South Asia contains one of America's most important long-term partners in sustaining a global order safe for the interests and values of free societies -- India -- as well as a fragile, nuclear-armed state in Pakistan whose weakening and radicalization could be more consequential for American security interests than nearly any other single contingency. The region also contains a country, Afghanistan, that may not be the center of Asia but is a center of strategic competition among key Asian powers and has cost the West a decade of war to defeat extremism and build lasting stability. Over the coming four years, U.S. leadership to shape this region will be essential, for both positive and negative reasons.

Positively, the consolidation of a wide-ranging strategic partnership with India could change the history of the 21^st century by allying the United States with the world's largest democracy and budding economic powerhouse. Negatively, U.S. leadership is essential to prevent Pakistan's many pathologies -- state complicity in terrorism, weak institutions, a foreign policy that exports insecurity -- from spilling over in ways that undermine fundamental U.S. interests in the future of Afghanistan, non-proliferation, defeating terrorism, and dampening extremism.

India is still casting off its legacy of non-alignment and statist economic management. But its leaders have identified the United States as a vital partner for India for the long-term, just as American leaders pursued a revolutionary strategic partnership with India with an eye on shaping the longer-term balance of power and values in the international system. The United States and India share a convergence of interests across the spectrum. Both seek to balance Chinese power in Asia to encourage China's peaceful rise. Both want to defeat terrorism, moderate extremism, and promote democratic state-building in South Asia, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to ensure that responsible governments rule there with a focus on internal development rather than fomenting external insecurity. Both want to ensure freedom of the maritime commons in the Indian Ocean, across which most world trade in energy flows. Both want to strengthen an open and liberal international economy in ways that will fuel their knowledge, technology, and manufacturing sectors.

The next U.S. administration can reverse the drift in Indo-U.S. relations that has occurred since 2009, including by deepening the underdeveloped economic relationship between the two countries through a robust free trade agreement and supporting India's entry into APEC. Washington and New Delhi can also cooperate more intimately on Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, missile defense, maritime security in the Indian Ocean, East Asian security with partners like Japan, and in multilateral institutions like the U.N. The overall objective would be the construction of a preponderance of democratic power in Asia and the international system, with U.S.-India partnership at its core.

As the United States draws down forces from Afghanistan, Pakistan will lose the leverage it has held on U.S. policy by virtue of its control of the primary supply routes into Afghanistan. This creates the prospect for a more mature and balanced U.S.-Pakistan relationship in which U.S. policy concentrates not on buying off the Pakistani military but on strengthening the development of Pakistani civilian institutions. U.S. policy will need to focus more on strengthening Pakistan's economy and, in particular, its energy sector, as a way to offset the rise of radicalism associated with the country's chronic economic crises and to build goodwill among a population that is fervently anti-American. Liberalization of trade, including duty-free treatment of Pakistani textiles into the United States, will be as important (if not more important) than official assistance in this regard.

U.S. policy must not re-hyphenate India and Pakistan, but rather pursue independent policies towards both countries that do not allow one country to hold U.S. policy towards the other hostage. Prospects for Pakistan to benefit from India's economic growth and measured Indian steps to lift trade and visa restrictions on Pakistan could, in tandem with U.S. policy, help reconstruct Pakistan's moderate majority who opposes the militarization and radicalization of the state and its foreign policies.

In Afghanistan, the next administration will need to fill out the existing strategic partnership agreement with a commitment to keep substantial U.S. forces in-country - to train Afghan forces, contain Taliban attacks against state institutions, and ensure that neighboring powers with predatory designs do not fill a vacuum that would otherwise be left by U.S. retreat. Afghanistan's 2014 elections will be pivotal to the post-Western dispensation of the country, and U.S. engagement with allies will be key to ensuring that the gains the country has made over the past decade are sustainable. American support for Afghanistan will also be instrumental to helping it build a self-sustaining economy not dependent on foreign aid. Washington will want to coordinate much more closely with New Delhi than it has over the past decade given India's similar interests in sustaining a representative Afghan government that does not tolerate the export of violent extremism, and can serve as a gateway for South Asian trade and investment with Central Asia.

