January 22, 2015

Milan Vaishnav is Associate in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow him on Twitter: @MilanV.

If Prime Minister Modi’s trip to Washington last September served as a “getting to know you” opportunity for the Prime Minister and President Obama, the latter’s visit to India for Republic Day should be thought of as a “getting down to work” visit.

After bringing U.S.-India relations back from the brink in the aftermath of the Khobragade affair and establishing new relationships between a new government in India and the Obama Administration, the two leaders (and their respective bureaucracies) must turn their attention to consummating past promises rather than making new ones. I would place three items at the top of the to-do list: breaking the glass ceiling on defense ties, finding a solution to the civil nuclear liability impasse, and forging a grand bargain on energy and climate.

In my estimation, the Obama visit will be a success if concrete progress can be forged on two of these three issues. The possibilities for breakthroughs include (but are by no means restricted to): agreeing on a new and expanded defense framework agreement; settling on a piece of defense materiel the two countries could co-develop and co-produce; agreeing on the structure of an insurance pool to mitigate risk to U.S. nuclear suppliers; and forging a compromise that would give India greater access to shale gas exports in exchange for stronger commitments on climate change.

There is an ongoing quest for the next big idea in U.S.-India bilateral relations, but that idea is likely to remain elusive unless the two sides can demonstrate to their respective domestic audiences that they can sort out old business.

Previous: Harsh V. Pant, King’s College London