Self-absorbed America and India!  

  Indeed the United States of America continues to be a typical techno-mercantile as well as a galloping military power ever since the end of the second-world war. Armed with awesome military preeminence and supported by the booming economic power, Washington successfully secured its national interests in all areas of profit; and consequent gains added to further consolidation of its all-round strength and charisma throughout the world. Activating its foreign policy as well as diplomacy, the US clubbed the entire democratic nations in the Western Europe into its fold to form a global military and commercial architecture viz. NATO and World Bank respectively immediately after the second-world war. In this way, the quick rising military and economic power pushed America towards an unprecedented supremacy during the later decades although the erstwhile Soviet Union or the USSR followed the same track of ascendance during the same period by forcibly turning the Eastern European states into a communist bloc under it strong banner to emerge as a counter poise to the US.

Thus the post-world war progress achieved by both the power blocs turned both leading nations as super powers and their ideological antagonism – capitalism versus communism – set the context for emergence of Cold War between them which sustained for around three decades. And that again prevails between the US and Russia, as the successor of the USSR, with the onset of Russia-Ukraine full-fledged war more than two and half years ago. While India continues to carry its flagship policy of Non-alignment intact  in the international relations and world affairs, it essentially needs more and more American cooperation to enter into the United Nations Security Council and many other prominent international forums, apart from securing latest scientific technologies related to energy security particularly nuclear energy and other non-conventional sources of energy, super computer, information technology, space and ocean exploration, weather and monsoon studies, critical engineering technology etc..

       US’ exclusive focus

Against this backdrop, the present American outlook towards the world can be better understood as the running extension of its exclusive foreign policy and self-centred economic policies camouflaged under all-encompassing diplomacy, sometimes adorned with latent or manifest threats or even muscular tactics leading to total devastation of a country including assassination of its national leader. The entire trajectory of the US’ foreign policy ever since its upcoming as a federation few centuries ago and also during the post-World War cold war years clearly substantiates the aforesaid argument and that itself finds substantiated by its pre-meditated or well-calculated policy of isolationism or aloofness upheld in the past with prominent examples of President George Washington’s proclamation of neutrality in 1793 or Monroe Doctrine in 1823 established by President Monroe and again during inter-war years after the first-World War.

Instead of taking a leading part in the recurrent wars in the Europe during the previous two centuries, as by then the US has emerged as a powerful nation vis-à-vis the United Kingdom to play a decisive role into Anglo-American affairs providing stable peace in the continent, Washington always managed to remain far away on the periphery despite being well equipped with arms and ammunition and also riding on the crest of economic resurgence, thus shrewdly securing its own national interests or not letting them lost or destroyed in any way, even at the cost of the national interests of the sovereign states supporting it. The Monroe doctrine of 1823 clearly substantiates the argument. And that would certainly have helped to sustain the critical balance of power in the continent disturbed by numerous large-scale wars among European states either due to frictions among royal claimants pursuing their rights of succession to a throne amidst rampant wars of successions or to popular revolutions against the ruling royal monarchies as in case of France in 1789 and thereafter a decade-long anarchy therein. Added to these was their bitter experience derived out of the balkanization of Europe during 18^th century onwards leading to fragmentation of the Balkan peninsula ruled by the glorious Ottoman Empire into several smaller states, often hostile to each other, thereby propelling a large-scale geographical rearrangement of the European continent with several newly born independent political communities now occupying the map of the Europe as sovereign nation-states.

Although the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, 1648 marked by the sovereign equality of nation-states provided some respite to these new emerged political entities, yet the mounting ambitions of these earlier kingly dominions and principalities often incurred bitter struggles for supremacy in the region thus mostly   disturbing the overall balance of power in the continent. Though the balance of power principle had been substituted by its new avatar as balance of terror after the second-World War during the so-evolving nuclear era but its theoretical presence still continues to be retained by the global community of nations behind the shadow of the mounting US nuclear power of destruction, wherein few other powerful nations like Russia, Japan, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, China etc. may considerably influence the current direction of the international relations global affairs.