American policy, often working in parallel with India's, can play a critical role in the process of democratic state building and free-market economic growth in the other key South Asian states of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. All are underdeveloped, post-conflict societies in which the military plays a strong role. Bangladesh is especially promising as a partner for greater U.S. engagement -- it has one of the world's largest Muslim populations who are predominantly unradicalized, its economy has been growing very rapidly, it has worked with India and the United States to defeat home-grown terrorism, and its governance indicators have improved meaningfully over the past few years. Goldman Sachs has identified Bangladesh as one of its "N-11" economies or next-generation BRICS.* U.S. partnership will be critical to helping Bangladesh consolidate these gains and join India as part of a "South Asian miracle" of the kind East Asian economies have experienced.

American leadership will be essential to realize the promise of the troubled South Asian region. Wariness and even hostility among neighboring states remains high. This region (not the Arab Middle East) is the source of the world's most violent extremism. Western forces have fought for over a decade in Afghanistan to render it a regional source of stability rather than instability. Pakistan faces extraordinary development and governance challenges, and its support for terrorism could have explosive consequences, not just in Delhi and Kabul but in Washington and London. Rising India could recast the global balance of power and values by virtue of its success in realizing its extraordinary potential. U.S. partnership can help more of South Asia achieve its enormous economic potential, placing it alongside East Asia as a driver of global economic growth and American prosperity.

Editor's note: This piece originally stated HSBC was the group to identify Bangladesh, and it has been corrected to Goldman Sachs. 

Read more about the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership here. 

Critics of the  civilian-nuclear deal between the United States and India -- proposed in 2005 and ratified in 2008 -- have more recently charged that its supporters oversold the broader benefits of Indo-U.S. strategic partnership. Their critique has been given unearned momentum by the Indian parliament, which passed nuclear liability legislation that does not meet international standards, effectively making it impossible for U.S. companies to build civilian-nuclear plants in India.  Critics have also been emboldened by a certain drift in U.S.-India relations since 2009 -- for which both sides bear responsibility -- and by India's own lackluster economic performance, which diminishes its attractiveness as the pivotal U.S. partner in 21^st century Asia. But these developments do not mean the relationship was oversold. The more accurate charge is that it has not yet been fully consummated. 

The Obama administration sent decidedly mixed messages to New Delhi upon taking office in 2009. Bush administration officials had argued convincingly that a shared appreciation for managing the balance of power in Asia was at the core of the U.S.-India entente -- music to the ears of leaders in a country that has still not recovered from the psychological scars of a war with China in 1962. However, early in their tenure, senior Obama administration officials reportedly told Indian counterparts that the United States was no longer "doing balance of power in Asia," while senior U.S. officials, including the president and secretary of state, gave credence for a time to the notion of a Sino-American "G-2" condominium in Asian and global affairs. 

This unnerved Indian officials who believed Washington had chosen New Delhi -- not Beijing -- as its privileged partner in rising Asia. Spurned Indian officials fell back on old non-alignment instincts and began speaking of "triangulating" between the United States and China. But events happily changed the discourse: China's militant assertiveness in 2010-11 reminded officials in Washington and across Asia of the growing danger posed by budding Chinese power. President Obama's self-declared "pivot" to Asia in 2011 moved the United States much closer to the Indian position of sustaining a regional equilibrium not tilted in China's direction -- a project of such immensity that India cannot achieve it absent close alignment, if not alliance, with the United States. Nonetheless, the early damage to a U.S.-India relationship whose central logic is rooted in the balance of power caused mistrust that still lingers.

More recently, Indians have been disappointed that the United States, after reassuring them for a decade that U.S. forces would finish the job they started in Afghanistan, will withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan through 2014. Beyond its intrinsic importance, Afghanistan was in fact a key test of the proposition that the United States, as a new strategic partner, could help India solve its toughest security challenge: the propensity of its neighbors to export terrorism into India, with state support. The Taliban's eventual return to control in at least parts of Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan's virulently anti-Indian security services as NATO forces draw down, will undermine Indian security in tangible ways. For many Indians, the United States' lack of staying power reconfirms old suspicions about American unreliability. It reinforces the conviction that India may have more to gain from collaborating with Russia and Iran to support Afghan groups committed to the Taliban's defeat than from relying on (and working with) the United States to do the job.

