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Mon, Feb 16th 2009, 21:36

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

Bravo! I agree completely that President Obama should schedule a visit to India as soon as possible! SoS Clinton should have extended her visit to China with another quick visit to India.

India counts for something in today's world. This columnist suggests that India is a new Us ally as consequential as France or Germany. I agree, and demographics and economic development trends suggest that India will be the 3rd or 4th Great Power in the world of 2020 if it is not so today. It may well be. The India relationship is far too important for the US to ignore or brush off in any way.

President Bush and the leaders of India made a good start on a long-term friendship and perhaps alliance based upon mutual interests during the past 8 years; it is no important for President Obama to seal the deal, beginning with a visit to India within the first 6 months of his term, if possible.

Failing that, the President should invite the Indian President for a full state visit to the White House and pull out the stops, make the kind of effort traditionally done for Russia, China, Germany, and Japan,

Sat, Feb 21st 2009, 06:38

Colette Grace Mazzucelli, Hofstra University / New York University, Platinum Contributor (333)

Hi Donald,

I agree that the US has invested much effort and time to establish a strategic relationship with India over the past decade. This is in contrast to the European Union, which is still developing its relationship with India in pragmatic terms.

Former President Clinton has a strong interest in the sub-continent. One would expect Secretary of State Clinton to work closely with India on issues related to the difficulties in its relations with Pakistan post Mumbai. What will be interesting to observe as well, I think, is the potential influence that Ambassador Holbrooke can also exert given his new responsibilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Kashmir is likely to remain contested and continues to be a potential breeding ground for terrorism in South Asia.

It is the asymmetry in the relationship between India and Pakistan that is likely to pose on-going problems in attempts to mediate between the two nuclear powers, which must once again refocus their energies to identify areas of common interest.

The weakness of the Pakistani state must be addressed before any enduring progress in relations is possible. Your thoughts?

Sincere regards, Colette

Sat, Feb 21st 2009, 16:50

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

Welcome, Collette.

I agree with you about the EU's relationship with India - I think. I think EU diplomacy with India tends to look back to what India was rather than forward to what India will be - which is one of 3 or 4 major power blocs in the world circa 2040.

Traditionally US diplomacy in the area has balanced Pakistan and India, with both countries considered of roughly equal importance from the POV of DC and Turtle Bay. But there is another view which has emerged in DC at least, the view that India is emerging as a great power on the world stage, and US diplomatic policy needs to change to reflect that reality. It is a highly desireable goal that India be cultivated and treated with respect early on to shift attitudes within the Indian government and people to make them friendlier. Call them 'old school' and 'new school'. In the Bush administration Colin Powell could be considered old school, Condi Rice as new school. The new school clearly won out during Bush's second term.

In the new adminstration I think Holbrook holds views closer to the old school, and his position trying to work out problems with Pakistan and Afghanistan will push him further in that direction. His dealings with India are likely going to be somewhat antagonistic because one way to mollify Pakistan would be to force India into concessions in Kashmir which India is unlikely to willngly give. If your comments about ex-president Clinton are accurate, and if he holds influence with his wife (a not unreasonable supposition) then we might suppose that HRC will be inclined to lean toward the new school on Indian policy.

I myself am new school, not only with respect to India but also with Brazil, South Africa, China, and even with Russia to a degree.

Sat, Feb 21st 2009, 17:15

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

I think the most interesting question we ought to be asking ourselves is "What will the world look like 30 or 40 years from now?". Another important question is how different that worldview will be from what the conventional wisdom today is, and also what the conventional wisdom today is about the world in the near future.

Bush commands extremely poor marks from historians today, but I think his administration may see those marks rise quite a bit by 2040 or 2050. The harshest criticism of Bush from a diplomatic POV has been that he angered the Europeans. He doesn't get much credit for improving relationships with India, China, and Brazil, much less for his work in Africa. China is generally believed to be swiftly overtaking the US economically.

In 2050 the world is going to look much different than today because of demographics. Europe's baby bust will have worked it's way through the populace and Europe will have far less relative influence than it does now. I think careful observers can already see European influence waning, but by 2050 the trend will have long since become obvious to everyone. Similar comments apply to Japan.

