Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Barack Obama

  • Barack Obama’s Mahanian Approach to Australia

    When President Barack Obama embarks on a two day visit to Australia next week, he should read geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Problem of Asia (1900) underway.

    Those unfamiliar with geopolitics may wonder what the president could possibly learn from a century-old volume, but no matter tremendous improvements in science and technology, the geography of nations hasn’t changed.

    The crux of the issue is simple. Mahan predicted the rise of China and India even when those nations were controlled by European colonial powers. He in fact expected that China’s resurgence as a great power would hinder the United States’ ability to control the West and South Pacific. (more…)

  • Barack Obama, Down But Not Out

    When Barack Obama began his campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in early 2007, there weren’t many in the United States who put their money on him. The junior senator from Illinois didn’t just beat stalwarts in his own party however but resoundingly won the general election one year later.

    Three years after that phenomenal success, political commentators have virtually written the president off. They’re busy watching the Republican debates and predicting which of the opposition candidates might really “change” America and restore hope to the nation. 24/7 cable news and a hyper active blogosphere have left the pundit class very impatient indeed.

    When he ran for office, Obama promises to end the war in Iraq but continue the War on Terror. He surged troops in Afghanistan and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was captured and killed under his watch. (more…)

  • American Troops Leaving Iraq by Year’s End

    Speculation as to whether the United States were going to leave a small residual troop presence in Iraq after the end of the year are over. In a press conference Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama put the final nail in the coffin of America’s military mission in Iraq, announcing that all American soldiers will be out of the country by New Year’s, 2012.

    Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq — tens of thousands of them — will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldiers will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.

    The president’s statement is sure to get on the nerves of his Republican presidential challengers, a majority of whom have pushed for an extended troop mandate in Iraq to both train Iraqi Security Forces and to keep Iranian influence at bay.

    It may be safe to speculate that the top military officer in Iraq, General Lloyd Austin III, also have liked the administration to hold off on its announcement for another few weeks — or at least the time it would take the Iraqi government to sign off on a new agreement. It was reported over a month ago that the American military command in Iraq supported a residual troop presence of between 14- and 18,000, which in the minds of the generals would have been enough to cement the security improvements that the Iraqis have accomplished since 2007. Defense secretary Leon Panetta reportedly favored a much smaller force structure.

    After last week’s announcement, all of those plans and numbers are useless. Nearly nine years of combat in Iraq, with around 4,500 American casualties and over a trillion dollars in spending to show for it, will be over in two months.

    The issue that prevented the Americans and Iraqis from signing a new security agreement was the question of immunity.

    The White House demanded that any remaining troops in Iraq would be covered under an immunity clause to protect soldiers from being arrested and whisked away into an Iraqi courtroom in the event of a combat operation gone wrong. The fractious Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was unable to grant Washington’s wishes. American troops are unpopular in Iraq — a repercussion of nine years of fighting, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, and Iraq’s social fabric being torn asunder.

    What is next for Iraq is uncertain. The country’s security situation remains precarious with shootings and bombings occurring on an almost daily basis. Iraqi soldiers and police are sitting ducks for the insurgents who continue to plot attacks that are designed to show the average Iraqi how poor government performance is in basic policing. Al Qaeda in Iraq is battered, but not beaten. High profile and mass casualty attacks remain the norm for the group, as does the assassination of Sunni tribal figures that are a part of the Awakening Program.

    Legislation is often deadlocked in the Iraqi parliament due to its sectarian dynamics. Iraq may be a state in the formal sense but its politicians frequently place their Sunni, Shia and Kurdish constituencies ahead of the national interest. The parties have still not agreed on candidates for the defense and interior ministries, to which Maliki simply nominated his own picks without approval from his opponents.

    Then there is the matter of Iraqi democracy which has consistently been the main theme of the American mission since 2003. The short answer is that Iraq’s democracy is not exactly working at the moment, with peaceful Iraqi protests being shut down by Maliki’s security forces and the winner of last year’s parliamentary elections, Ayad Allawi, failing to reclaim the title of prime minister.