Americans, in turn, have been disappointed by India's apparent willingness, for a time, to risk its U.S. relationship over energy trade with Iran. The good news is that India has moved to reduce oil and gas imports from Iran, earning New Delhi a waiver from U.S. third-party sanctions set to take effect next month. This is particularly significant in light of India's energy-import dependence and its previous reliance on Iran as a top supplier. But American officials have spent precious time and energy over the course of several years urging India to cut back on its Iran trade -- time and energy that would have been better spent forging ahead on a wider agenda for Indo-U.S. cooperation, were it not for Indian reluctance to take American appeals to heart. New Delhi would have benefited more from early movement on this issue, rather than making a show of standing up to the United States even as India, out of concern for its own interests, systematically reduced its dependence on Iranian energy supplies.      

Americans excited about the rise to great-power status of the world's largest democracy have also questioned how India's passivity toward the Arab uprisings has served Indian interests, much less prospects for partnership with both Washington and reformist Arab regimes.  While India's election commission did assist in organizing Egypt's first democratic elections, New Delhi has been seriously behind the curve in Libya, Egypt, and Syria (though it has not blocked U.N. Security Council actions on the latter). It is Indian interests that suffer from such passivity, in the form of cool relations with post-revolutionary countries strategically positioned on its western doorstep. Such passivity has undermined the case, not just in Washington but internationally, that India is ready to provide global public goods and assume genuine responsibilities beyond its borders as a permanent member of the Security Council.

Nonetheless, over the past three years India and the United States have made quiet progress in consolidating their new relationship. India is the world's largest arms importer, and the United States is at the top of its list of defense suppliers -- notwithstanding American disappointment that India did not choose a U.S. fifth-generation fighter jet as part of its ongoing military modernization. Indian armed forces exercise more with U.S. counterparts than those from any other country -- a remarkable development for two countries that were on opposite sides of the Cold War divide. Intelligence-sharing is at historic highs; Washington and New Delhi cooperate more actively on counter-terrorism than ever before. The two countries are also more closely aligned on Pakistan as a result of the degeneration of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance over the previous three years. Perhaps most importantly, India and post-pivot America see eye-to-eye on the immense strategic challenge posed by China's ascendance; the Indo-American dialogue on East Asian security has been richly rewarding for both sides.

The hard truth is that Indo-U.S. relations would be better were India and the United States each doing better. India was a most attractive partner when it was growing at near-double digit rates annually, putting it on track to emerge as the world's largest economy before 2050. For many Americans today, India is a less attractive partner as economic growth slumps, the government stalls on key reforms necessary to unlock the economy's vast potential, populism trumps effective policymaking, and politicians seem unable to break partisan gridlock to govern effectively. Funnily enough, Indians could say exactly the same thing about America under President Obama.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai delivered yet another broadside against Pakistan yesterday, just before heading out to India for a state visit. He said "Pakistan has pursued a double game toward Afghanistan, and using terrorism as a means continues," closing out with a threat that "the government of Afghanistan has the responsibility to decisively fight against the enemies of independence and peace in Afghanistan."

Those are pretty bold words for a leader who can't govern his own country, much less win a war against Pakistan. While he's not wrong that Pakistan is interfering in Afghanistan, Karzai's attempt to shift blame across the border is just one more avoidance of responsibility for his corrupt and incapable government. Like most unsuccessful governments, Karzai's Afghanistan finds others to blame instead of working to improve what is in their power to fix. Pakistan sees a dysfunctional Afghanistan that the United States is about to walk away from, and is trying to create a buffer against its chaos seeping further into Pakistan or providing India a springboard for influence. Pakistan's strategy is not wrong in its assessment, but has chosen a means of influence that is ultimately self-defeating.

By contrast, India has been making incredibly smart choices in Afghanistan. And at no small cost: their embassy in Kabul was bombed in 2008 and 2009, killing scores. A developing country itself, India has provided $1.5 billion in aid to Afghanistan, predominantly for road building, medical treatment, training government bureaucrats, and now expanding to training of anti-terrorism police. They have worked cooperatively with the U.S. to help Afghanistan without provoking Pakistan, restraining the visibility of their efforts at our request.

