Polaris  

I highly doubt that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh follows Polaris. Yet, even prior to his arrival in Washington last month (which coincided with my last post), he clearly delineated where he stood on the question of the United States’ future. From his exchange with Fareed Zakaria on CNN:

ZAKARIA: Do you think this crisis casts a doubt, or casts a poor light, on the American model? And does this in some way affect America’s power, its soft power, if you will?

I mean, America was seen as the leading example of capitalism around the world, the advanced model. And is that now cast in doubt?

SINGH: Well, there is a temporary setback. There’s a temporary questioning about the relevance of the American model. But I have seen these things much before.

I think, way back in the late ’60s, a very famous economist at Yale, Professor Robert Triffin, wrote that very famous book, “Gold and the Dollar Crisis,” and saying the days of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world are over, that the United States should take a lead to move to a more neutral (UNINTELLIGIBLE) asset.

But things changed. And the United States recovered from difficult economic situation. It has shown remarkable capacity to bounce back — the entrepreneurial spirit, which is a hallmark of the American enterprise system. I have no doubt that these things are not permanent, irreversible shifts, but that the American economy has the capacity to bounce back to its normal growth point (ph). 

ZAKARIA: So, the Russian government and the Chinese government in various ways have been suggesting or hinting that they might prefer a world without the dollar as the reserve currency. You do not share that view.

SINGH: No, no. The power to create money is an index of power, of patience (ph). And as far as I can see right now, there is no substitute for the dollar.

And even the Chinese are hesitant. After all, the fact that they hold $2.5 trillion of reserve assets, they have not disposed of even a fraction of them — that is a measure of the confidence that the world has in the dollar.

There are problems. There is the confidence problem, which can be very destabilizing.

But my own feeling is that we have not entered an era of irreversible shift in economic strength of the United States.

The Prime Minister may have made clear his stance on the question posed in my earlier post. But he has over the past five years showed himself to be something of a maverick on foreign affairs. Indrani Bagchi of The Times of India goes so far as to describe him as one of only two politicians in the current government to have “a strategic vision.” One must conclude that the Indian leadership—if not yet the entire policymaking establishment—now adheres publicly to the view of the United States maintaing its preponderant position in the global system, thus making closer partnership with India desirable from New Delhi’s vantage point. 

The Indian Prime Minister’s buoyancy was sadly overshadowed in the United States by the Salahi gate-crash circus. But to those of us dismissive of easy scandal, it proved a stark contrast to the pessimistic undercurrent during President Obama’s visit to Asia just weeks earlier. Things are indeed strange when the leader of India appears (publicly) to have more faith in the resilience of the United States than even his American counterpart. 

The Prime Minister’s optimism dovetails to a considerable degree with K. Subrahmanyam’s conception of greater environmental and high-technology collaboration between the two states. This represents another novel, creative interpretation of the burgeoning Indo-U.S. partnership, albeit one that covers both the first and third visions I articulated previously—that of a strong America being, on balance, good for India, with a stronger partnership rendering greater mutual benefits.

Further reading: In the context of U.S.-India relations, Ashley Tellis’s commentary in The Indian Express is well worth reading. Dr. Tellis has often been critical of the current U.S. administration’s regional policies, so his assessment that “the recent Obama-Singh summit was more successful than is currently realised” should be taken very seriously.

More further reading: It’s harder to argue the importance of getting the Indo-U.S. relationship right better than K.S. Bajpai does in The Express (h/t Pragmatic): 

In spite of Partition and the assertion of China’s control over Tibet, India remains a crossroads between West Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. As our first professional diplomat emphasised, our strategic frontiers are three concentric circles — from the Hindu Kush to the Irrawady, Aden to Singapore and Suez to Shanghai. In this coming decade we must seek to contain, if not prevent, the growth of forces that could operate from those concentric areas to our detriment. Presently that means four vital interests: in the security of the Persian Gulf, the stability of Central Asia, the changing power equations in East Asia, and a range of Oceanic issues: tsunamis, piracy, helping small island states, keeping sea-lanes free. There are countless local or regional components of these issues India must deal with directly, but the one key power in each field is the US.

 

The implications of that reality are yet to be accepted. The intellectual climate in which it was seen as unpatriotic to contemplate cooperation with America has doubtless changed, but many still mistrust America as the source of capitalist assertiveness. Nor do commonalities of ends preclude differences, often deep or bitter, over how to reach them. Delhi and Washington could well be one on Gulf security, for instance, but are bound to differ on Iran. More immediately, countering terrorism in Pakistan is a common objective full of potential conflicts on methods…

 

But until we can organise ourselves to be key determinants, or at least far more influential than we are, in shaping the future of our primary strategic concerns, we do need to work with partners. No one will help if Pakistan or China precipitates war, but many powers would happily help us become so strong war would not be worth inflicting on us…Washington cannot be the be-all or end-all of India’s interests; but it is still the one power that can, if it will, influence the course of events where it chooses…Cooperating with America is both complex and dangerous in a very particular sense: unless handled with sureness and skill, it could be hugely counter-productive.