President Bush Proposes & President Obama Disposes? India-Russia Sign a Landmark Nuclear Deal

The USA-India Strategic Partnership was President Bush’s vision. Like all his goals, he pursued it steadfastly. He succeeded.  Even the New York Times acknowledged the Bush success in its January 10, 2009 article titled India Has a Soft Spot for Bush. We discussed the New York Times piece in our own article on January 17.  

Both articles quote R. Nicholas Burns, right hand to then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, as saying ” “Within 20 years, the rise of the new U.S.-India partnership will be considered among the most important developments in U.S. foreign policy in our time.”

One of the most visible and most important part of the Bush-India relationship was the US-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement.  This agreement was unanimously accepted by the 45 nation NSG, Nuclear Suppliers Group. Essentially, the NSG granted an exception to India.

There is no doubt that without the active, personal efforts of President Bush, the NSG would not have accepted this deal. President Bush played hardball and in the end, China, Australia & New Zealand caved. This is why the Times of India called Bush’s efforts “Max Americana” and we used this phrase in our article Max Americana – President Bush shows He is still the Man.

We wrote in that article “We are ecstatic. We feel that this Agreement between the US and India is of paramount importance to the free world and its real ramifications will be realized over the next two-three decades.”

We are not sanguine now. After 15 months, the US-India Nuclear Agreement still awaits operationalization. When Prime Minister Singh visited Washington DC in November, the hope was that the two leaders will come to terms. It was not to be.

It seems as if the Obama Administration has a different view of the Nuclear Agreement than the Bush Administration did. President Obama is a fervent supporter of eliminating or reducing nuclear weapons. So, the USA-India Agreement, as drafted, does not suit the Obama vision. The current Agreement was the result of long arduous negotiations. Prime Minister Singh used a tremendous amount of his political capital to force acceptance by India. So changes to this Agreement  would not be acceptable to the Indian Government.

So what could be the result of this impasse? We found that out on December 7.

Prime Minister Singh traveled to Moscow in early December, two weeks after his Washington visit. During this visit, India and Russia signed a landmark nuclear deal that appears to be much broader and deeper than the USA-India Agreement. 

Prime Minister Singh called the nuclear deal “a major step forward” and said “Today we have signed an agreement which broadens the reach of our co-operation beyond the supply of nuclear reactors to areas of research and development and a whole range of areas of nuclear energy”. 

President Medvedev spoke of “great potential” in the two countries’ relations. The head of Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, estimated the value of the deal at “several dozens of billion of dollars”.

It appears that India waited for over a year to work out issues with the Obama Administration because it wanted to grant American companies the first opportunity to get Indian contracts. There is probably a great deal of disappointment in India about the steady erosion of the partnership established by President Bush. With the Indo-Russia deal, we may be seeing the first signs of a deepening unease with the priorities of the Obama Administration.

Ironically, the India-Russia Nuclear Agreement would not have been possible without the approval by NSG of the USA-India Nuclear Agreement and that approval would not have been granted without personal hardball intervention of President George W. Bush.

The reality is that the frame of reference of President Obama is different than the frame of reference of President Bush. This is The One Critical Difference Between Bush and Obama.