Karzai lashing out at Pakistan increases the risk for India, both by connecting India more closely with a government that has not succeeded in gaining democratic legitimacy at home and by stoking Pakistan's paranoia about Indian influence. Expect the Afghan-Indian summit these next two days to have Indian Prime Minister Singh emphasizing "civilizational ties," while Karzai trumpets security cooperation.

The respective approaches of Pakistan and India in Afghanistan illustrate the potential problem of President Obama's shift to stand-off military strikes from a presence-heavy counterinsurgency. While Pakistan relies on proxy military power in the form of aiding insurgents to affect political developments in Afghanistan, the Indian government is showing a positive agenda of helping Afghans increase their capacity to deal with their problems. It's the difference between a strategy overly reliant on drone strikes and a counter-insurgency that builds support from within the society we are trying to affect. In its rush to the exits of Afghanistan, the Obama Administration might want to consider the respective attractions of the approaches undertaken by Pakistan and India in Afghanistan.

India has decided not to buy American F-16's or F/A-18's for the biggest defense tender in its history -- a pending $10 billion-plus contract for 126 multi-role combat aircraft. Following field trials, it has instead shortlisted the Rafale, made by France's Dassault, and the Typhoon, produced by a European consortium. Skeptics of Indo-U.S. strategic partnership view this as yet another Indian snub to the United States, arguing that the promise of Indo-American entente that was to follow from the historic civilian-nuclear agreement of 2008 has proven hollow.

The charge is that American proponents of closer cooperation with India have oversold India's willingness or ability to partner with the United States. India is unreliable, they argue -- just look at its failure to enact liability legislation that would bring the 2008 civilian-nuclear agreement into force. For the skeptics, Indian foreign policy, rather than tilting in a more pro-American direction, remains guided by non-alignment and an abiding concern for strategic autonomy -- if not an outright hostility to the West, as in the bad old days of the Cold War.

While India's decision is certainly disappointing, this analysis is flawed.

First, the United States has a national interest in Indian strategic autonomy, because one important consequence of India's geopolitical ascent is the ballast it provides to an Asian order not subject to China's tutelage. From an American national interest perspective, it is vital that India retain strategic autonomy by growing its internal capabilities and building external partnerships with a range of important powers, including not just America but also Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and European states.

The civilian-nuclear deal, advanced U.S. defense sales to India, technology-sharing, and other American initiatives have been designed to build Indian strength and promote Indian development. The mercantilistic idea that the ultimate goal of American policy towards India is creating a lucrative new market for American defense companies is not credible.

Second, India is not non-aligned, whatever the results of one defense sale. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh submitted his government to a no-confidence vote in 2008 over the nuclear deal with the United States -- risking the leadership of his coalition over the future of relations with the United States. India's military exercises more with America's armed forces than with any other, and the United States has emerged as a leading arms supplier to India, successfully selling it reconnaissance aircraft, transport aircraft, naval vessels, and other advanced platforms. Beyond the United States, India's growing set of partnerships are almost entirely with states along the Indo-Pacific littoral that fear the consequences of overweening Chinese power and seek to balance it.

India's double-digit annual defense budget increases, and India's emergence as the biggest arms importer in the world, aren't directed at the United States, or Europe, or Japan. They are undertaken with an eye on China first and Pakistan second. Yes, India's prime minister recently attended a BRICS summit -- though an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman made clear beforehand that India vests more importance in the IBSA grouping (India, Brazil, South Africa) of developing democracies -- because they share common values. The BRICS, of course, do not.

Third, it's worth considering the perspective from New Delhi on the aircraft sale. Despite considerable progress in recent years, the United States historically has not been what Indians would call a reliable supplier of military hardware. To the contrary: It has sanctioned India repeatedly, cutting off sales of military platforms, technologies, and spare parts over several different periods. The United States has also provided advanced weaponry to India's key rivals (Pakistan since 1954, China during the 1980s).

Politically, an Indian government under frequent attack for moving closer to Washington stands to benefit from insulating itself against yet more charges of favoritism towards America by buying U.S. fighters. Another core political objective in this context is to avoid the kind of corruption scandals that have marred previous Indian defense purchases (most notably the Bofors scandal of the 1980s, which brought down an Indian government).  The possibility for a potential scandal over the role of American political pressure should India buy American is a charge the country's political masters are keen to avoid, and are now immune from.

