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T V Parasuram in Washington
Leading US think tank and India expert at Brookings Institution Stephen P Cohen has advocated the need for re-examining US policies towards India in the light of India's growing power status.
The need of the hour is to re-examine US policies towards India and pursue a new relationship that calls 'for neither opposition nor alliance, but for something in between' without abandoning 'important American interests in Pakistan,' Cohen said in his new book Emerging Power - India.
"India has emerged as a major, even great, power, and it would seem that the future favours India. But this does not mean that this future will inevitably be pleasant or peaceful," Cohen wrote.
He urged Washington to 'offer qualified support' to India for a seat on the UN Security Council 'but only after the Kashmir problem appears to be on the road to resolution'.
He also urged the Administration to 'find a role for itself in the Kashmir dispute somewhere between doing nothing and being a welcome intruder'.
In the case of Kashmir, he claimed, "India officially rejects the idea of a mediator, but many Indians would welcome a sympathetic outsider."
"Any American role," said Cohen, "would have to be low-profile but persistent; it would also have to involve America's key allies and friends, some of which are interested in untying the Afghan, Kashmir and nuclear knots."
He wrote, "In the case of Kashmir, it would be appropriate for Washington to increase its engagement with India, Pakistan and Kashmiris of various political hues, encouraging a return to negotiating table and offering technical and other assistance to the parties."
Cohen added, "To some Indians, such US efforts will seem an intrusion, but this indirect route may be the most effective way of enhancing Indian power and influence over the long term."
On the nuclear issue, he urged the US to work closely with Japan, given its strong economic presence in both India and Pakistan and the state's interest in proliferation.
In pursuing a new relationship with India, said Cohen, strategists might begin talking of a 'natural alliance' between the US and India, 'but New Delhi still retains close ties to Russia and has cultivated France and Israel in recent years'.
All three countries are far more likely to provide India with advanced military technology than the United States, which has bound itself tightly with its sanctions policies. Even if Washington were to eliminate the sanctions, the Indian strategic community would not soon trust it.
On India's demand for a Security Council seat, Cohen noted, "US failure to address India's aspirations has been costly. An India that did not seem to count very much over the past ten years'- in Washington at least - became embroiled in two crises, exploding five nuclear devices, spurring Pakistan to reciprocate and challenging US non-proliferation strategy."
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