    Iraq’s troubles are far from over but the American withdrawal might convince its leaders that they have to work together. They no longer have the United States military as an insurance card although the Department of State will have the world’s largest embassy system in the country. Yet even with that system in place, there will no longer be tens of thousands of troops to watch over Iraq’s hot spots which should be an incentive for the politicians to start looking ahead.

  • Obama: Enough with Counterinsurgency

    After a year and a half of commentary and speculation about how many troops the his administration would be moving from Afghanistan, President Barack Obama broke all doubt by outlining his plans to the American people for the next two years of the conflict. All surge troops will be out of Afghanistan by September 2012, with the first 10,000 soldiers leaving their bases over the next few months.

    Despite a relatively short speech, Obama’s remarks were clear and consistent with his overall war strategy. The war has always been about making Afghanistan “good enough,” or stabilizing the country to the point where terrorists like Al Qaeda could never again use it to launch further attacks against the American homeland. Evidently, Obama sees that goal nearing its completion after eighteen months of offensive operations. With the death of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda Central is now at its weakest point since the start of the War on Terror nearly ten years ago. (more…)

  • Obama’s New Man in the Military

    With Admiral Michael Mullen scheduled to retire this September, the Obama Administration has been on a fast paced course to find a replacement for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the most powerful officer in the United States military.

    Mullen is considered a holdover from the previous administration, when George W. Bush nominated him to head the Joint Chiefs during one of the most difficult phases of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Mullen served Bush well, his advice has been equally valuable to a president with little to no formal national-security experience.

    After months of internal White House deliberations, President Obama and his National Security Council decided to tap Army General Martin E. Dempsey for the position, pending confirmation by the United States Senate.

    Before Dempsey’s short tenure as Army Chief of Staff, he served as a commanding general in Iraq several times. In 2003-2004, as the insurgency in Iraq was picking up steam and violence against American troops was increasing, Dempsey was tasked by the Bush Administration to oversee a 20,000 men strong force in Baghdad, arguably the most violent Iraqi city during that time.

    After inheriting that particularly tough job, Dempsey was promoted as the commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command in September 2005, a unit responsible for training and recruiting the Iraqi security forces. That job also proved to be an exceedingly difficult one, yet a major component of the counterinsurgency strategy that the United States adopted later in the war.

    Dempsey has a long career in the Army, graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1974, just when the Vietnam War was drawing to a close. Soldiers, congressmen and fellow generals alike admire his leadership style, which was surely one of the reasons for the president nominated him for the job.

    The interesting story behind his nomination is that he was not Barack Obama’s first choice. That honor went to General James Cartwright, who was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and a man the Obama White House was comfortable in dealing with.

    During the Afghanistan surge debate, Cartwright was Obama’s trusted advisor, providing the president with an alternative strategy outside the narrow recommendations provided by Mullen and defense secretary Robert Gates (an additional infusion of 40,000 troops). The fact that Cartwright was close to the president was important. He has had rough relationships with his generals in the past, peeking with the Rolling Stone controversy in which General Stanley McChrystal’s military staff (who then led the US/NATO command in Afghanistan) said some unflattering things about Obama’s civilian team.

    Although Cartwright’s relationship with the president was admirable, it also appeared to be his Achilles’ heel. According to The Washington Post, Mullen and Gates lobbied against Cartwright for the chairmanship. Fearing that he was too intimate with the president and convinced that Cartwright persuaded Obama to refuse their requests for an additional troop surge in Afghanistan, Gates and Mullen teamed up behind the scenes to oppose his nomination. It worked. Dempsey is in, Cartwright is out.

    The Obama White House now has a national-security team that they can truly call their own. Gates and Mullen, the two Bush holdouts, will both retire. General David Odierno, whose leadership was key to successful counterinsurgency operations in Iraq during 2007 and 2008, will take over as the Army Chief of Staff. David Petraeus, the other COIN superstar, is preparing for his new role as director of the CIA. And Leon Panetta, the current intelligence chief, is itching to lead the Pentagon once Gates retires.