Self-oriented tactical foreign policy

Such self-absorbed American foreign policy continues to be a marked feature as that got reflected in the abovementioned long-held policy of isolationism or its policy of containment during the second-World War with a view to repel rising communist influence in the Eastern Europe backed by the then Soviet Union. In fact, the desire to focus and consequently protect its domestic interests propelled the US administration to avoid involvement in the affairs of other nation-states and international politics as well. However the apparent US pacifism in international politics had not been a well-entrenched and consistent foreign policy action-programme and that became amply manifest during fierce cold war years after the second-World War with a view expand its sphere of influence in the Western Europe. Evidently this tactical US’ foreign policy action-programme after the second-World War mostly led to interventions in internal affairs of many under-developed or developing nations of the Third World, spread over in Asia, Africa and Latin America etc. and also in the West Asia as well which continues to be the richest source of crude oil and natural gas, thus being a prominent centre of global rivalry among erstwhile super and major powers spread over in the Western Europe through their interventionist and imperialist foreign policies to sustain their mega industries and commercial enterprises to secure their much needed ever rising demand of energy security.

Thus the tactical foreign policy of America manages to procure its socio-political and economic interests and that further sustains its expanding sphere of influence in all over the world. This is why, America has already established its air and naval bases in most part of the world to account nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and has also stationed its armies in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia. The US’ has 11 large nuclear powered naval carriers viz. USS George Washington, Roosevelt, Eisenhower etc. carrying nearly 80 fighters each and they are the largest fleet in the world, thus manifesting a typical mix of naval as well as air power to protect its national interests. Undoubtedly the US military power today is the most awesome and unchallenged rare endowment comprising of lethal and state-of-art nuclear weapons which sustains its global hegemony despite Russia and China desperately longing for the same.

Evolving India-US bonhomie

In fact the core concerns of the aforesaid US’ foreign policy during the recent past also reflects this approach. The important US’ concerns in South Asia are viz. Afghanistan, Pakistan and China and they may be cited here to substantiate the argument in favour of India being a meaningful and worthwhile friend for America. While reasonably addressing these concerns in the US’ favour by ensuring its dominant presence to deter both Pakistan and China in South Asia or Indo-Pacific, the aforesaid concerns had elevated India’s position in the hierarchy of the US’ priority under President Trump. Consequently, Pakistan stands marginalized in the evolving US’ strategic calculus for the first time, since Soviet Russia military intervened in Afghanistan at the end of 1979. It is in the same spirit the US identified China as its direct opponent after more than four decades of honeymoon emerged out of Ping-Pong diplomacy in the early 1970s enjoying their cordial bilateral relations. That indeed is characterized by the end of the US’ inclination towards Pakistan to rebalance its strategy towards South Asia under the tapestry of a more systematic and coherent policy for Asia vis-à-vis mounting challenges from China under President Biden.

US’ inclination towards India

Apart from these, the US’ expertise in computer technology, nuclear energy, exploitation of unconventional sources of energy, weather and monsoon studies, earth sciences, space exploration, information technology, Artificial Intelligence, initiative on critical and emerging technologies (iEAT) unveiled in January 2023 under Joe Biden’s presidency are some of the most significant achievement that America holds to its credit as these are still unavailable to any other power in the world including Russia and China. But all these are very useful for India, given its rising demands in all the aforesaid sectors of the bilateral India-US partnership, as they are meant to serve New Delhi’s  national interests, especially expanding aspirations of people at large in India. If more intensive technology cooperation has been India’s demand from the US, it has been carried to a new level. The iCET has also helped expand the focus beyond cooperation between the S&T agencies to building industrial cooperation that is set to boost India’s national capabilities in advanced sectors like semiconductors and jet engine production in India. Biden’s emphasis on building resilient supply chains and developing deeper cooperation among trusted geographies has not only put India at the centre of this strategy but has also mobilized the US’s allies to join the efforts to accelerate India’s growth in the emerging technology areas.

Evidently the US predominance in international relations has had a tremendous impact as idealism on the evolving course of international relations. But, on the other hand, the consequent power-politics due to successful Bolshevik Revolution led to the US inclining towards realism. And the forthcoming decades resulted into the onset of the second-World War drastically changed the pith and substance of its foreign policy. That gradually consolidated realism in its entire policy frameworks during later decades till today, thus reflecting its self-absorbed outlook towards the world, exclusively focused on the American national interests, though incidental reaping by other states too, if so trickles down. As against this, India’s policy of Non-alignment continues to be aimed at lessening power-politics tensions between power-blocs and reducing threats to peace and security throughout the world.