Indian, US experts say Obama visit should be seen with cautious optimism, reality

President Barack Obama's upcoming second visit to India in four years should be viewed with cautious optimism and awareness of ground realities, said Indian and American experts participating in a panel discussion on the theme "President Obama's Visit to India

Obama will be the chief guest at this year's Republic Day ceremony, and Indian and American panelists were of the unanimous view that existing challenges notwithstanding, the visit presents a great and historic opportunity to strengthen the relationship further.

Obama's visit has generated significant excitement in diplomatic, strategic and business circles on both sides, and clearly, India and the U.S. have recognized the deep potential in the partnership to shape the global agenda in the coming decade.

The six participating panelists said that the leaderships of the two countries would have to demonstrate strong to identify big-ticket action items and capitalize on new opportunities to inject energy into the relationship.

Former U.S. Ambassador to India Frank Wisner said, "The U.S.-India relationship has grown incrementally in a brief period of about twenty years. The focus should now be on where we should go next, keep the new goals in mind to take the relationship to the next level."

He said that the Obama visit should be seen as a great opportunity being provided to both nations and their respective governments.

What needed to be emphasized was that in the ultimate analysis, the U.S. can and would profit from India's rise "to great power status".

"India's success will be the success of the United States," he said, but added both nations had to be aware and pay attention to three common security perspectives namely - the relationship with China; the relationship with Pakistan and Afghanistan and their respective stands on the issue of cyber security.

He said he was hopeful and confident that both nations would find ways to accommodate each other's views or find other ways to cooperate. It was imperative for both leaderships to have the capacity to listen to each other's concerns.

Shyam Saran, Chairman, National Security Advisory Board and former foreign secretary, said that it has always been apparent that there will be issues and differences between India and the United States, but proffered the view that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached out to Washington in the last four months, and sees the U.S. as an important partner despite "his own personal bitter legacy."

Saran was pointedly specific in contesting the American view on India not doing enough on key issues such as civil nuclear cooperation, climate change, the nuclearisation of Iran, not supporting the move to stop Russia's intervention in Ukraine and WTO.

Emphasizing it would be beneficial for the U.S. and India to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty, Saran said that on all of the above issues and other challenges, Washington needed to understand New Delhi's concerns and compulsions, while at the same time accept that there is a new energy to the relationship that needs to be exploited for the greater good of both nations.

"Expectations are good. We (the relationship) have acquired depth. The India-U.S. relationship is a remarkable story in itself. If the Indian growth story takes off, the business relationship will be the promising driver," he said.

Former diplomat Satinder Lambah said, "There is much to be realistic about the relationship. The sky is the limit as far as where both governments and their leaderships want to take the relationship to."

He said he is glad there are disagreements in the relationship, and added that pre-conditions cannot be applied to ties if progress is to be made in a realistic sense.

"Momentum can be expected on the economic front and defence. Climate change and promotion of clean energy is an important aspect of it. We need to build on this success. We have a lot of areas where we can work together, be it cyber security or counter-terrorism etc.," he said.

He was, however, critical of the U.S. decision to move out of Afghanistan, as some problems still exist and progress in that country is still at a very fragile stage. He opined that adequate measures still needed to be taken to make Afghanistan security foolproof.

Joseph Nye, an American political scientist and former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said India and the United States were fated to live together, and added that there will be quarrels that both nations needed to work on and resolve. He also felt that the Indian Diaspora would have a very significant role in taking the relationship forward, and that he was very optimistic about the future of the ties.

James Steinberg is Dean of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University and University Professor of Social Science, International Affairs and Law, said that the relationship has seen extraordinary progress in the last two decades, and endorsed Shyam Saran's view that focus should be on looking at the glass as being half-full rather than half-empty.

Gautam Thapar, Founder and Chairman of the Avantha Group, said that he was bullish about the relationship, and emphasized that both nations have to get their acts together. The visit by President Obama maybe symbolic, but is very significant, and the aim should be to take the relationship beyond the government-to-government perspective.

The discussion, which was organized by the Ananta-Aspen Centre, was moderated by Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

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