    The president clearly believes that it is far more effective to reset the national-security command before the 2012 presidential elections. With a deadly insurgency in Afghanistan, a lingering air conflict in Libya and a full withdrawal from Iraq still on the administration’s calendar, Dempsey, Odierno, and Panetta will only have a short time to fit into their new roles.

  • Obama’s Address to the Arab World

    In his second major address to the Muslim world since the infamous Cairo speech two years prior, President Barack Obama attempted to speak directly to tens of millions of Arabs clamoring for a change in their political systems. For the 44th president, major speeches in front of a world audience are seen as an opportune time for the United States to increase its exposure and educate the public, both on how Americans feel and what American policymakers are planning to do. In this context, Obama’s speech Thursday at the State Department did not disappointment. (more…)

  • Barack Obama at a Crossroads

    British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “A politician thinks about the next election whereas a statesman thinks about the next generation.” The 44th president of the United States may aspire to statesmanship but he still needs to think about his reelection in November 2012.

    There is no doubt that Barack Obama is a clever politician. If he weren’t, he would have been defeated by Hillary Clinton during the Democratic Party primaries two years ago. Obama somehow managed to sway the crowds with his charisma and physical presence, winning his party’s nomination before winning the presidency in November 2008.

    Much has changed since. Obama entered the 2008 race with a thin résumé compared to his Democratic rivals during the primaries and his Republican rival John McCain during the general election. That résumé has thickened considerably but not necessarily improved. The United States are still struggling to get out of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the economy remains in recession and there is a great upsurge in the Middle East. (more…)

  • The United States’ Predicament in Libya

    After more than a week of state orchestrated violence against Libyan protesters demanding an end to Muammar al-Gaddafi’s 42 year rule over of the country, the European Union and the United States are taking concrete action to address the crisis.

    Up until the disclosure of an executive order of President Barack Obama’s, the White House was basically responding to the humanitarian crisis with a mix of official condemnations and a thorough campaign of backdoor international diplomacy with European and Arab partners — a mix that many human rights advocates and civil society organizations have labeled as a time consuming and worthless endeavor.

    While harsh, those people have a point. Gaddafi has been flouting the international system and the most powerful country in the world for four consecutive decades. A series of statements expressing Washington’s displeasure about Gaddafi’s brutal response (killing civilians in cold blood with machine guns, planes and helicopters) would undoubtedly have little deterrent effect on the dictator. It is easy to forget that Gaddafi was a global pariah until eight years ago when his government decided to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for an end to American sanctions. So hoping that a man as odd and egocentric as “the leader of the Revolution” would change his stripes in such a short period of time would be a foolish thing to expect.

    Despite these weaknesses, the Obama Administration’s response has been, and continues to be, an evolving mechanism catering to an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. The problem is that some both in and out of government do not seem to understand the gravity of the situation. It also happens to be quite difficult to take some of the recommendations made by these same critics seriously.

    One recommendation that has been getting a lot of play over the past few days is the possibility of orchestrating a NATO or UN-led “no-fly zone” over Libyan airspace in order to protect Libyan protesters on the ground from air attacks.

    More and more individuals and groups are beginning to personally endorse the no-fly zone approach. Over two hundred Arab civil society organizations have signed an open letter to the United Nations Security Council urging a similar proposal. Elliot Abrams, the Bush Administration’s top official for the Middle East on the National Security Council, has gone further. To Abrams, direct American military action may be required; the minimum of which should be the deployment of American warships off the Mediterranean coast if the situation further deteriorates.

    However desirable all of these options may be, they are also politically suicidal.

    It is difficult to believe that the United States Congress would accept unilateral American action in another Muslim country. The scars of the Iraq occupation are only just starting to heal after a long eight years of combat and American forces are still heavily engaged in an intense counterinsurgency battle against a Taliban enemy that is likely to strengthen as the weather in Afghanistan starts to get warmer.

