Since the end of the Cold War, New Delhi has been slowly but surely forging a comprehensives relationship with Tehran based on energy and commercial cooperation, infrastructure development in Iran and beyond, and purported military and intelligence ties.

It has become a cliché that the key strategic challenges facing Washington and the wider international community, such as energy, water, terrorism, economic development, and nonproliferation, cannot be solved by the United States alone. Although the United States unarguably retains its post–Cold War preeminent position, events since the September 11 attacks have shown the limitations of Washington’s hard and soft power. Meanwhile, the power of Europe and Japan are waning as they face internal distractions that limit their influence, while China’s is rising globally and in Asia, arguably the most important region to the United States strategically. China’s increasingly high military spending has built strong and capable armed forces, and its economic power is developing swiftly, with annual growth averaging nearly 10 percent over the past 20 years. From a low following Beijing’s crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, China’s influence is growing as well. These power fluctuations compel the United States to seek out like-minded allies that will proactively help to resolve global as well as Asian challenges.

In 2005, early in his tenure as prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh underlined the importance of Indian democracy to the world: If there is an ‘idea of India’ by which India should be defined, it is the idea of an inclusive, open, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. … [W]e have an obligation to history and mankind to show that pluralism works. … Liberal democracy is the natural order of political organization in today’s world. All alternate systems, authoritarian and majoritarian in varying degrees, are an aberration. Coming from the leader of the world’s largest democracy, Singh’s remarks seem relatively unexceptional. Viewed in the context of the Indian foreign policy tradition, however, he was making a major departure in unabashedly praising liberal democracy and relating India’s own democratic system to the current problems of the world.

Long considered a “strategic backwater”from Washington’s perspective, South Asia has emerged in the 21st century as increasingly vital to core U.S. foreign policy interests. India, the region’s dominant actor with more than one billion citizens, is now recognized as a nascent major power and “natural partner” of the United States, one that many analysts view as a potential counterweight to China’s growing clout. Washington and New Delhi have since 2004 been pursuing a “strategic partnership” based on shared values such as democracy, pluralism, and rule of law. Numerous economic, security, and global initiatives, including plans for “full civilian nuclear energy cooperation,” are underway. This latter initiative, launched by President Bush in July 2005 and provisionally endorsed by the 109th Congress in late 2006 (P.L. 109- 401, the “Hyde Act”), reverses three decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy. It would require, among other steps, conclusion of a peaceful nuclear agreement between the United States and India, which would itself enter into force only after a Joint Resolution of Approval by Congress. Also in 2005, the United States and India signed a ten-year defense framework agreement that calls for expanding bilateral security cooperation. Since 2002, the two countries have engaged in numerous and unprecedented combined military exercises. The issue of major U.S. arms sales to India may come before the 110th Congress. The influence of a growing and relatively wealthy Indian-American community of more than two million is reflected in Congress’s largest country-specific caucus.

This is my first trip to the country Mark Twain called "the mother of history." Your land, your people, and your culture have long captivated Americans, but they will be particularly fascinating for a historian such as myself, who can still recall our strained relations during the Cold War. Much has happened since then to make those memories fade. Indeed, much has happened in just the last year and half, with Prime Minister Singh's 2005 visit to the United States, President Bush's March 2006 visit to India, and the December 18 signing of U.S. legislation to allow for civil nuclear trade with India.

When the U.S. Air Force sent its proud F-15 fighter pilots against the Indian Air Force in the Cope India war games two years ago, it received a shock. The American pilots found themselves technologically outmatched by nimbler warplanes; tactically outsmarted by the Indian mix of high, low, and converging attack waves; and outfought by the Indians, whose highly trained pilots average more than 180 flying hours a year—roughly the same as their U.S. and Israeli counterparts and slightly more than those of NATO allies such as France and Germany.

Indian defense minister Pranab Mukherjee's recent visit to Japan, China and Singapore indicates the emergence of a creative regional security strategy that boosts New Delhi's global image, Indian defense analysts said Tuesday.

If Congress does not approve the U.S.-India nuclear deal, “it would have a real and negative effect on the bilateral relationship,” concludes a new Council Special Report. Congress should adopt a two-stage approach, formally endorsing the deal’s basic framework, while delaying final approval until it is assured that critical nonproliferation needs are met. “Patience and a few simple fixes would address major proliferation concerns while ultimately strengthening the strategic partnership,” says the report.

The argument for overcoming the nuclear impasse with India – for altering the nuclear status quo that cut India off from international civil nuclear cooperation for over 30 years – has become increasingly persuasive. It has been clear for many years that maintaining existing U.S. laws and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines prohibiting such cooperation would not succeed in inducing New Delhi to join the NPT or give up nuclear weapons.

