Modi-Obama Summit Can Take Ties To Next Level: U.S. Experts

WASHINGTON: Several U.S. policy experts, including a former key Clinton administration official, see the upcoming U.S.  visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an opportunity to take India-U.S. ties to the next level.

The Obama administration sees the recent election of Modi-led majority government in India "as an opportunity to take the relationship to the next level," writes Strobe Talbott president of the Brookings Institution, who served as President Bill Clinton's deputy secretary of state.

Talbott, who engaged India's then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh to end India's nuclear isolation after India's 1998 nuclear tests, has outlined the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in an India-U.S.  Policy memo with Tanvi Madan, director of the Brookings' new India Project.

President Barack Obama, they say, "would like to see the 'strong, developed, and inclusive India that actively engages with the global community' that Prime Minister Modi has promised."

"The administration has repeatedly asserted that even though India and the U.S.  will not always agree, India's rise is unquestionably a net positive for the prospects for peace, progress, and prosperity in the 21st century."

But "the overarching challenge that lies ahead is translating the opportunities in the relationship into outcomes, the potential into performance and progress," Talbott and Madan write.

"This will require action on both sides; as the Hindi saying goes, taali ek haath se nahin bajti (you can't applaud with one hand)," they write.

"It will also call for compromises, as well as patience with and understanding of the other side's constraints."

"Finally, it will require giving each other the benefit of the doubt when things get tough, managing differences, and seeing each other as part of the solution and not just part of the problem-at the bilateral, regional, multilateral, and global levels," Talbott and Madan added.

Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, agrees saying the "stage is set for a successful Modi visit to Washington."

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