    America’s last true humanitarian intervention in a Muslim country, Somalia, did not turn out well, despite strong bipartisan support for a thorough American response. It is not unrealistic to predict that a similar situation could unfold in Libya, a state with hundreds of different tribes, clans and loyalties.

    A no-fly zone would be great in theory but even turn this goodnatured action can turn into a question mark if the unexpected happens. For instance, what happens if an American or British plane gets shot down by anti-aircraft fire, or if a Libyan fighter jet decides to get into a dogfight with an allied plane? While not preordained, there is a very good chance that a downed aircraft would provoke harsh retaliation by the United States and their allies — something that Gaddafi could conveniently use to boost his claim that the entire protest movement is a Western conspiracy aimed at driving him from power.

    There is no question that the White House’s response may have lagged, but in a scenario where facts on the ground change every hour, no one should have expected anything different.

    The United States now has taken action through unilateral sanctions and a freezing of Gaddafi’s assets abroad. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have also unequivocally asked Gaddafi to save his country by resigning. Now that American citizens have been evacuated, a freezing of diplomatic relations and wholehearted rhetorical and/or material support for the anti-government protests may also be in order.

    Anything more than that could very well play into the hands of Gaddafi’s regime. Or, it could instigate an even wider conflict, granting Gaddafi’s clan an excuse to crack down even harder.

  • The Afghan Surge, One Year Later

    One year, and tens of thousands of additional American soldiers later, the Obama Administration has disclosed its latest assessment of the war to the public.

    The results, which were distributed to the press in summary format after the reports completion, are not that surprising at first glance. American and NATO troops are making steady progress in the south of Afghanistan, killing an unprecedented amount of Taliban commanders (The Washington Post puts the number at 386) and killing thousands of Taliban foot soldiers in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. Special Forces raids from both American and Afghan battalions are having a remarkable impact on the command and control of the insurgency, as evident in the optimistic tone of the final report.

    In a surprising turn, the military assessment also goes out of its way to compliment the Pakistani government for its cooperation in the realm of counterterrorism, including Islamabad’s help in providing American forces with intelligence on militant hideouts.

    But what’s most significant overall is what isn’t happening, or what isn’t happening fast enough. President Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul is still heavily corrupt, and his rash statements about foreign occupation over the past six months are starting to concern officials in Washington who are trying to make the best of a bad situation. After nine years caught in the middle of combat, the Afghan people remain enormously frightened about their personal safety. A majority of Afghans (55 percent) want foreign soldiers to leave as soon as possible. If winning the hearts and minds of Afghan civilians is an overarching priority of the mission, this number suggests that the United States and NATO are slowly dragging along without any positive numbers to back them up.

    In general, this latest military assessment needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Although the White House doesn’t admit it publicly, the report is as much a political document to the president’s critics as an “objective” military evaluation. July 2011, the time given by the president to start a gradual withdrawal of forces, is fast approaching, so the need to show progress is becoming more important by the day. Providing an optimistic and well presented document to the American people and to the presidents own party is part of the strategy. In a time of war, PR is just as vital to the effort as tactical successes on the battlefield.

    Expect bloggers and reporters to provide their own critiques of the assessment in the coming days. But in the long run, all of these critiques are meaningless. What counts is whether Americans give Barack Obama more time to implement his strategy.

  • Obama’s New Deal To Israel

    In a last-ditch effort by the United States to salvage the direct peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent eight full hours with Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning.  The result was nothing short of remarkable from Clinton’s standpoint; the Israeli prime minister agreed that a resumption of negotiations would be a good idea. As Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace diplomat says in Foreign Policy, “any advance in the excruciatingly painful world of Arab-Israeli negotiations is significant.”

    The downside is that the United States were forced to give up a lot of concessions just to convince the Israelis to take some positive steps forward. Essentially, the Obama Administration bribed Israel into accepting its position for the short term.