A related political factor is the what my Indian colleague Dhruva Jaishankar describes as "the general drift" in U.S.-India relations, which "has only increased both countries' resolve to drive harder bargains. This period of drift was initiated by the Obama administration's early missteps on China and Afghanistan and has persisted despite the president's visit to India last November as a consequence of political developments in both capitals." The underperformance of the bilateral relationship over the past two years is manifested in this week's decision on the aircraft tender.

Fourth, India's decision not to shortlist the American combat aircraft was a technical determination. India's existing fleet of Russian and French aircraft, and the ground-based support infrastructure for air operations, are not closely compatible with American combat aircraft. Some argue that European fighter aircraft are more advanced than older models of U.S. combat aircraft; it is reported that several performed better in flight trials over Indian territory than their U.S. competitors. The American planes are certainly more expensive, which matters in a country with more poor people than in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Indian cabinet will make the ultimate political decision on the tender.

This is no defense of India's decision. The great benefit of a U.S. company securing the contract for 126 multi-role combat aircraft wasn't the immediate benefit of a lucrative defense sale. It was the establishment of a long-term supply and training relationship between the air forces of the world's biggest democracies, great powers with the capability to fundamentally shape security order in Asia over the coming century.

India will do fine with its Rafales or Typhoons. But it's a shame longer-range, strategic considerations didn't seem to drive this decision. Leaders in Beijing and Islamabad are probably smiling, even as those of us in Washington are not.

I am not as sure as my Shadow Government colleague Paul Miller is that the Obama administration's decision to publicly endorse India’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council was so laudable.

The problem is not in offering the quid. As I argued earlier, this is actually a clever concession to give to India. The problem is in the quo. What did we get for this?

Surely, the administration did not give our support in exchange for the modest trade deals President Obama signed? We have some very serious "asks" of the Indians on urgent national security matters: helping ease Pakistan's paranoia in Afghanistan and helping ratchet up pressure on Iran. Did the administration get anything from India on those issues? If we did not get any firm commitments in advance, is the hope that making this preemptive gift will win us subsequent favor?

Until I hear satisfactory answers to these questions, I am going to remain skeptical about this deal. I am glad the trip made the administration focus on the importance of the Indian file. But we still have not seen as much progress as needed in forging a real, action-oriented, results-oriented strategic relationship.

The criticisms of President Obama that seem to have the most resonance with broad swaths of the American electorate and the center-right commentariat is as follows: Obama has too much faith in the state to guide the economy; he is equivocal about free trade and free markets; he is ambivalent about the idea that America is an exceptional nation that has played an exceptional role in the world; he has internalized the "Hyde Park" or professoriate value system that believes that a president must apologize for a sinful America's past support for "right wing colonial powers" in the name of anti-communism; he is uncomfortable with the military and military power.

If his speech in India is an indication of the sobering and education of a president, then some of these criticisms may be put to rest. President Obama unequivocally embraced the power of free trade and open markets, crediting those forces for Delhi's success. Ironically, as he is rightfully criticized at home for growing the government sector, he even make a connection between India's unshackling of its market from state control and its high growth rates. Possibly for first time in his presidency, as the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens pointed out, Obama stated that democracy itself is the target of terrorists. He also pushed for closer defense ties to help check China's military power and keep the Indian Ocean safe and secure.

While in Asia, then, Obama does not sound like a president ambivalent about free trade or free markets, the value of democratic allies or the continued need for military power to keep the world safe.

He is now in Indonesia and will continue on to Japan and South Korea. Indonesia was a Cold War ally ruled by a succession of anti-communist dictators. And it received substantial American support mostly motivated by Washington's Cold War policy. But Jakarta is now a Muslim-dominated democracy with a real chance for sustained success. While credit goes to the Indonesians themselves, the United States certainly played a role in Indonesia's transformation by providing economic and security aid and occasionally prodding its leaders to reform.

The same is true in Japan and South Korea. Obama is visiting allies whose success is inextricably tied to the very American policy that is criticized by the particular intellectual world of which Obama is a product. While that policy was never perfect -- Indonesians and South Koreans had to endure their share of autocratic rule and corruption -- Washington helped make those countries better off than they otherwise would have been. How? Washington encouraged its allies to join the liberal international system that post-World War II America created, pushed for democratic change and  provided a strong military guarantee.

