Any development in the relations between India and the United States of America is preceded by great hype. This has been the pattern ever since Bill Clinton’s visit to India as president, the first such visit of a US president in decades. It is hardly surprising then that the recently concluded first strategic dialogue between the two countries should generate great expectations. That it was more hype than hope should have been clear from the very composition of the foreign minister’s delegation, which contained no one from the security establishment. Considering that many of the hurdles to deepening Indo-US relations relate to issues of security, this absence was by no means incidental.

At the end, all we got were good atmospherics, a gesture of the president driving up to attend the dinner hosted by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, his soothing words for India and announcement of his visit to India. Answering questions at the conclusion of his visit to the US, the external affairs minister is quoted to have said, “Our concerns should be addressed by the US and their concerns should be addressed by us. This is the ground rule on which we proceed and this is the ground rule on which the strategic dialogue took place.” Hardly the concepts on which tectonic international strategic partnerships are founded.

The perception that under the new administration of President Barack Obama some of the sheen in the much heralded strategic partnership was wearing thin has been gaining ground. Given that not every US president could be expected to be as effusive and open about the importance of such a relationship between the two democracies as was George Bush with his typical ‘either you are with us or against us’ approach, it was only natural that Obama, with a different style of leadership and vision, would bring in change. But the hope was that the change would be more in style than substance.

Viewed from India’s perspective, Obama brought a different substance to the White House, committed as he was to bringing his troops back from two overseas operational theatres. It was AfPak that was on his immediate radar and India had to be pacified through diplomatic niceties. Manmohan Singh being the first head of State to be given a State dinner by the new president was one such. Signals emanating from the president’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, and General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and US forces in Afghanistan, however, indicated softness towards Pakistan’s desire to see India end its development work in Afghanistan. When not long after the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in October last year, in which the Taliban had claimed responsibility, a senior White House official in Washington indicated official thinking that the Taliban did not pose a direct threat to the US , India should have got the message. Whether the Indian government was listening is a moot point.

The David Headley case brought out to starry-eyed Indians that even with all the cooperation in intelligence-sharing and counter-terror operations, the US, like all nations, first safeguarded its own national interests. To successive governments which have shied away from clearly defining India’s strategic interests and goals, this may appear a contradiction in terms, but in the world of international diplomacy and relations, this is given.

Chastened by two recent terrorist attempts on US soil and ahead of the strategic dialogue, US officials made a series of statements to reflect the president’s view of India’s growing regional and global relevance. For the first time it was suggested that Pakistan and India can put the Kashmir issue on the backburner and address confidence-building measures, including advancing trade and commerce — an approach favoured by India. Speaking at a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai, the US president said that Pakistan was afflicted with the cancer of terrorism. Officials, too, once again endorsed New Delhi’s role in Afghanistan and privately rubbished Pakistan’s allegations of a subversive Indian role in Afghanistan and its overheated rhetoric on water issues. Clearly there was a strong message of changing perceptions on the US’s part, possibly driven by recent attempts at terrorist attacks in the US and continuing obduracy on Pakistan’s part.

But there also appears to be a sense of frustration as the US attempts to initiate a strategic partnership with India. In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the under-secretary of state, William J. Burns, indicated that the US wanted an India that doesn’t think small and that “self-hyphenates”. He further lamented that “India sometimes has a hard time realizing how far its influence and its interests have taken it beyond its immediate neighbourhood”, and its ambivalence about its own rise in the world makes it still torn between its Group of 77 and Group of 20 identities.

Further sensing that there were bloated expectations from the outcome of the first strategic dialogue which would largely remain unfulfilled, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake, stated that “the purpose of this dialogue is really to think strategically and again to get the key people who work on these issues together to think ahead to the US President’s visit and to think strategically about what we can do”.

Taken together, all this suggests that the US was preparing India to have the self-confidence and graduate to a higher level of strategic thinking and planning. Whilst India has announced some kind of strategic relationship with many countries, it does not have a strategic culture to engage in in-depth strategic analyses with respect to the relationship with each and arrive at its own strategic vision and security interests. As is our wont, even any limited exercise is done within the confines of the government, with little involvement of outside intellectual inputs like those from universities and think-tanks. What is more, in a democracy such as ours, all such issues degenerate into a political slug fest at the slightest opportunity. The government of the day then resorts to secrecy and part-information as a tool. Compare this to the US, which is mandated by law to periodically declare its national security strategy, the first of Obama’s administration being released only days before this strategic dialogue commenced.

One also needs to bear in mind that there are other agreements that the US would like to enter into with India in furtherance of its own international foreign policy and security objectives. These have been under discussion for a long time, being the communications interoperability and security memorandum of agreement, logistic support agreement, container security initiative, among others. All these continue to lie in limbo as India is not clearly articulating its national security strategy, within the confines of which all such commitments can then be negotiated and finalized.

In an international environment that is dynamic and somewhat insecure, the purely tactical approach that India often favours over safeguarding its larger strategic interests is bound to suffer from serious shortcomings. This undermines the long-term interests of the country as issues of strategic interest do not receive the advantage of wider cost-benefit analyses. Such an approach also weakens national resolve to negotiate international partnerships from a position of confidence and strength.

India must recognize that the US is the only superpower, and if it desires closer strategic partnership with India, it is because this serves its interests. There is little doubt that as interaction between the strategic, security, diplomatic and political communities increases and there is greater familiarity with each other’s practices, strategic interests and outlooks as the relationship matures, the path will become smoother. But there is hard work to be done.

India’s interest is not going to be served if this partnership progresses secretively, as this creates doubts and results in unnecessary and infructuous debate. It is important that the issues are debated openly so that both democracies share the challenges, opportunities and compromises that need to be made. It is only then that this strategic partnership will grow over time to the mutual benefit of the two countries, the region and, indeed, of international peace and security. If it appears to the Indian people that the US is not looking for a partner, but a client state, then the relationship is in for a turbulent ride.

It was during the US visit of the former prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in November, 2001 that he famously said in his opening remarks at the meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives, “I have long believed that the United States and India are natural allies.” These were profound words from a leader deeply rooted in the Indian ethos and a distinguished Hindi poet to boot. The challenge for India is to convert this natural alliance progressively into a partnership of strategic significance. For this to begin, India must come out with its own national security strategy, which should be debated both in public and in the Parliament and have the endorsement of the people of India. These then will form the “true ground rules” to which the external affairs minister refers.