    For a measly three-month extension of the settlement moratorium that originally expired in late September, Washington asked Congress to sell $3 billion worth of American military aircraft to the Israel Defense Forces, on top of the billion dollar aid package Tel Aviv receives on an annual basis. Perhaps more important for Netanyahu, the United States promised to veto any resolution at the UN Security Council that would embarrass Israel or condemn the occupation of Palestinian land.

    The third assurance from Obama and Clinton is that East Jerusalem would be exempted from any additional freeze in Jewish settlements; a concession that the Palestinians have already stated as unacceptable. And the most consequential of all is a written American promise that this will be the last time President Obama asks the Israelis to halt settlement construction through official channels.

    Netanyahu must be smiling, but all for the wrong reasons. Once again, his government was able to sidestep American demands, as well as pressure from the Israeli right. By acquring a tremendous amount of aid from Washington, Netanyahu can portray his recent trip to America as a victorious one. This may provide him with the necessary support to pass the new deal through the Israeli security cabinet; some hardliners have already indicated that they will abstain from the vote, thus virtually assuring that the proposal will be signed.

    But the three month deadline is quite troubling. Even if Netanyahu successfully implements the new agreement, his negotiators will be coerced into hammering out a deal with the Palestinians on borders within an extremely short period of time (an issue that has eluded the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for close to twenty years).

    The logic is simple: if borders are established, Israel can build on whatever territory is inside the Israeli line of control.

    But if that deal cannot be reached within the three month timeframe (and that is unfortunately a possible scenario), then the entire enterprise is basically dead as long as Netanyahu is in the top job. Construction will continue on the West Bank, as is already happening in East Jerusalem, further eluding the possibility of a two-state solution. And Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, will respond by withdrawing from the process all together.

    This may be Obama’s last chance to make some headway, at least during his first term in office. Otherwise, American diplomats might as well wait until a new Israeli government is seated.

  • Obama’s India Visit Overlooks Geopolitics

    President Barack Obama’s trip to India this week could be termed as a diplomatic success for both sides as one sees and hears the body language, cheers and laughter.

    International politics however, which very much determine how nations play in the world stage has many other components besides diplomacy. Geopolitics is one such element.

    Take this itinerary of Obama which included trips to Mumbai’s Taj Hotel where he met the survivors of the 26/11 terrorist attack. As the president of the United States he did his best to understand the pain of the barbaric act which he himself mentioned during his speech before the Indian Parliament. He couldn’t openly refer to Pakistan but made it clear to the Indian audience that this country promotes terror against India. He did mention neighboring Burma’s poor track record on human rights and political freedom and asked India to do more to make the authoritarian regime understand the principles of democracy. This is where the cold realities of geopolitics come into play. (more…)

  • In India, Then Onto Indonesia

    After his party suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in the midterm elections for Congress, one would hope for President Barack Obama to be able to recuperate with a nice vacation. No president likes losing, especially when the margin of defeat is so high. For Obama, who campaigned on a platform of change just two years ago, a new Republican majority is particularly disheartening.

    But if the president was kicked to the floor last week, he has an ample opportunity to pick himself up and dust himself off over the next ten days. As is widely reported on this fine blog and in every major American newspaper, Obama has finally begun his tour of Asia. India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea are the four big countries on the White House docket, but Obama will also speak to Chinese president Hu Jintao and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev at the G20 summit in Seoul later in the week.

    While the entire trip is indeed important — this is the chance for the United States to reassert its image with its Southeast Asian allies who are nervous about a rising Chinese military power — it is the individual meetings in India and Indonesia that could boast the greatest gains for America’s image.

    As soon as he stepped off the plane, Obama met with Indian leaders on a range of issues. The trip is only three days old, but the president has already stressed the importance of a long-term Indo-American economic relationship to Indian business leaders. That meeting also included the promotion of a $10 billion trade deal which Washington hopes will spur the Indo-American relationship in a positive direction. On a symbolic note, Obama and his staff are staying at the infamous Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the tragic site of a terrorist attack in 2008 when Pakistani militants opened fire, killing over 160 people.

