugelman, Dhruva Jaishankar, Deepa
Ollapally, and Brian Katulis. I appreciate the time my interviewees spent
discussing US-India relations with me; they were very hospitable. Their
comments allowed me to concur my research fi ndings while it brought the
research subject to life. This research endeavor and others have been partly
made possible by generous benefactors in the Netherlands, including the
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude,
and Dr. Hendrik Muller Vaderlandsch Fonds. I am thankful for the fi nan-
cial support which I received.
I am also grateful that Palgrave supported this project. Sara Doskow,
Chris Robinson, and Anne Schult were always open to questions when there
were any. In combination with the review process, their e ndorsement and
encouragement gave new impetus to the project. Nevertheless, segments
of this book have also been developed from material I published at other
instances, including the article: “Policy Discourse and Security Issues: US
Foreign Policy Towards India During the Clinton Administration”. This
manuscript has been accepted for publication in F oreign Policy Analysis
(2016) published by Oxford University Press. It is available online at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orw043
Last but not least, my greatest debt of gratitude I owe to my family and
friends. I would like to profoundly thank them. These acknowledgements
would thus not be complete if I did not mention my parents, Cees van de
Wetering and Iris van de Wetering-Rewaty, and partner, Thomas de Jong,
for their loving and never-ending support.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Analyzing Policy Discourse 11
3 Developing US Relations with India: 1945–1993 2 9
4 India, the Underappreciated: The Clinton
Administration 83
5 India as a Strategic Partner: The Bush
Administration 119
6 India Has Already Risen: The Obama
Administration 153
7 Conclusion 1 91
Bibliography 199
Index 237
vii
L A
IST OF BBREVIATIONS
Af-Pak Afghanistan-Pakistan
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
CENTO C entral Treaty Organization
CIA C entral Intelligence Agency
CTBT C omprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
FMCT F issile Material Cut-off Treaty
FRUS F oreign Relations of the United States
IAEA I nternational Atomic Energy Agency
IFI I nternational Financial Institutions
IMET U S International Military Education and Training
IMF I nternational Monetary Fund
JeM J aish-e-Mohammed
LeT L ashkar-e-Taiba
MAD M utual Assured Destruction
MEDO M iddle East Defense Organization
NAFTA N orth American Free Trade Agreement
NATO N orth Atlantic Treaty Organization
NPCIL N uclear Power Corporation of India, Ltd.
NPT Non-Proliferation Treaty
N RC U S Nuclear Regulatory Commission
NSC N ational Security Council
NSG Nuclear Suppliers Group
NSS US National Security Strategy
NSSP N ext Steps in Strategic Partnership
ix
x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
PNE P eaceful Nuclear Explosion
QDR US Quadrennial Defense Review
RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
SALT S trategic Arms Limitation Talks
UNCIP U nited Nations Committee for India and Pakistan
USINPAC US India Political Action Committee
UNSC U nited Nations Security Council
WSAG W ashington Special Action Group
WTO W orld Trade Organization
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The USA and India have enjoyed closer relations during the last few US
administrations than during the Cold War. 1 As President George W. Bush
said in 2005, “India and the United States are separated by half a globe.
Yet, today our two nations are closer than ever before” (Bush 2 005a ).
During the Cold War, relations were often distant and strained. India only
gained Washington’s full attention during moments of serious interna-
tional tension in South Asia as the USA sought to “contain” the Soviet
Union. For example, in the late 1950s, the USA was interested in the
Soviet Union’s infl uence in the region and hence monitored the 1962 war
between China and India (Hagerty 2 005, 1–2). 2
After the Cold War, US-India relations changed dramatically: the USA
displayed a continuous interest in India since the Clinton administra-
tion. When both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998,
the Clinton administration’s fi rst response was to sanction both coun-
tries, but as India appeared to be becoming a signifi cant power, the US
administration re-evaluated its foreign policy toward India (Cohen 2 002 ,
292). During the Kargil crisis in 1999, when Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence Directorate sent troops over the Line of Control into Kashmir
near Kargil, this was the fi rst time, according to Stephen Cohen, that the
USA came out in full support of India against Pakistan ( 2010 , 13). The
US support grew even stronger under the Bush Jr. administration: in
2005, the USA took the unusual step to set up a civilian nuclear agree-
ment with India, a non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
C. van de Wetering, Changing US Foreign Policy toward India,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54862-7_1