Obama's critics certainly have a point about the president's philosophical predilections. But as he may be learning during his sojourns to Asia, it is one thing in the abstract (or as a professor in Hyde Park) to question American exceptionalism, its leadership in free trade, or whether or not its overwhelming power is "imperial." But as a president traveling to an Asia where liberal values and American strength have made -- and will continue to make -- the difference between security and chaos, the academic debate of which he was once a part, becomes, well, academic. In a part of the world where military power still matters, and where China is straining the liberal system, Obama is put in the somewhat incongruous position of reassuring Asia that U.S. exceptionalism is here to stay: Our leadership is necessary to defend our friends and our (and their) principles. Maybe in the end Asia will change Obama.

Within a week of suffering the biggest midterm drubbing in generations, President Barack Obama will depart on a trip to India, Indonesia, Japan and Korea. How the president handles this trip will speak volumes about how he sees his agenda for the next two years and how much of an international president he really is.

The first test will be whether he takes the trip at all. Democratic Party strategists and other influential pundits have already begun questioning why he would go abroad and let Republicans seize the narrative at the most crucial point in his presidency. On CNN, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, David Gergen, warned the White House against making the same mistake Clinton made when he went abroad in the wake of Republican midterm victories in November 1994. Will they cancel? The president has already put off previously scheduled trips to India and Indonesia because of domestic political developments. On the other hand, the White House likes to claim this is the first "Pacific president," because Obama grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii (though other presidents like William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy had plenty of experience in the Pacific as well, of course), and that the United States is "back" in Asia (though commentators across the region are asking when the United States ever left). All of this spin -- the first "Pacific president" and the "we're back in Asia" mantra -- would go flying out the window if the president cancelled his trip. Clinton was right not to cancel his international travel in 1994 -- it would have made the presidency appear even weaker. That would have been disastrous politics and worse geostrategy. So odds are pretty good that the president will go on the trip (fingers crossed).

The next test will be how the president handles ten days of hounding from the press about electoral defeats while he is in Asia. And the press will hound -- no doubt about it. Maybe if North Korea fires artillery across the DMZ during the G-20 summit in Seoul or China attacks the Senkaku Islands while the president is in Japan, the press corps might be distracted from domestic U.S. politics to focus briefly on international events. Or maybe the president will dig deep into his oratorical tool box to help shift the media's focus to U.S. interests in Asia -- the continent projected to contribute 60 percent of global GDP in our lifetime. He will have real occasion to look presidential again if he avoids the trivia of fact sheets and joint statements and presents a vision for international U.S. leadership. The visit to Indonesia -- the world's largest Muslim nation and one that proves Islam and democracy coexist-- could be a moment for articulating a real message about the compatibility of democratic values and Muslim faith. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Yokohama would be the place to remind Americans that over 50 percent of our trade is with this dynamic region, and that the United States can and must compete. The stops in India, Japan and Korea would be the right settings for explaining why investing in our strategic partnerships and alliances will pay dividends in terms of tackling the challenges we face internationally. The president must not re-fight the midterm, appear defensive, or make the narrative about himself (the last of these being the default narrative of the White House on foreign trips thus far). He must ignore what John McCain would call the "ground noise" and talk about the United States and Asia. The press might just listen. The region certainly will.

The third test will be on trade. If there is one area where the White House should be able to work with a more Republican Congress, it is on trade. And if there is one policy area Asia is watching to see if Washington is committed, it's trade. The president has said that he wants the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) ready to present to Congress (again) by the end of the year, but the administration has done no heavy lifting to get to that point (all the action has been aimed at pressing the Koreans to make further compromises). Fair enough -- there were elections coming up, and it may have been unrealistic to expect a Democratic White House to take on its labor union base when turnout was so critical to their electoral strategy. This trip is the time to demonstrate not only the hope that KORUS will be introduced this year, but the intention to do so in partnership with Republicans willing to work for its passage. It would set a tone that Asia would welcome and that Americans desiring more bipartisanship in Washington would be thankful for.

