India Matters
Mohammed Ayoob
There are recent reports that President Clinton plans to visit India on his own initiative early in the new year. This seems to indicate that the U.S. administration has finally awakened to its folly in canceling the president's scheduled visit to New Delhi in the fall of 1998 in the wake of India's nuclear tests that year. At least three lengthy telephone calls from President Clinton to Prime Minister Vajpayee to discuss the Kargil crisis; the general state of Indian-U.S. relations, including his desire to visit India; and the military coup in Pakistan indicate that Washington has been reevaluating India's position in U.S. foreign policy. There is, however, a continuing propensity among analysts to underestimate India's importance to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals, especially those relating to Asia. India in fact matters more than many in Washington are willing to admit.
I would like to make this case primarily in the context of U.S. political and strategic concerns, particularly in Asia. In doing so, I assume that in the 1990s there has been growing awareness in the United States of India's economic potential both as a market for foreign goods and services and as a producer of goods and services for the international market. Even at the relatively modest and sustainable growth rate of around 6 percent, India's gross national product can be expected to double in 12 years. Trade and investment data already bear out India's growing importance to the United States. Moreover, given its advantages in terms of both technically skilled manpower and command over the English language by a substantial section of the working population, India has the capacity to play an increasingly important [End Page 27] role in the sphere of service industries. The Indian share of the global market is, therefore, likely to grow rapidly as the share of services--especially in the information and related fields--in the global economy expands further during the next decade. 1 All this is obviously significant to U.S. policy toward India. However, while taking into account the importance of the economic realm, I shall restrict my argument for the sake of brevity and precision to the political and security arenas.
During the Cold War years, India was politically underrated for two interrelated reasons: First, U.S. policymakers were obsessed with the Soviet Union and secondarily with China. These obsessions were dictated by ideological, military, and political rivalries that together constituted the Cold War. Every other foreign policy concern was either relegated to a subsidiary level or perceived and tackled within the Cold War framework. Second, India's policy of nonalignment and later its tilt toward the Soviet Union following the U.S. embrace of Pakistan in the mid-1950s alienated U.S. opinion to such an extent that the policymaking elite became either hostile toward, or dismissive of, India. The widely divergent postures adopted by New Delhi and Washington on the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s added to U.S., and more generally Western, mistrust of India.
Unfortunately, to a substantial extent this mind-set survived the Cold War. India's greater openness to the world economy from 1991 made a qualitative difference in terms of the perception of U.S. business. However, the political and the bureaucratic elite continued to view India for quite some time with the same hostile or dismissive lenses they had become used to in earlier decades. Differences over nuclear nonproliferation issues, especially India's opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament in 1995-1996, further augmented the traditional U.S. image of India as a major "spoiler" intent on obstructing America's "benign" designs to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction.
Paradoxically, it took the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998 to make U.S. policymakers sit up and seriously note India's security concerns and its capabilities. The high-level, post-test dialogue between the two countries has been the most extensive and intensive exercise of its kind in the past 50 years. This dialogue, interrupted temporarily by the fall of the Vajpayee government in April 1999 and the subsequent elections in September-October 1999, is expected to resume soon. Senior U.S. and Indian officials visited each other's capitals in the second half of October 1999 to pave the way for [End Page 28] resumption of these talks. Although the eight rounds of consultations held so far have not resolved outstanding differences between the two countries on the issue of nuclear nonproliferation, they have led to greater understanding on the part of the United States of India's genuine security concerns, especially those relating to China. These negotiations have also demonstrated the willingness of both governments not to let differences on one particular issue, however important, obstruct movement on other fronts in which there is a convergence of interests between Washington and New Delhi. This is a radical departure from the past when differences on one major issue tended to dictate the entire tenor of U.S.-Indian relations.
The Kargil episode of June-July 1999, during which the United States laid the blame squarely on Pakistan for initiating the crisis, depicted a coincidence of Indian and U.S. interests in preventing cross-border incursions as well as maintaining regional stability in an overtly nuclearized South Asia. The second objective was especially dear to Washington since both India and Pakistan, particularly the latter, appeared to be still struggling to put in place credible command and control structures to avert inadvertent or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Even if unintentionally, the United States found itself in India's corner during the Kargil crisis, thus reinforcing the Indian perception that Washington finally understood the major imperatives of Indian foreign and security policy.
