03-17-2010, 09:55 AM
[url="http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Walkers_World_Obama_is_losing_India_999.html"]Walker's World: Obama is losing India[/url]
Quote:The Obama administration is trying to play catch-up in its relations with the country that could become its most important long-term ally. But it may be leaving it too late, after India last week agreed a $7 billion deal in arms, nuclear reactors and space technology with Russia.
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Robert Blake, the senior State Department official dealing with India and its region, is hopeful that a deal can be concluded by this summer. Indian officials are less optimistic and query U.S. insistence that India's parliament enact a limited liability rule on compensation for nuclear accidents, an issue that does not seem to worry Russian and French suppliers.
There is a pattern here. Two far-reaching agreement on U.S.-Indian military cooperation have stalled, as have other projects for hi-tech and space research cooperation.
The real problem is fundamental. Indians complain that the Obama administration still sees India less as a great power in its own right, than as a walk-on player in two issues that worry Washington more. The first is the Afghan-Pakistan imbroglio and the second is U.S.-China relations. [color="#FF0000"]Obama's suggestion, during his cap-in-hand visit to Beijing, that China help the United States "manage" the Indo-Pakistan problem "led to the mistrust of Obama that today pervades the Indian establishment,"[/color] argues influential Indian commentator Professor Madhav Nalapat.
"President Obama's policy of downgrading India to the level of a South Asian power is pushing Delhi closer toward Moscow and Beijing," Nalapat adds." If such an axis takes place, the 'credit' will go to the Obama administration. India sees itself as an Asian power with a global focus. Those unwilling to accept this cannot be defined as friends."