January 25, 2004
AXIS OF GOOD FILES:
India rises as strategic US ally: Monday India celebrates Republic Day - and worries neighbors, especially Pakistan. (Scott Baldauf, 1/26/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
Just five years after US-imposed sanctions turned India and Pakistan into virtual pariah states for their nuclear-weapons tests in 1998, India has emerged as America's "strategic partner" in South Asia. Far more than its alliance with Pakistan to hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants, America's new relationship with India is a broad security, political, technological, and economic arrangement on par with America's relationship with Europe or NATO. The US is even talking about sharing roles in joint space missions.In speeches over the last week, President Bush, Colin Powell, and other US officials have lauded India's new position in the world and growing economic importance on the global stage. Separately, US officials have talked of India's common interests in protecting sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca, an area that India already patrols with its blue-water navy.
Call it the outsourcing of global security, with India once again getting the job.
"If you're looking at the security of the oil lanes or the sea lanes of Southeast Asia or the relationship with China, there's a natural convergence of interests from the US and India on all this," says K. Santhanam, director of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, a government think tank in New Delhi.
It's a situation that has many of India's neighbors, primarily its nuclear rival Pakistan, wringing their hands.
Wringing is good. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 25, 2004 06:57 PM
Great catch, Orrin. You might also be interested in this on Indo-Israel collaboration.
"The two sides agreed to promote customs cooperation, industrial high-tech R&D and to establish a joint R&D Fund. Negotiations on an agreement for Recognition of Conformity Assessments are to be initiated and the possible electronic exchange of customs-related information to expedite the clearance of goods will be examined," it added.
In meetings with Israeli ministers of finance, transport and national infrastructure, Jaitley also raised possible cooperation in investments, infrastructure, railways and transportation.
India and Israel also resolved to remove mutual tariff barriers, boost major commercial projects and encourage mutual government procurements in their countries and third states, according to an Israeli release.
That's in addition to previously reported cooperation on spy satellites, counterterrorism training, and so on.
Posted by: godlesscapitalist at January 25, 2004 10:51 PM