Although the current U.S. approach toward India may appear to be a great improvement over the past four decades of suspicion and indifference, it still falls far short of recognizing India's importance within the overarching framework of U.S. foreign policy. It is, therefore, necessary to highlight the fact that the major foreign policy objectives of the two countries are not merely compatible with each other but that closer cooperation between Washington and New Delhi can help further the interests and objectives of both countries. This is particularly the case in five areas that figure, or are likely to figure, prominently in the foreign and security policy agenda of the United States: fostering regional security and stability, countering terrorism, promoting democracy, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and containing China in the first decades of the new century.
Fostering Regional Security and Stability
It became clear during the 1990s that the United States, as the preeminent global power, had a paramount interest in maintaining a legitimate and stable world order that would provide an environment conducive to its pursuit of other goals. It goes without saying that a stable world order is crucially dependent on the stability and legitimacy of regional orders. In turn, [End Page 29] the stability and legitimacy of regional orders are critically contingent on the role of pivotal powers in their respective regions. This applies especially to their ability to manage regional security environments in such a way as to alleviate, if not eliminate, the likelihood of major interstate and intrastate conflicts erupting in their neighborhood.
Measured by any index, India is undoubtedly the preeminent and pivotal power in South Asia with a corresponding interest in maintaining the stability of regional order. It is also a status quo power without irredentist claims on its neighbors. It does aspire to act as the security manager in the region but, as the Gujral doctrine promulgated in the mid-1990s enunciated, largely in a benevolent fashion. Based on the key concept of nonreciprocity, this doctrine, named after former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral but predating his ascent to office, renounces India's right to demand a quid pro quo for responding positively and magnanimously to the vital economic and security concerns of its smaller neighbors. 2 Although the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government may find it impolitic to endorse publicly a doctrine named after its predecessor, there is little indication that the substance of its policy toward India's smaller neighbors is likely to deviate from the policy followed by the governments headed by Gujral and Narasimha Rao.
The Gujral doctrine, even if imperfectly implemented, has helped improve considerably India's relations with Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka during the 1990s. The Farakka Waters agreement with Bangladesh; the revised Transit Treaty with Nepal, which was actually negotiated by the Narasimha Rao government that preceded Gujral's term in office; and the recent trade agreement with Sri Lanka, which opened the Indian market to Sri Lankan exports free of excise duty, all testify to India's commitment to this policy. India's greater sensitivity in the 1990s toward Sri Lankan security concerns in the context of the Tamil insurgency helped send a similar message to India's neighbors, as did the Indian military response in 1988 that aborted the attempted coup against the government of the Maldives.
In essence, this policy of nonreciprocity is an important step in legitimizing India's preeminent status in the region by demonstrating its willingness and capacity to act as the benevolent provider of public goods in South Asia. This role has received greater legitimacy by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit decision in 1997 that recognized the right of three or more members to enter into subregional [End Page 30] cooperative arrangements without waiting for all members to sign on. This decision, taken largely at the initiative of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, permitted them to pursue multilateral economic and technical cooperation arrangements with India under the SAARC umbrella without being hamstrung by Pakistani opposition.
Indian-Pakistani relations have, of course, been the great exception to this rule of India asserting a benign hegemony in the region because Pakistan, since its inception, has refused to accept the legitimacy of India's managerial role in South Asia. India has traditionally blamed external powers, especially the United States and China, for encouraging Pakistan to challenge what India considers to be its appropriate role in South Asia. The U.S.-Pakistani alliance, initiated in the 1950s and revived in the 1980s in the context of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, had become a major irritant in Indian-U.S. relations. The strategic rationale for Washington's support to Pakistan, however, disappeared with the end of the Cold War, although it continues to have a residual impact especially in the Pentagon. On the whole, there seems to be no valid strategic reason for U.S. opposition to India asserting its pivotal managerial role in South Asia, especially because, unlike in East Asia, U.S. security interests do not demand an overt military presence or direct involvement in the region. Moreover, the U.S. concern for regional stability as part of its concern for global order dictates that it enjoys a relationship based on confidence and trust with the pivotal power in South Asia. India, therefore, logically ought to occupy a much more important role in U.S. global concerns for stability and order than it has so far. Unfortunately, given the hangover of the past, especially of the on-again, off-again U.S. alliance with Pakistan, Washington has not fully appreciated India's potential as a likely partner in providing stability and order not merely to South Asia but to Asia as a whole.
