jeypore
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Last week, the United States Congress approved an unprecedented deal that offers India access to American nuclear fuel and technology in exchange for stronger international safeguards on India's nuclear program.
The historic deal is done. Now comes the hard part.
We must work to deliver on the deal's geopolitical potential to leverage our peaceful nuclear cooperation into a 21st-century U.S.-India strategic partnership. As India plays an ever more important role in the world economy, our interests and values are also converging as never before. From ensuring that no single country dominates Asia to providing democratic stability in a volatile region to pioneering green technologies, India will be increasingly key to solving international challenges.
Remarkably, it has now been 30 years since an American President, Jimmy Carter, last took a first-term trip to India. Instead, a rising power with over a billion people has largely been an afterthought as each new President acted on his foreign policy priorities. Not surprisingly, cooperation between the world's oldest and largest democracies has long been underwhelming.
Until recently. The next president will be uniquely well-positioned to do what the previous four have not: visit India early enough to build momentum toward a genuine partnership. For decades, our different worldviews during the Cold War and sanctions arising from India's outlier nuclear weapons program have kept us apart. But today, shifts in geopolitics have led many -- including some inside the current administration -- to see a vital role for India in America's long-term foreign policy.
For its part, India increasingly views America as an asset in its drive for great power status. The 2008 Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted this spring found that 66% of Indians had a favorable opinion of the United States, while 69% believed that U.S. foreign policy accounts for India's interests in last year's Pew survey.
These trends add up to an opportunity. U.S.-India relations must be about more than exchanging nuclear fuel or technology. The next president must work to achieve broad-based cooperation that reflects the shared principles, shared threats, and ever deepening ties between our two economies and societies.
India's regional diplomacy can help us address a dire situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If we can assist India in finding homegrown ways to lower regional tensions, Pakistan's military can focus its attention westward on the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces currently using the country as a safe haven to plot another 9/11 and attack U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan.
Recent coordinated bombings in New Delhi and other Indian cities remind us that we also share the challenge of radical religious terrorism. From January 2004 to March 2007, India was second only to Iraq in the number of people killed by terrorism. We should step up joint training and tactics as part of expanded military, intelligence, and law enforcement cooperation.
We must also work together on energy security and climate change. Today the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, while India has climbed into the top five. Both countries depend heavily on foreign oil. We must tap into the dynamism of entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers in both societies and encourage investment in clean energy sources.
Finally, the nuclear deal should open the door to greater cooperation with India on nonproliferation issues. Despite its own arsenal, India has long supported the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Gandhi's dream is now shared by both U.S. presidential candidates. The new President should urge the Senate to ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons testing -- and then encourage India and its neighbors to sign it and agree to a moratorium on producing nuclear weapons-usable material.
Like any allies, India and the U.S. will continue to have differences -- from India's ties with Iran to trade. Parts of India's older generation will sometimes advocate policies at odds with our own to preserve India's strategic autonomy, while some younger left-leaning elements may remain ideologically hostile toward us.
But make no mistake: As time passes, India and America will increasingly see eye-to-eye on the major issues of the 21st century. Even a nation as powerful as the U.S. needs some friends in this world. Having secured the symbolic centerpiece of a nuclear deal, it's time to make India among America's closest.
Mr. Kerry, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
Building a Stronger U.S.-India Friendship - WSJ.com
The historic deal is done. Now comes the hard part.
We must work to deliver on the deal's geopolitical potential to leverage our peaceful nuclear cooperation into a 21st-century U.S.-India strategic partnership. As India plays an ever more important role in the world economy, our interests and values are also converging as never before. From ensuring that no single country dominates Asia to providing democratic stability in a volatile region to pioneering green technologies, India will be increasingly key to solving international challenges.
Remarkably, it has now been 30 years since an American President, Jimmy Carter, last took a first-term trip to India. Instead, a rising power with over a billion people has largely been an afterthought as each new President acted on his foreign policy priorities. Not surprisingly, cooperation between the world's oldest and largest democracies has long been underwhelming.
Until recently. The next president will be uniquely well-positioned to do what the previous four have not: visit India early enough to build momentum toward a genuine partnership. For decades, our different worldviews during the Cold War and sanctions arising from India's outlier nuclear weapons program have kept us apart. But today, shifts in geopolitics have led many -- including some inside the current administration -- to see a vital role for India in America's long-term foreign policy.
For its part, India increasingly views America as an asset in its drive for great power status. The 2008 Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted this spring found that 66% of Indians had a favorable opinion of the United States, while 69% believed that U.S. foreign policy accounts for India's interests in last year's Pew survey.
These trends add up to an opportunity. U.S.-India relations must be about more than exchanging nuclear fuel or technology. The next president must work to achieve broad-based cooperation that reflects the shared principles, shared threats, and ever deepening ties between our two economies and societies.
India's regional diplomacy can help us address a dire situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If we can assist India in finding homegrown ways to lower regional tensions, Pakistan's military can focus its attention westward on the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces currently using the country as a safe haven to plot another 9/11 and attack U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan.
Recent coordinated bombings in New Delhi and other Indian cities remind us that we also share the challenge of radical religious terrorism. From January 2004 to March 2007, India was second only to Iraq in the number of people killed by terrorism. We should step up joint training and tactics as part of expanded military, intelligence, and law enforcement cooperation.
We must also work together on energy security and climate change. Today the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, while India has climbed into the top five. Both countries depend heavily on foreign oil. We must tap into the dynamism of entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers in both societies and encourage investment in clean energy sources.
Finally, the nuclear deal should open the door to greater cooperation with India on nonproliferation issues. Despite its own arsenal, India has long supported the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Gandhi's dream is now shared by both U.S. presidential candidates. The new President should urge the Senate to ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons testing -- and then encourage India and its neighbors to sign it and agree to a moratorium on producing nuclear weapons-usable material.
Like any allies, India and the U.S. will continue to have differences -- from India's ties with Iran to trade. Parts of India's older generation will sometimes advocate policies at odds with our own to preserve India's strategic autonomy, while some younger left-leaning elements may remain ideologically hostile toward us.
But make no mistake: As time passes, India and America will increasingly see eye-to-eye on the major issues of the 21st century. Even a nation as powerful as the U.S. needs some friends in this world. Having secured the symbolic centerpiece of a nuclear deal, it's time to make India among America's closest.
Mr. Kerry, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
Building a Stronger U.S.-India Friendship - WSJ.com