China will have largely achieved it's potential by 2050, and will be staring it's own demographic crisis in the face by then, the result of the one child per couple policy. This may be merely a dip in the birthrate if China repeals the policy soon (as it should). Or it could result in a European-style demographic catastrophe. But in any case it will be a major problem for Chinese governments in the future, and may help to check Chinese economic growth even as it raises China's savings rate. Countries without enough children save and invest a lot of money. This gives them a large advantage in short and mid-term economic growth, but only as long as demand in other countries can absorb their
production. In the long term there will be a massive surplus in pensioners and a shortage of workers in such countries.

This brings us to India, the US, and Brazil, countries with relatively favorable demographics compared to Europe, Japan, Russia, and even China. I think that in 2050 it will be obvious that the countries which were more youthful in 2009 will have done much better over the intervening period than the conventional wisdom circa 2009 would have predicted. This has certinly been true in the past and there is little reason to believe this will change in future. India has good demographics. That and the fact that it is a democracy with good growth will help them in the long term. In fact I think that India is the country which will eventually overtake the US to become the #1 power on the planet.

Sun, Feb 22nd 2009, 00:39

Colette Grace Mazzucelli, Hofstra University / New York University, Platinum Contributor (333)

Hi Donald,

Strobe Talbott's book, Engaging India, is where I read about former President Clinton's "fascination" with India since both men were at Oxford studying in the late 1960s.

My take on the EU and India came from assessments in the Chaillot Paper No 109 (May 2008) from the ISS in Paris, Partnerships for effective multilaterlaism, in which India is one of the countries analyzed by the authors.

Since I teach History and Politics of India, I am curious as to the extent to which the disparities among India's states will harm its potential to develop into the world's leading global power by 2050. India's pluralism is at once an asset and a liability.

I agree with Gandhi's assessment that it would do India no good to import the West's ills and we notice a rise in health problems, like diabetes, as India's wealthy do well economically. I believe that India will overtake China population wise by 2030 or so. However, will India have the capacity to be a functioning state and a stable pluralistic democracy for its billion+ populace?

I also think that the nuclear rivalry with Pakistan as well as other aspects of that relationship, particularly Kashmir, need to be addressed constructively sooner rather than later or we could witness prolonged tensions and conflict in South Asia well into the future. That scenario would be in no country's interest. A challenge for US diplomacy will be to work with India to come to a mutual understanding of this reality.

Coercive diplomacy from any US special representative responsible for Afghanistan/Pakistan could be counterproductive with India. The subcontinent is used to a foreign policy in the realist tradition, rooted in a strong definition of the national interest, and it is not my sense that any Indian government will be likely to forego established foreign policy relationships with countries like Russia or Iran, particularly in terms of energy security.

This may not please the US. It is, however, a reality that must be factored into evolving US-India relations.

Greetings from New York, Colette

Sun, Feb 22nd 2009, 01:25

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

Collette, I obviously know much less about the Indian subcontinent than you do, but for what it's worth I almost completely agree with everything you wrote here.

"Since I teach History and Politics of India, I am curious as to the extent to which the disparities among India's states will harm its potential to develop into the world's leading global power by 2050. India's pluralism is at once an asset and a liability. "

I didn't assert that India would overtake the US by 2050, only that I thought India would be the country which would do it. China also has that potential, but I think China will have to do three things to achieve that goal. They need to repeal the one-child per family rule, they need to do a much better job of educating their rural poor because that is where their young are concentrated, and they need to become more pluralistic.

I don't worship democracy, my support for democracy comes on strictly pragmatic grounds. It seems to be a fact that democracies weather periods of extreme change better than autocracies of any kind do, because democracies have an institutionalized mechanism for regime change - called elections. Had China had been a democracy in 1850 the enormously destructive war called the Tai Ping Rebellion would never had occurred, I think. The Heavenly King of the Tai Pings would have been elected President and the Manchus tossed out, and 60 million people would have lived.

Autocracies can work very well for prolonged periods, but democracies show their strength when the political Taiphoons come along, which appear to be happening now.

You can argue that democracy is not proven to work in a state with such extreme desparities and differences as India is (and china for that matter). True, But India has been a democracy now since 1948 - and it's worked improbably well over most of that time.

I think the economic disparities between India and China (China has had higher growth) can be laid to the fact that India has had a higher birth rate than China (currently 2.7 children per woman to the Chinese 1.6). Children absorb resources and consume goods, but they are also a kind of investment in the future. Countries with low birth rates and healthy economies (Germany, Japan, and China to a degree) become export powerhouses in the short term, with a high ratio of net producers to net consumers. But they have two big weaknesses - they are dependent on external demand and have big troubles when that demand fails. The hardest-hit economies in the current slump are the big exporting countries, The other problem is that with so few children these countries are doomed to shrink, and may be unable to defend themselves from others in the longer term.