Countering Terrorism
Indian and U.S. concerns do not coincide merely on the issue of maintaining a stable and secure order in Asia in general and in South Asia in particular. A major threat to both regional and global stability and security comes from a particular variety of terrorism that has targeted both India and the United States. This is the threat posed by Islamic extremists who have found a safe haven in Talibanized Afghanistan. The August 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania drove this point home to Washington with great force. The retaliatory U.S. bombing of terrorist bases in Afghanistan exposed the fact that terrorist cadres were being trained in these camps not merely to indulge in anti-American ventures but also to infiltrate [End Page 31] Indian Kashmir to create further mayhem in the Valley. India had been warning Washington of the nexus between anti-American terrorist groups and the foreign militants--Afghans, Pakistanis, and Arabs--being trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan for terrorist attacks in Kashmir.
Indeed, by the mid-1990s the nature of the insurgency in the Kashmir Valley had changed from a largely indigenous operation, albeit armed and trained by Pakistan to a substantial extent, to one primarily conducted by foreign mercenaries trained in the killing fields of Afghanistan and paid and supplied by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan's connection with the Taliban was no secret. Had it not been for Pakistan's material help, extended primarily for domestic political reasons, the predominantly Pushtun Taliban would not have been able to overwhelm decisively and speedily the better trained and largely Tajik and Uzbek forces of their opponents then ruling Kabul. In the context of these connections, it appears that the network of terror comprises not merely the Taliban and the terrorist elements under their protection but also segments of the Pakistani military establishment.
India and the United States have a major shared interest in foiling the designs of this terrorist network, and it is becoming increasingly clear to both that they must cooperate with each other toward this end. This cooperation has started in earnest, indicated by the fact that for the first time, high-level discussions have taken place between Indian and U.S. officials specifically focused on Afghanistan and the terrorist threat emanating from there. Held in Washington in early September 1999, this meeting is seen as the harbinger of a more coordinated strategy on the issue of counterterrorism. Such coordination has taken on greater urgency because of the recent coup in Pakistan that has brought to power a military establishment suspected of close links with the Taliban.
Promoting Democracy
The military coup in Pakistan has also highlighted a major political affinity between India and the United States, namely, a firm commitment to a democratic form of government. The swearing in of the new postelection government in New Delhi on the day after the overthrow of civilian rule in Islamabad in October 1999 may have been a coincidence, but the two events epitomized the different traditions and trajectories of the neighboring polities.
India's ability to function as a vibrant, if sometimes unruly, democracy in the face of great social, economic, and political challenges has begun to count for much more in Washington, especially in congressional circles, [End Page 32] than it did during the Cold War era. The increasing emphasis on using the "democracy" yardstick to measure political affinity between the United States and other countries should provide India with a massive built-in advantage. It also means that members of Congress as well as the executive branch in Washington are likely to exhibit greater appreciation of the complexity of the Indian decisionmaking process based as it is on the need to create a democratic consensus before major decisions are made. Political players in Washington are extremely familiar with this process.
Furthermore, the recent emphasis in U.S. rhetoric on creation of a "democratic community of states," itself based on a popularized version of the "democratic peace" thesis, can be expected to aid in improving Indian-U.S. relations. The two states crucial to legitimizing the idea of a global democratic community are obviously the world's largest democracy (India) and the world's most powerful democracy (the United States), and their partnership is essential for the idea to be taken seriously. 3 If democracy and human rights are to inform U.S. foreign policy making in any substantial fashion in the coming decade, Washington's relations with New Delhi must inevitably move to a higher plane of understanding and cooperation.
Preventing Nuclear Proliferation
This is an area in which serious differences have existed and continue to persist in Indian-U.S. relations. However, as a result partly of the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh dialogue and partly of its new status as a declared nuclear weapons power, India has moved closer to recognizing the validity of U.S. concerns about global nuclear proliferation. On its part, following the Indian nuclear tests, the United States has demonstrated increasing appreciation of the Indian security concerns that led New Delhi to go nuclear in May 1998. Washington also seems to have realized that these concerns had to do more with China than with Pakistan and that they cannot be alleviated as long as the issue of Chinese nuclear and missile capability that Indians find threatening is not seriously addressed.