    But perhaps more significant than the president’s early accomplishments is what he hopes to achieve in the remainder of his trip. While Pakistan may not formally be on the agenda, the American and Indian governments will probably discuss the domestic troubles unleashed in that country behind closed doors, away from reporters. This may seem like a superficial topic, given India’s constant mistrust of Pakistan, but it is a subject that must be broached constructively. The Indians need to understand that the weakness of the Pakistani state obstructs Islamabad’s ability to tackle each and every anti-Indian militant group. Yet at the same time, the Americans need to understand where the Indian government is coming from.

    Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country and the world’s latest emerging democracy, will also embrace Obama for the first time in his presidency. The president spent four years as a young boy in Indonesia, so it will interesting to see whether he can tout his personal experience to his advantage.

    This part of the trip is perhaps the best opportunity the United States will have in the foreseeable future to show Muslims what America is all about: individual rights, respect for all cultures, tolerance. Obama’s approval ratings in the Muslim world have been declining since his Cairo speech in 2009, but that could change with a heartfelt address to the world’s largest Muslim nation.

    These are all preliminary at the moment. The Asian tour has only lasted for three days so far. The next seven will make or break the trip.

  • A Quick Reaction on the Midterms

    Now that the midterm elections are over, with the Republicans capturing the House of Representatives for the first time in four years (as predicted by pollsters), questions are swirling over what President Barack Obama’s agenda will be over the remainder of his term.

    Undoubtedly, the president will be forced to cooperate with Republicans like he has never had to do before. Domestic issues as the economy, fiscal policy, the debt, and government spending loom large for both parties at this point, and I seldom see the Obama Administration getting everything it wants without a little give and take. From an historical standpoint, the situation is reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s experience in 1994, when Newt Gingrich’s Republican Party recaptured the House after being in the minority for an unprecedented forty years. At that time, Clinton managed to heed the challenge. Will Obama be able to do the same thing? The answer is up in the air.

    What I’m interested in is the election’s effects with regard to Obama’s foreign policy. Even with both houses of Congress in solid Democratic hands, the Obama Administration’s lack of success abroad was pervasive. The record is clear; a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, an ever-closer nuclear Iran; a chaotic Iraq; an escalated war in Afghanistan; a neglected Latin American policy. Surely an opposing party in the legislature will not make things any easier for him? Right? Wrong. (more…)

  • Obama’s Passage to India

    In his seminal work, Passage to India, the great American poet of the nineteenth century Walt Whitman said “that he sees the passage to India as the event to aid in the melding of ‘land, geographies’.” When President Barack Obama starts his “Passage to India” he will embark on a journey that may enable him to find a place in history.

    It’s too early to predict what history will make of Obama. His legacy will largely be determined by how he overcomes two major struggles. The first being the economic recession; the second, the war in Afghanistan. The president can hope to win on both fronts by successfully courting India during his upcoming trip.

    The first question is what India can offer that other countries cannot? Being close to Afghanistan, India can offer more tactic support. It has the most to gain from the United States succeeding in Afghanistan. Were the country to descend into chaos once again, it might destabilize India’s immediate neighborhood. It is in India’s national interest to help the United States out of the mess in Afghanistan.

    Since 2001, India has contributed $1.2 billion to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, making it the largest regional donor to the country. What more can it do?

    India might not hesitate to act as a mediator between Iran and the United States to recreate the atmosphere that existed in the brief interlude between the fall of the Taliban and George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address — in which the president declared Iran part of the “Axis of Evil.” Indian strategic thinkers have pushed their government to accept more demanding global leadership which includes acting as a positive third party mediator in relations between Washington and Tehran. Having Iran on board could solve numerous strategic, logistical and tactical challenges faced by American and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. This could be a real surge.

    For that to happen, President Obama needs to reaffirm that India has a place at the high tables of international relations. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the Indo-American relationship. India might not hesitate to take on a greater role internationally if it is recognized legally. India’s leadership moreover would like some assurance from Obama on the expansion of the United Nations Security Council in order to accommodate India as a permanent member.