This is obviously a complex subject with different facets stretching from the political to the technical. It is also a subject I have given some thought to and have written about in the past. As requested in your letter, I will focus my oral and written remarks this morning mainly on the strategic logic underlying the President’s initiative on civil nuclear cooperation and its importance for the transforming U.S.-Indian relationship. I will be happy, however, to cover those aspects that I have not touched on in my formal testimony during the discussion that follows. I respectfully request that my statement be entered into the record.

In this brief statement, I wish to make only three points. The first is that those who advocate making this special arrangements to permit nuclear cooperation with India ought to be clear -and honest- about why they are doing so.

Recent years, however, have witnessed a sea change in bilateral relations, with more positive interactions becoming the norm. India’s swift offer of full support for U.S.-led counterterrorism operations after September 2001 was widely viewed as reflective of such change. Today, President Bush calls India a “natural partner” of the United States and his Administration seeks to assist India’s rise as a major power in the new century.

India's relationship with the United States has always been the subject of debate and discussion. Despite being the world’s largest democracy, India could never enjoy a smooth and noncontroversial relationship with the world's oldest democracy—which means that sharing the same value system will not act as a glue to hold states together in the international politics. Until recently, India and the United States, due to their multifarious differences, were considered to be ‘estranged democracies’—but their recent agreement on civil nuclear technology has transformed their relationship, and made them ‘engaged democracies.’

According to some people, including former president Bill Clinton, South Asia is the most dangerous place on earth. Certainly there is the possibility of conflict, but actually, the region is by no means the most dangerous place on earth. Indeed, during Clinton’s tenure in office, Rwanda was much more dangerous, if one looks at the sheer number of people who were killed (by machetes, not nuclear weapons).

On July 18, 2005, President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the creation of a “global partnership,” which would include “full” civil nuclear cooperation between the United States and India. Such cooperation would reverse almost 30 years of U.S. nonproliferation policy.

Our agreement with India will make our future more secure, by expanding the reach of the international nonproliferation regime. The International Atomic Energy Agency would gain access to India's civilian nuclear program that it currently does not have.

President George W. Bush's visit to India has brought relations between the United States and India to an unprecedented level of cooperation and interdependence.

The main price to be paid will be the separate international diplomatic effort to constrain Iran's nuclear development program, since the India deal sets a precedent that drives a coach and horses through the existing system of international legal controls over nuclear proliferation.

The civilian nuclear deal signed Thursday between India and the United States will yield benefits for both countries and allow New Delhi to plug into a once restricted world of nuclear commerce, Indian foreign affairs analysts said Friday.

Critics of the Bush Administration often lament that its policies have alienated America's traditional allies and embittered just about everyone else. Everyone except, apparently, a billion or so Indians.

On the eve of President Bill Clinton’s visit to India in March 2000, I was asked by the White House to prepare a brief paper outlining the purpose of the trip and the new vision the US envisioned in its relations with India.

That marks an abrupt reversal of nearly three decades of U.S. nuclear policy. If approved by Congress the agreement would allow companies in the U.S. and elsewhere to provide India with nuclear technology even though the country hasn't signed a key nuclear disarmament pact.

The end of the Cold War freed India-U.S. relations from the constraints of global bipolarity, but interactions continued for a decade to be affected by the burden of history, most notably the longstanding India-Pakistan rivalry and nuclear weapons proliferation in the region.

Both our countries are linked by a deep commitment to freedom and democracy; a celebration of national diversity, human creativity and innovation; a quest to expand prosperity and economic opportunity worldwide; and a desire to increase mutual security against the common threats posed by intolerance, terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

When President Bush visits India next month, he will see a country that is making remarkable economic progress despite enormous structural problems. That progress will, however, be far less visible than it is in China. In India he will not see the modern high-rises or the general level of prosperity that he has seen in urban China. But the progress in India is nevertheless real.

Combined with the Bush administration’s visible push to strengthen Japan’s hand in managing Asian security, the Indian prime minister’s visit to Washington cemented a growing de facto strategic partnership between the United States and India.

The numerous controversies that swirled around the administration’s handling of Iraq during George W. Bush’s first term obscured a strategic success with major implications for the future balance of power in Asia: the transformation of relations between the United States and India.

Nonproliferation advocates in Washington argue that recent U.S. efforts extending civilian nuclear cooperation with India would undercut global nonproliferation. One argument is that many states like Japan and Brazil either had nuclear bombs or the ability to make them but gave up that ability in return for the civilian nuclear cooperation guaranteed by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Most EU governments take very little interest in India. That is likely to change. According to Goldman Sachs' research, over the next half century India will grow faster than any other large national economy. By 2050 it will be the world's third largest, behind China and the US - but around four times bigger than each of the next three, Japan, Brazil and Russia.

It is an awkward time for India to be without a foreign minister. Amid crucial negotiations designed to forge new ties with the United States and Pakistan, the country suddenly finds itself with no minister to guide the process.

The two sides reviewed the friendly contacts and progress in their bilateral relations in recent years and agreed that India-China relations have entered a new stage of comprehensive development.