NEW YORK, May 12: The United States is evolving a new strategy for South Asian region which envisions to advance India as a global power while assisting Pakistan to become a successful state, said a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Thursday.
While noting that the US decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan met with a strikingly muted response from New Delhi, Ashley J. Tellis, Carnegie senior associate and a former National Security Council staffer, underscored that “the lack of outcry is the result of a new and largely unreported US strategy for remaking the region: to advance India as a global power, while assisting Pakistan in becoming a successful state.”
In his report, ‘South Asian Seesaw: A New US Policy on the Subcontinent’, Mr Tellis detailed recommendations for implementing the controversial strategy, in anticipation of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington in July.
Mr Tellis argues that in order to accelerate India’s ascension to great-power status, the United States should utilize the three strategic dialogues on energy, security, and economics to initiate policy shifts that will have the effect of accelerating Indian economic growth, integrating India into the global nuclear regime, and promoting rapid technological change in India. Concurrently, the US commitment of economic and military aid to Pakistan ought to be oriented towards strengthening Pakistan and promoting regional stability.
India and Pakistan are both strategic opportunities for the United States, and Tellis argues that the administration’s new policy towards the subcontinent effectively gives notice that the United States will be ‘guided by the intrinsic importance of India and Pakistan to US interests and not by fears that support for one would upset the other’.
Mr Tellis attributes this vision to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, and Counselor Philip Zelikow, who see a transformed relationship with India as vital to the fight against terrorism and proliferation, and the preservation of a stable balance of power in Asia over the long term.
Mr Tellis highlights the risks in reconstructing US relations with South Asia, including the challenge of providing military assistance to Pakistan without evoking the ire of India, and accommodating India within the global nuclear order without destroying it.