Delivering on the Promise: Advancing U.S. Relations with India
India matters to virtually every major foreign policy issue that will confront the United States in the years ahead. A broad-based, close relationship between India and the U.S. is crucial to solving complex global challenges, achieving security in South Asia, stabilizing the global economy, and overcoming the threat of violent Islamic radicalism. In this January 2009 report, an Asia Society task force outlines a new strategy for the incoming U.S. administration to pursue deeper collaboration with India on global challenges ranging from security and economic growth to climate change, education, agricultural needs, and HIV/AIDS.
This report, Delivering on the Promise: Advancing U.S. Relations with India, recommends enhancing cooperation between the U.S. and Indian governments and between the two countries’ private sectors. It sets out priorities for parallel action along government and business tracks:
Track 1: Strengthening Governmental Ties
- Secure India’s leadership in multilateral institutions to provide the U.S. with a constructive partner in global decision making
- Expand cooperation toward economic growth, particularly focusing on financial recovery, trade, and investment—managing our current crisis, concluding the Doha Round or its successor, and completing a bilateral investment treaty
- Expand security cooperation, including a vastly enhanced counterterrorism partnership, expanded consultation on South Asia, stronger maritime cooperation, and new consultation on other key regions of the world
- Bring India into greater dialogue on the future of nonproliferation, including the NPT review conference, and new efforts to achieve global nuclear disarmament
Track 2: Joint Public-Private Partnerships for Complex Global Challenges
- Collaborate on climate change, where our dynamic scientific and high-tech communities could work with our policy experts to craft solutions
- Work toward a Second Green Revolution in India, which will have global impact by profoundly transforming the lives of a quarter of the world’s poor
- Partner on secondary and higher education, where the training requirements for India’s large population exceeds its current capacity, a challenge uniquely suited for linkages with U.S. institutions
- Cooperate in awareness and support of HIV/AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in India, the U.S., and around the world
The task force for this report was co-chaired by Frank G. Wisner, former Ambassador to India, and Charles R. Kaye, former Chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council. The task force director was Alyssa Ayres, then Director with McLarty Associates.