Sun, Feb 22nd 2009, 16:43

Member deleted

Hi Collette and Donald. Wonderful conversation you are having. I have been trying to figure out the India, China process myself. In an effort to understand India culture better, I recently read the Upanishad and got very intrigued about this comment.
“This which is the heart, is mind also. Concept and will and analysis and wisdom and intellect and vision and continuity of purpose and feeling and understanding, pain and memory and volition and operation of thought and vitality and desire and passion, all these, yea all, are but names of the Eternal Wisdom.”(Aitareya Upanishad).

I am trying Aristotle’s category approach by separating each into its own category and then give it my own definition. Not necessarily the dictionary definition. Here is what I have so far.

Concept: Ability to conceive old or new ideas without actually having a physical representation.

Will: Will power or discipline to keep studying until we understand and can improve the situation.

Analysis: Arranging things into separate categories, then matching items together to see the outcome by deduction.

Wisdom: Lessons learned through experience.

Intellect: Detach emotionally, then research and discuss logically.

Vision: Projecting with the mind an overlay onto the future to create something better.

Continuity of Purpose: Being guided by a sense of purpose strong enough to continue or follow through on a long term plan.

Feeling: Initial emotional reactions to situations that motivate us into action and long term bind us to certain relationships.

Understanding: Insight into why and how things happen.

Pain: Learning through trial and error, where the error causes enough discomfort to warrant avoiding that course of action in the future.

Memory: Remembering and employing information in theoretical or practical ways.

Volition: The art of decision making. Two opposing strategies; 1. Sleep on it before making the decision because the more time spent researching the better the decision will be. 2. The first to make a decision wins because they will be the first into action and get ahead of the competition.

Operation of thought: Engaging thought processes before action equals Intelligent Response (high probability of success); Leaping into action without thought or prior training equals Instinctive Reaction (Medium probability of success).

Vitality: Inspirational energy which quickens our creative thinking processes.

Desire: Hunger, thirst, curiosity are instinctual intelligence which help us survive.

Passion: Superior curiosity which motivates us to find a mate, have children, share new ideas or build something all for the purpose of improving and advancing our ability to survive long term as a species interdependent with nature.

The combination of all these methods would be considered Eternal Wisdom given to the ancients by the Gods and given to us by the ancients.

I view India as more theoretical and sensory and China as more practical and tool oriented.
Here is an example: Let’s give them both a piece of technology based on the current tech. tool mania and see what might happen.

India
1st let’s assign India the job of upgrading the German Blackberry Smart Phone.
Results: The Blackberry is transformed into the Star Trek tricorder complete with the following built in.
Radar, Sonar, Barometer, Microscope, Binoculars, Sonic Flashlight (mobile sonogram) FLIR (forward looking infrared radar), AM/FM Radio, Television, Geology Spectrum Analyzer, Flashlight, Night Vision Starlight Scope, Electromagnetic Spectrum Analyzer, Chemical Composition Analyzer, Wind meter, Thermometer, Altimeter, audio recorder, video recorder, short range 2 way radio and phone. No field scientist equipment list would ever be complete without the Blackberry Tricorder.

China
2nd let’s assign China the job of upgrading the Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop.
Results: The Laptop is transformed into the laptop version of Doctor Who’s’ engineering Sonic screw driver complete with the following built in.
Mobile super computer (5 TB hard drive, 16 GB RAM, 2 GB Video card, 5 GB Turbo memory, 8 GHz processor), Wacom digitizer (for hand sketching ideas), CAD (computer assisted drawing) program, Data and Voice communication via wireless, cell phone, satellite phone and CB radio, project management software, cost analysis spreadsheet software, engineering math computational software, video camera with video conferencing software, projector (for presentations), surveyors laser range finder, level, compass and sextant, ground penetrating radar and soil analyzer (assessing geologic stability for building foundation), X-ray (assessing buildings for cracks), extendable hand held dremel tool (mini drill), soldering iron, laser cutter/welder, Leatherman multi tool, blue print scanner, voltmeter, multi screen, bright screen and semi ruggedized (for outdoor use) and tape measure. This would be the ultimate in an engineering laptop.

Globalization requires a better understanding of various cultures and different ways of thinking and progressing. The world is on the right track with globalization, it is just a little more difficult than we anticipated due to many cultural variances.