India should respond magnanimously and with confidence in the future!
The USA is a super power not in the ordinary sense of the term in which it is always couched and understood.To understand the current world developments,the globalisation and all that we need to have a look at the past,a look at history of the long past and the recent past as well also understand the context of the present times.
There is much talk of the globalisation.How this has come about? Various explanations are offered.One,some historic event.An event like the mastering of the technology of navigation led to the discovery of America by Columbus.That turned the geographical face of the world trade,from East to the Atlantic West.That was one stage of globalisation.Another,the industrialization 200 years ago.That also had something to do with the technological revolution.Now,the third phase in modern history,this current globalisation.Again, caused by the IT and the telecom revolution that cut the geographical borders for the flow of information and knowledge.
So,this globalisation has impacted the world’s developed economies and the markets in a particular way,in a particular direction.That is towards the flow of funds and goods and services where the large new markets are.Also,one consequence of the Information Technology revolution is that given the telecom revolution making the world ‘flat’ that the most economical way of doing business is through ‘outsourcing’ to countries where the labour is cheap and the manpower highly qualified and in abundance.That is how India has come to acquire the current almost cult status among the developing economies for outsourcing.
Along with the opening of the markets,the flow of foreign funds have led to a new investment boom and a new economic growth boom also.
One great attraction of India for the outside world,though this is not widely admitted openly by the more developed countries is the fact that Indian democracy is a great asset to India and the world.As George Bush used to say that India is a country of one billion people,one million problems and a great democracy.In the place of the”vision thing” we in India must learn to put the”democracy thing”as our great inherent strength.
Thus,an India that is also a sort of de facto leader of the Third World countries,the Non-Alignment Movement gives India a unique historic context and a current relevance in the American scheme of things.America,in the post Iraqi war phase needs friends to bolster its image in the world as a responsible and mature power.This,only an India can give to America,however much the rest of the G-8 countries might add to US muscle power.America needs a moral legitimacy for much of its world reach and for winning over new allies in its new coalition partners. That is how one former national security adviser to the US Presidents,Brent Scowcroft, puts it in a recent column.The typical American simplistic”you are for us or against us”view wont win friends anymore,given the way the world is polarized today.Also,the many new approaches like the”regime change” as happened in Afghanistan and Iraq wont happen anymore,either in Syria or in Iran and one can be sure the US in future would not rush to act as Bush did in other parts of the world.The old Cold War might have disappeared but a new Cold War is waiting to happen.We have just to see the Russia and China acting through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and also the new tensions that might arise over the sharing of the gas and oil over which countries like Russia and Iran have much stake.
Even in extending the sphere of influence in other parts of the world,the US needs allies outside its narrow prism of the world scenario.As the expert says that people increasingly are unwilling to give the USA the benefit of doubt and the world cant be divided into good and evil or the US yardstick of democracy also wont win favor with many a country or a regional blocs.
So,in a way George Bush would go down in history as the one who launched the unilateral wars with such disastrous consequences,no launcher of a war for whatever reasons,ever gets any positive rating,even the “war to end all wars” didn’t get much recognition by historians and so Bush has one more feather in his cap as he prepares to leave the White House.That is his peace moves with the civil nuclear energy cooperation deal with India.That is a mutual recognition of both the democracies.If not for anything else,India must respond with vigor so that the world becomes a more safer place for lesser powers and at least the dictatorial regimes and the terrorist groups might be pushed further for gaining more courage.