EDITS | Saturday, November 28, 2009 | Email | Print | 
PM talks up America
Ashok Malik
How should one read Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the United States? Measured against the experience of recent predecessors — such as Mr Singh’s own trip to Washington, DC, in July 2005, when the India-US nuclear deal was announced and triggered one of India’s most important foreign policy successes — this month’s voyage across the Atlantic will probably seem a mild affair. There were no blockbuster moments and obvious game changers.
However, what was worth noting was the Prime Minister’s sustained effort at attempting to talk up the American mood. For example, in an interview to Newsweek just before his departure, he was asked three successive questions on whether the economic recession had crippled the US and its strategic leadership. In reply to each question, Mr Singh sounded more optimistic than his American interviewer. He placed his hope in American innovation overcoming “this temporary setback” and said India “would like the US to succeed in that effort”.
Perceptions of America’s irreversible decline were overstated, the Prime Minister suggested. He quoted Robert Triffin, an economist who predicted in 1968 that the “dollar’s role as a reserve currency” was over: “But the US bounced back. I hope that the same thing will happen once again.”
At his interaction at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr Singh re-emphasised his optimism in America bouncing back. He also, and this was a first for an Indian Prime Minister, resorted to a not-so-nuanced assessment of the India-China equation. Here he made two points.
First, there was more to life than GDP figures: “The respect for fundamental human rights, the respect for the rule of law, the respect for multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious rights, I think those have values also.”
Second: “India may appear an indecisive democracy at times. And it does, because many democracies are short-term maximisers. They’re not able to take a long-term view. But I have also believed that once a democracy decides on the basis of a wide-ranging consensus, any reforms that are undertaken will be far more durable, will be far more effective than reforms introduced by the writ of a ruling group in a non-democratic set-up.”
This sentiment is not a new one. It has been iterated by Indian public officials at a thousand conferences. However, for an Indian Prime Minister to have been so categorical in a third country, particularly before a Washington, DC, audience, was hardly commonplace.
What caused Mr Singh to be so forthright? Why was he, in a sense, restating old-fashioned American positions, putting his weight behind that country’s economic recovery and stressing democratic societies were ultimately more likely to be prosperous than controlled polities?
The answer is a complex one and rooted in contemporary America’s crisis of confidence. Visitors to Washington, DC, in the past few months have pointed to a strange defeatism that has gripped the Beltway. There is anxiety that Uncle Sam’s time has passed, that decline has set in and the superpower is gradually sinking. Of course, this isn’t the only view but it is the view of influential sections of the Democrats and of key stakeholders in the Obama establishment.
To some degree such thinking is a reflection of America’s immediate crises — two wars, overseas troop deployments, a sluggish economy, rising unemployment. In the narrow area of diplomacy, however, it is also a product of the Democratic Party’s longer term retreat from the strategic sphere.
The Democrat leadership is intelligent, even cerebral, and often well-intentioned. It is, however, largely representative of the liberal-extreme Left end of the American political spectrum. At its worst, it resembles a coalition of NGO interests and is lacking in what may be called the ‘hard stuff’. The sense of realpolitik, the cold-blooded execution of military and coercive power, the big-picture strategic thinking: There is an absence of these qualities at the Democrat high table.
What does all this have to do with India? As a capital that has invested heavily in its relationship with Washington, DC — under both the NDA and UPA Governments — New Delhi is obviously concerned. If America loses its resolve, abdicates from its traditional role and begins to become an unpredictable animal, its allies will worry.
In 2009, the US’s diplomacy has been marked by prevarication and vacillation. Take an example. In China, President Barack Obama issued a joint statement with his hosts seeking Beijing’s help in problem-solving in South Asia. This past week, Mr Obama told Mr Singh he welcomed India’s help in “establishing peace and security in Asia-Pacific”.
In the old days, it would have been fair to estimate that the superpower was playing off regional rivals, inviting India and China into each other’s turfs. Mr Obama’s team, however, seems to have no such diabolical plans. Rather, it is bumbling and lumbering its way into one faux pas after another, making clumsy mistakes and then attempting to make up for them. It is increasingly giving the impression of amateurism.
In being unsure of its heft — substantial, despite the recession and the commitments in two Asian conflict zones — and conceding to the inevitability of Chinese economic supremacy, Mr Obama’s America is actually in danger of losing a critical intellectual argument. It is legitimising the Chinese model in the eyes of developing countries. The liberal democracy-free market template is being questioned. ‘The End of History?’ debate is being reopened.
This is not the America India seeks. As a trading partner, India needs America’s economy to rise again. As a strategic partner, it needs a restatement of the principles of the late-1990s and early-2000s, particularly in regard to Asia. This was the message Mr Singh was driving home in Washington, DC. He was articulating India’s desperation for America to get back on track.
How soon will this happen? It depends on Mr Obama’s desire and ability to free himself from his assortment of foreign policy lightweights and adopt a mainstream agenda. A likely date could be November 2010, should the Republicans sweep congressional elections and American voters send their Democrat President an unmistakable mid-term signal. Till then, India can only wait.
malikashok@gmail.com
Email | Print | Rate:
|