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1. Aligning Unevenly: India and the United States

Author:
Dinshaw Mistry
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
In the early and mid-2000s, US policymakers anticipated India becoming one of America's top global partners. Have New Delhi's policies on key strategic issues actually aligned strongly with US objectives, as would be typical of close partners? An analysis of twelve prominent issues in US-India relations indicates that New Delhi's policies mostly converged moderately, rather than to a high extent, with US objectives. Specifically, the alignment between New Delhi's policies and US objectives was high or moderate-to-high on three issues—UN peacekeeping, nonproliferation export controls, and arms sales. It was moderate or low-to-moderate on six issues—China, Iran, Afghanistan, Indian Ocean security, Pakistan, and bilateral defense cooperation. And it was low or negligible on three issues—nuclear reactor contracts for US firms, nuclear arms control, and the war in Iraq. To be sure, despite the low or negligible convergence, New Delhi did not take an anti-US position on these issues. Four factors explain why New Delhi's policies aligned unevenly with US objectives across the issues: India's strategic interests (that diverged from US interests on some issues); domestic political and economic barriers (that prevented greater convergence between India's policies and US objectives); incentives and disincentives (that induced New Delhi to better align with US objectives); and certain case-specific factors. This analysis suggests that, rather than expecting India to become a close ally, US policymakers should consider it a friendly strategic partner whose policies would align, on the average, moderately with US strategic interests.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Political Economy, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
India and Asia

2. The State of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Authoritarian Burma

Author:
Kyaw Yin Hlaing
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
When Burma gained independence in 1948, its regime was a part of the phenomenon, which Samuel Huntington called the second wave of democracies. Although Burma's parliamentary democracy was by no means perfect, opposition parties were allowed to exist and elections were held regularly. The coup staged by the Revolutionary Council, which was led by the military on March 2, 1962, brought an end to this brief period of electoral democracy in Burma.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Asia and Burma

3. The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics

Author:
Elliot Sperling
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
This paper is a guide to the historical arguments made by the primary parties to the Tibet-China conflict. Given the polarization that has characterized this issue for decades, it is surprising that little has been done to analyze or at least disentangle the strands of historical argumentation that the parties have been using. This paper attempts to do this by relying as much as possible on the key assertions as they have been framed in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Chinese- and Tibetan-language materials dealing with the historical status of Tibet are often more detailed and better documented, and hew more closely than English-language materials do to the thinking of the people most directly concerned with (and affected by) the Tibet-China conflict.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Tibet

4. "Déjà vu all over again?" Why Dialogue Won't Solve the Kashmir Dispute

Author:
Arun R. Swamy
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The intensification of a long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan over the state of Kashmir has become the cause of international concern. The stakes for these nuclear-armed rivals are high. Each views Kashmir as the validation of its national ideology; each fears that giving it up will result in serious domestic turmoil. Moreover, each country has plausible legal arguments for its claims along with a long history of grievances. The deep differences over Kashmir that divide the two countries have so far proven intractable, and following September 11 the movement toward confrontation accelerated. There has never been a more urgent need for international attention to Kashmir. While diplomatic engagement seems necessary for a resolution of this dispute, past results indicate that simply pressuring the two sides to talk may be disastrous. In order to avoid such results, any effort to intervene in this dispute must be undertaken with an awareness of how it evolved, why it has been so difficult to resolve, and what kinds of solutions to it might realistically be pursued.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Security
Political Geography:
South Asia, Asia, and Kashmir