A Study Of The South Asia Strategy Of Bush Administration

The Foreign Policy of South Asia introduced by the Clinton administration waspursued with great vigor by the Bush administration that took charge in January 2001,namely the issue of non-proliferation and the policy towards India and Pakistan. Thestrategy of Non-Proliferation policy, which is the administration for the one hand,tries to press harder on Pakistan than on India to give up their nuclear weapons, forthe other hand, tries to provide more benefits to India than to Pakistan. American'spolicy towards India and Pakistan, the India-U.S. relation gains the priority over thePakistan-U.S. relation. Concerning with these two themes, India gains the dominatepriority over Pakistan in Bush Administration.After the occurrence of the September 11, the third, but the most urgent securitystrategy adds up to America's South Asia policy that is "global war on terror" inSouth Asia. Once all the sudden, Pakistan returned to the strategic affections of theUnited States. Bush tries hard to prevent the triangular relationship among India, theUS and Pakistan from returning to the old paradigm of the past, like it in 1950s and1980s. The Administration engaged with India and Pakistan on different cooperativebases, though the bilateral relation of US-Pakistan took the advantage over theUS-India, the latter obviously occupied higher in its strategic position.The India-Pakistani crisis in the December of 2001 forced US to adopt a "balanced"strategy among three themes, preventing the nuclear conflict in South Asia,developing US-India strategic partnership as well as countering terrorism in thisregion. The India-Pakistani crisis not only would have lead to nuclear crisis, but also would have affected the US-India strategic partnership. Along with every else, thatwould have turned Pakistan's attention away from the war on terror. The only choiceUS made is to urge the two sides refrain and to exert great pressures on them, so thatit can achieve a number of objectives. With great effort to achieve its objectives inSouth Asia, US have quite successfully managed this crisis.To a great extent, since the war on terror in South Asia region has achieved at leastsome goals, US-India relation again to be put on to the agenda of US foreign policy.US emphases on establishing its strategic partnership with India by signing theUS-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement, developing "anti-terror" partnership withPakistan by selling F-16s and F-18s to Islamabad. Pakistani demanding the samenuclear agreement from US would, however challenges the Non-Proliferation Treaty.The selling of F-16s and F-18s to Pakistan will impinge on the US-India relation. It isso hard for US to treat India and Pakistan separately: In the area of bilateralrelationship, do US-India can hardly dehyphenate from US-Pakistan; in the field ofKashmir, do India-Pakistan relation cannot be improved until two sides managing itmarginally, but to facilitate solving it by US exists great danger; will US be in adilemma situation, for the prospect of a new turn of conflict still there, while theIndia-Pakistani relation is unstable; do the American unsatisfied with the Pakistan'swar on terror while must cooperate with Islamabad, and must avoid the Pakistan turnchaotic while worry about its military regime; do US want to admit Indian's nuclearability and must contain its develop; while US want to drug India into its ally, thenput pressure on India to follow its policy.In conclusion that, Bush administration must seek to balance the three themes,which determines its South Asia strategy, consists of preventing the nuclear conflict,developing India-US strategic partnership and countering terrorism. Since India andPakistan occupied different position in these three themes, US must try hard toestablish the two bilateral relationships on different cooperative level and try hard totreat them separately. Facing with the Indo-Pakistan disputes, the American has threeapproaches to settle them. Firstly, is to dehyphenate the US-India relation from the US-Pakistan relation; secondly, is to encourage two sides to solve the core causing of disputes in order to settlethem thoroughly; thirdly, is to promote the improvement of the two sides. Only the third one isthe most optional one. To improve the bilateral relation of India and Pakistan needs American'sneutral position and balanced policy.