Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Kerry’s visit - useful for India' that was published in Newsband

Kerry’s visit - useful for India

US Secretary of State John Kerry made his first trip to India as secretary of state where he worked to enhance a U.S.-India relationship that is deeply rooted despite ongoing disagreements about U.S. support of India's archrival, Pakistan, roadblocks to trade, restrictions on American companies doing business in fast-growing India and uncertainty about the future stability of Afghanistan.

Just before the Kerry visit to Delhi, the Barack Obama administration was engaged in a fire-fighting exercise over revelations about the intrusive cyber snooping that the US National Security Agency is involved in, and the fact that India ranks as the fifth most targeted nation had raised eyebrows in Delhi.

The Obama administration admitted that it was engaged in quiet talks with the Taliban about a peace agreement, ahead of the 2014 US withdrawal from Afghanistan. This has caused concern in Delhi.

The positive factors for India is that we have received the first of the US made C–17 Globemaster III heavy-lift transport aircraft at the Hindon airbase near Delhi. With a range of 10,000 km and load carrying capacity of over 70 tonnes, the C-17 will be a significant addition to India’s trans-border strategic lift capability. Apart from the US Air Force, which operates over 200 C–17s, the Indian Air Force is the only other service in the world that now has this kind of a capability and has plans to induct a total of 10 such aircraft over a two-year period at a cost of  US $ 4 billion. Beijing will be monitoring this acquisition with interest for its politico-military significance.

In addition, the US is willing to enhance certain aspects of India’s military capability and notwithstanding the disappointment over the fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force – the US has bagged reasonably valuable orders for providing the maritime reconnaissance aircraft for the Indian Navy and the heavy duty transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force.

The Kerry visit proved to be an opportunity for both sides to share and review their sense of accumulated disappointment and concern over what may be seen as potential that is unrealized, or expectations that have been belied. For the US it was about nuclear and military commerce that India had promised but not delivered, and a strategic partnership that is suspended due to Delhi’s reluctance to sign on to various mandatory agreements.

One could witness the texture of the Kerry-Khurshid relationship, for the two ministers were aware of the domestic political constraints under which their principals – President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - are operating.

The best news for India is Obama’s second term has a single focus – to restore US credibility and remain engaged with the two major Asian economies, namely China and India in such a manner that US interests are protected or advanced.

For India, the US remains its most viable partner for enhancing its comprehensive national power through access to high technology, education and economic /military capacity building.

Sustained high-level political dialogue is the only means for the two democracies to deal with a range of security and strategic challenges that include the rise of China, the spread of Islamic terror and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

President Obama has rightly said that the friendship between our two nations is one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.