India's self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing has further helped improve the atmosphere surrounding the Indian-U.S. dialogue on nuclear proliferation. Recently the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the CTBT, and there is no immediate prospect for the resurrection of its ratification. Therefore, the major source of friction between New Delhi and Washington in the nonproliferation arena seems to have lost most of its relevance for the immediate future. In fact, the Indian position is now almost identical to the U.S. policy of voluntary adherence to the CTBT enunciated by President Clinton in the wake of the Senate's refusal to ratify the treaty. [End Page 33]
However, in the long run, an understanding between the United States and India is essential for a credible nuclear nonproliferation regime to survive the shocks from the South Asian tests of May 1998. India, having for all practical purposes acquired the status of a nuclear weapons power, has clearly developed a vested interest in limiting further horizontal proliferation and in augmenting its already tight controls over the export of nuclear-related material and technology to nonnuclear countries. Its voluntary adherence to the main provisions of the CTBT as well as to the export control provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signals this clearly. India shares these objectives with the United States, and they provide a strong basis for future cooperation between the two countries in the nuclear nonproliferation arena.
Washington has also begun to realize that India, unlike some other nuclear aspirants such as North Korea, is a responsible member of the international community with a large and relatively self-reliant technological infrastructure capable of producing sophisticated nuclear warheads and delivery systems. This being the case, it is in the U.S. interest that India be co-opted into the nonproliferation regime rather than treated as a pariah, because the latter would undermine the residual credibility of the NPT regime. However, Washington is also concerned that this co-optation be accomplished without unraveling the entire NPT structure.
The principal objective of the Indian-U.S. dialogue seems to be to square this circle while protecting the integrity, as far as possible, of the initial positions adopted by both sides. This task is difficult but not altogether impossible. With patience, goodwill, and diplomatic creativity, the two sides are more than likely to succeed in crafting a formula that both New Delhi and Washington can live with until the world becomes used to India's nuclear status. The attempt to find such a formula is, however, by definition a joint venture and, therefore, likely to strengthen rather than damage Indian-U.S. relations.
Containing China
This is another issue on which Indian and U.S. views have diverged dramatically since the early 1970s. U.S. attempts to build a strategic alliance with China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War made at least some sense to Indian strategic analysts, even if New Delhi disapproved of Washington's collaboration with China. Indian criticism was particularly harsh in the case of the joint U.S. and Chinese effort to bolster Pakistan's capabilities in the 1980s in the context of the struggle for Afghanistan. The convergence of Chinese and U.S. interests in regard to Pakistan was demonstrated, [End Page 34] among other things, by the Chinese transfer of nuclear design and missile components to Pakistan and the simultaneous U.S. policy of turning a blind eye toward Pakistan's nuclear program until 1990.
New Delhi found America's China policy wrong but at least comprehensible during the Cold War. But the continuation of this policy in the 1990s, especially the Clinton administration's rhetoric about constructing a "strategic partnership" with China, has left Indian policymakers and analysts bewildered and concerned. Absent the Soviet factor, New Delhi believes that such a partnership would end up only bolstering China's ego and its proclivity to bully states in its neighborhood.
The Indians find it particularly difficult to understand why Washington has persisted in peddling the rhetoric of "strategic partnership" despite clear signs that China perceives itself in the long run to be America's "strategic competitor" and not its "strategic partner." The underlying strains in the Chinese-U.S. relationship are visible on issues ranging from trade to human rights to Taiwan. However, they are most strikingly demonstrated in the strategic sphere in which U.S. and Chinese calculations are based on widely divergent perceptions of China's future role in the region and the world. The Chinese would prefer the evolving international power structure to pass through a multipolar phase that would help erode U.S. hegemony but eventually become bipolar with China and the United States as the two poles of power. The United States, on the other hand, would favor extending what it considers its benevolent leadership over the international system indefinitely by constraining China's power and simultaneously co-opting it, where necessary, as a secondary member of the dominant coalition led by Washington.
There is, therefore, a fundamental divergence between the Chinese and U.S. interpretations of what the term "strategic partnership" means. Some analysts in Washington who have argued that "the choice of China as a strategic partner is misguided" recognize this fact clearly. 4 The same discrepancy that one witnesses in their different perceptions of the global order pervades the U.S. and Chinese definitions of the optimal regional order in the Asia-Pacific region. Although China considers itself the legitimate dominant power in East Asia, the United States is primarily interested in maintaining a balance among regional powers--principally China and Japan--that would allow Washington to act as the arbiter of the region's strategic future. Given its strategic and economic stakes in East Asia, the United States has a vital interest in the region and prefers that it not fall [End Page 35] under the dominance of a single power.