    The George W. Bush Administration came close to agreeing on this and in fact, by providing access to civilian nuclear technology to one of the few countries that isn’t party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Bush acknowledged India as a de facto nuclear power which is, in a way, the first step toward permanent UN Security Council membership.

    Less recent history shows that Indo-American relations are more troublesome than that though. From the moment India attained independence in 1947, its ties with the United States have been ridden with mistrust. During the Cold War, India refused to side with either ideological camp as part of the nonalignment movement but did sympathize with the Soviet Union whereas America was portrayed as a capitalistic and imperialistic power.

    The fall of the Soviet Empire in the early 1990s provided reason for India and the United States to normalize relations but the 1998 Pokhran Nuclear Test was a major setback. For some time, the United States continued to regard India through the prism of the Cold War moreover. By hyphenating Pakistan and interpreting internal political fractures as an impediment to regional power, India’s role in global affairs was denied. Initially under President Bill Clinton, whose visit to India in March 2000 was a breakthrough for Indo-American relations, and later under President Bush, India become a major player as far as the United States were concerned.

    Indian policymakers sympathized with the neoconservative world views held by several of the leading voices in the Bush Administration. The current president’s skepticism of this philosophy has been cause for concern in New Delhi. Although Obama calls himself as Pacific president and can claim a linkage to the Indian Ocean through his Kenyan father, his world view seems to be more influenced by the Boston Harvard Liberal outlook. The Indian administration had never been comfortable with this.

    In recent decades, India has always appreciated Republicans more than Democrats. The conservative Ronald Reagan, pragmatic George H.W. Bush and neoconservative George W. Bush never demanded anything more from India and left it to itself. The liberal John F. Kennedy and Ivy League intellectual Bill Clinton on the other hand wanted India either to agree to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime or submit to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    Even during the American presidential election of 2008, Indian strategic thinkers secretly prayed for John McCain’s victory over Obama considering the troubles of previous Democratic presidencies. Obama should use his trip to alleviate any fears among the Indian political leadership about his commitment to greater India’s role in world affairs.

    On the economic front, the questions remains how the United States will extend dominance into the twenty-first century. The long-term strategy has to tap the growing entrepreneurial energy that is emerging from India. By actively cooperating with India’s business establishment and attracting the brightest and talented youngsters of the country, the United States can retain the best institutes in research and development which should help its investments in pioneering new fields as renewable energies.

    If this long-term strategy is embedded in the Obama Administration then it can outclass China in the decades to come. This was the approach pursued during the Cold War and it enabled the United States to outsmart the Soviets in terms of science and technology.

    Barack Obama will be the sixth American president to visit India and the third Democrat in that office. It was during George W. Bush’s previous visit that the Indo-American civil nuclear deal was signed and sealed. Obama’s trip will matter as a foreign policy achievement ahead of the 2012 presidential election. Personally, Obama will do his best to shed the “Carter Syndrome” of dragging into foreign policy fiasco. The trip will strengthen the strategic partnership initiated during the last administration which elevated India as a core strategic partner to counter the rise of China in the Asia-Pacific and greater part of the world. If Obama manages to mend relations with India it may be considered the “finest hour” of his first term as president in terms of foreign policy.

  • Obama Should Take His Eyes Off Kashmir

    A recurring theme in the Obama Administration’s attitude toward exiting Afghanistan seems to be mollifying Pakistan by pushing India to resolve the Kashmir issue.

    Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration had urged India to resolve its disputes with neighboring Pakistan in order to advance “American goals in the region.” The Times of India confirmed this week that President Barack Obama plans to ask India to resolve the Kashmir issue as a priority in return for American support for its bid to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.

    Most disturbing about this attitude is that the White House appears to imply that resolution of the Kashmir and related border issues has somehow been thwarted by India. This would ignore the numerous unilateral gestures of peace made by India; the regular ceasefire violations perpetrated by Pakistan along the line of control and the ongoing efforts of the Pakistani intelligence services to wage a proxy war against India by supporting Taliban insurgents and mujahideen along the border with Afghanistan. (more…)