The United States is not interested in any forcible change in the status quo in East Asia because this is likely to disrupt its strategic calculations as well as its economic links with the region. China, however, has clearly signaled that it will not be averse to using force if Taiwan continues down the road to formal independence. Beijing has also flexed its military muscles in relation to the disputed islands in the South China Sea, thereby threatening to change the territorial status quo by force. Its earlier invasion of Vietnam in 1979 and its threatening posture against Taiwan during the presidential elections in 1996 are further testimony to its propensity to use force to intimidate its neighbors. In this context, its military modernization plans, including the purchase of state-of-the-art aircraft from cash-strapped Russia and its attempts to steal nuclear secrets from American nuclear establishments, appear very worrisome to U.S. strategists, policymakers, and legislators engaged in formulating and overseeing U.S. policy toward East Asia. 5
Even if the U.S. administration is not willing to admit these concerns publicly for fear of driving China into an openly confrontational attitude, it makes strategic sense for Washington to plan for the contingency of China emerging as America's principal strategic competitor and, if possible, to forestall such an eventuality. 6 This is essential because of clear signs that a strategic confrontation with China may be looming. There are two major issues that may become the catalysts for such a confrontation. One is the U.S. plan to build a theater missile defense (TMD) system in collaboration with Japan ostensibly to protect its forces, installations, and allies from missile capabilities being developed by North Korea. The Chinese, however, perceive this to be aimed at neutralizing their nuclear deterrent capacity against the United States and, like the Russians, have been vocal in denouncing the idea.
The Chinese, again like the Russians, are also implacably opposed to the United States amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to build one or more missile defense systems on its national territory against presumed missile threats from "rogue" states, such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Beijing and Moscow see this as an attempt by the United States to reduce sharply its vulnerability to their nuclear arsenals and in turn render them more vulnerable to the political and military uses of U.S. nuclear power. This is an obvious case of strategic visions in major conflict with each other, which demonstrates clearly the fundamental difference between U.S. and Chinese perceptions of the evolving world order.
The second major point of dispute in the strategic arena between the United States and China is Taiwan. China is engaged in bolstering its missile capacity against Taiwan following a recent assertion by President Lee that [End Page 36] implied eventual independence for Taiwan. Chinese moves in turn have spawned calls among congressional circles for enhancing the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. In this context, the U.S. attempt to build TMD systems and the Taiwanese eagerness to have some of these defenses situated on the island have further ruffled Chinese feathers. Any escalation of the confrontation between China and Taiwan will inevitably precipitate U.S. intervention on behalf of the latter and reveal the very different assumptions underlying Chinese and U.S. policies toward East Asia.
In light of the above analysis, it becomes clear that the United States needs to develop strategic relationships with other major powers in Asia that may help neutralize and circumscribe Chinese power as well as provide greater international legitimacy to actions that Washington may need to take against China. A security treaty is already in place with Japan, as are U.S. troops in that country. In addition, an agreement between the two countries to establish TMD systems has been reached recently. However, because of its wartime legacy of occupation of its neighbors and atrocities against them, its aversion to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, its political ambivalence toward China, and its significant trade relations with Beijing, Japan is not yet in a position materially and, more important, psychologically to balance growing Chinese military power in the region.
In this context of uncertain, and possibly antagonistic, future relations with China, the United States needs to conduct a serious strategic dialogue with India that goes beyond the immediate issues relating to Pakistan and nuclear proliferation and specifically addresses the concerns both countries have regarding China. India's past experience with, and current misgivings about, China make New Delhi an ideal partner in any U.S. strategy to contain China in Asia. Despite the thaw in Sino-Indian relations since the visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988, India's policymaking elite and its influential strategic community are convinced that China remains India's principal threat in the long term. This assessment has been augmented in the 1990s as details of Chinese collaboration with Pakistan in the nuclear and missile arenas have become increasingly public. New Delhi is convinced that this collaboration, which has turned the Pakistani threat to India into an extension of the Chinese threat, is the result of a Chinese assessment that Sino-Indian relations are doomed to remain adversarial.
Furthermore, recent events, including the Indian nuclear tests and the [End Page 37] test flight of the medium-range ballistic missile Agni-II indicate that India also possesses, either actually or potentially, the technological and military capability and, I believe, the requisite political will to counter Chinese hegemonic ambitions in Asia. But, if a strategic understanding between Washington and New Delhi on China is to emerge, Washington must shed its rhetoric about building a strategic partnership with China; treat India on a par with China in terms of its weight in Asian affairs; support, or at least not oppose, India's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; and find a mutually acceptable formula that would recognize to some degree India's status as a nuclear weapons power.
Conclusion
U.S. and Indian shared interests vis-à-vis China go beyond strategic calculations. China is the only major country that stands opposed to the global process of democratization in which Washington has increasingly invested a great deal of its political capital. Beijing's support to Pakistan has emboldened Islamabad to defy U.S. pressure on sensitive issues such as support for the Taliban and for terrorist elements operating in Indian Kashmir, who are in turn linked to Islamic extremist elements operating in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. China has repeatedly violated the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and NPT guidelines on the supply of missiles and nuclear-related material and technology to Pakistan as well as to Iran and Saudi Arabia. In contrast, India has acted responsibly in the arena of missile and nuclear export despite the commercial and political temptations of transferring both material and technology to non-nuclear-weapons countries. There is, therefore, much more convergence of interests on issues that are fundamental to world order between India and the United States than there is between China and the United States.
Unfortunately, this coincidence of interests and objectives is not adequately reflected in the current state of relations between Washington and New Delhi. The main reason for this lies in the historical baggage of suspicion and mistrust both sides carry from the days of the Cold War and the memory of the mutually antagonistic relationships that they cultivated during that era. Much of this baggage will have to be jettisoned for U.S.-Indian relations to flourish in the twenty-first century. Moreover, there are still issues, such as nuclear nonproliferation, that need to be handled deftly to neutralize their negative impact on Indian-U.S. relations. Therefore, translating the potential for cooperation into reality will require strategic vision and political sagacity, as well as tremendous rhetorical restraint on both sides. Above all, it will require the cultivation of trust between the decision [End Page 38] makers in Washington and New Delhi, a commodity that has been historically rather rare in U.S.-Indian relations. Although the Talbott-Singh dialogue has done much to overcome earlier sources of mistrust, more needs to be done.
It is equally important, in the course of building cooperative relations, that the United States, the more powerful of the two potential partners, scrupulously respect India's strategic autonomy and its freedom to set its security priorities. This is essential because, as the history of Indian-U.S. relations during the Cold War has demonstrated, Indian political opinion will not tolerate New Delhi acting merely as a surrogate for U.S. policy in Asia. However, this does not rule out greater coordination of security policies between the United States and India on a mutually acceptable and beneficial basis. But it is imperative that the Indian public, and especially the strategic community, be convinced that such cooperation is to India's long-term advantage and that the country remains in control of its strategic future.
Mohammed Ayoob is a distinguished professor of international relations at Michigan State University and a specialist on conflict and security in the Third World. The East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, provided funding for the project from which this paper is derived.
Notes
1. For a credible exposition of this argument, see Swaminathan S. Aiyar, "India's Economic Prospects: The Promise of Services," CASI Occasional Paper Number 9 (Philadelphia: Center for the Advanced Study of India, April 1999).
2. For details of the Gujral Doctrine, see Bhabani Sen Gupta, "India in the Twenty-First Century," International Affairs 73, no. 2 (1997): 308-310.
3. This concern was reflected in President Clinton's telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee on October 15, 1999, a couple of days after the military coup in Pakistan. Clinton emphasized that "as the leaders of the world's two largest democracies, you and I have a special responsibility to demonstrate that democracy provides the best foundation not only for domestic prosperity and stability, but for cooperation and harmony among democratic nations." Quoted in C. Raja Mohan, "Clinton, Vajpayee Discuss Pakistan," Hindu (Chennai), October 16, 1999.
4. Ted Galen Carpenter, "Roiling Asia," Foreign Affairs 77, no. 6 (November/December 1998): 5. See also Gerald Segal, "Does China Matter?" Foreign Affairs 78, no. 5 (September/October 1999): 24-36.
5. For an authoritative exposition of Chinese nuclear espionage activities in the United States and consequent U.S. security concerns, see the declassified version of The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China Report (commonly known as the Cox Committee Report) issued on January 3, 1999. The Report is available on the Internet at http://www.house.gov/coxreport.
6. For an analysis that advocates a U.S. policy toward China that combines elements of containment and engagement, what the authors have termed "congagement," see Zalmay M. Khalilzad et al., The United States and a Rising China: Strategic and Military Implications (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999).