The president's Asia trip should not be seen by the White House as an unfortunate distraction, but instead as a real test of presidential leadership -- one that will help the president and the country if he approaches it the right way.

President Obama will visit India on a state visit in early November. I recently returned from New Delhi, and it was a trip that revealed a mix of hope and ambivalence that awaits the president's arrival. 

On the positive side of the ledger, developments over the past few months have diminished India's sense that U.S. diplomacy has neglected Asia's key rising democracy after a bad stretch early in the Obama administration. Undersecretary of State Bill Burns delivered a terrific speech in June that declared America's vital interest in India's rise and Washington's desire to facilitate it -- a geopolitical vision that has been lacking since President Bush left office. Counterterrorism cooperation has intensified since the United States allowed Indian officials to interrogate captured terrorist suspect David Headley and explore his connections to Pakistani militant groups. The Obama administration has softened its line about dramatically drawing down troops from Afghanistan starting next summer, encouraging Indians and others to hope that the president will see the mission through to some minimally satisfactory conclusion. 

With regard to Indians' closely watched northern neighbor, Sino-American relations appear to have stabilized after Washington's flirtation with the G2 condominium concept last year, followed by a period of military and diplomatic tension that has led to stronger U.S. pushback on Beijing's revisionist claims in maritime Asia. The U.S. administration is engaging in a concerted push to lift remaining technology sanctions on India -- a legacy of America's 30-year effort to contain Indian power when the countries were estranged by Cold War and proliferation tensions -- and to more broadly revise American export control laws in ways that catalyze technology trade and investment. The Obama administration is considering declaring its support for India's permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council -- an overdue change of American policy if it occurs. All these developments have been welcomed in New Delhi.

However, India's strategic community remains concerned about (and in some cases, alarmed by) the president's approach to Pakistan; his strategy for Afghanistan; his willingness to pursue a more robust Asia policy that raises the costs of Chinese assertiveness; the absence of American leadership on trade; and his commitment to treating India as a key power and partner in world affairs in a way consistent with Indians' own sense of their country's rising stature and capabilities.

Read on

Is the "China Fantasy" starting to get deflated by reality? Three years ago, Jim Mann's provocative book of that title identified the "China Fantasy" as the dogmatic belief of many Western political and commercial elites that China's economic liberalization and growth would lead inevitably to democracy at home and responsible conduct abroad. The operative word was "inevitably" -- the assumption being that China's remarkable economic success would automatically produce a middle class that demanded greater political rights, and that China's growing integration with the global economy would produce benign and responsible international behavior. Based on this assumption, the corollary policy prescription for the West was to pursue a policy of engagement and encouragement towards China's rise.

This paradigm seems to be shifting. I recently participated in a conference in Europe on China, attended by a cross-section of policy, academic, and commercial leaders from Europe, the United States, and China, and came away struck by palpable attitude changes in at least three dimensions. Taken together, these are signposts that the previous conventional wisdom on China is coming under question:

• European attitudes. Many of the Europeans present voiced a pronounced skepticism towards China, both for the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing refusal to liberalize the political system as well as for what they perceive as China's irresponsible international posture. Various reasons were suggested for this change in European attitudes from even two years ago, but the most salient one seems to be European ire over China's obstreperous conduct at last year's Copenhagen climate change conference. If Europe has a litmus test for international good citizenship, it is climate change. But China's behavior on that front seems to be prompting increased European frustration with China on other issues as well, including human rights, Iran's nuclear program, and China's military build-up.
• Business attitudes. American and European business leaders with extensive China experience also expressed significant disillusionment. As one noted, whereas 5 or 10 years ago the business community was virtually unanimous in its enthusiasm for the China market and in support of closer political ties between China and the West, now the consensus is fractured. Causes for this disenchantment include widespread corruption, intellectual property rights violations, the protectionism of the new "indigenous innovation" policy, and the general restraints on private sector flourishing imposed by China's state capitalism model.  To be sure, many multinational companies remain profitably invested in what is still the world's largest emerging market, and many more are eager to get in. But Google's recent exit from China may not be the only one, and some multinationals looking at China are weighing a new set of cost-benefit analyses.
• Chinese attitudes. If assessments in the West are changing, so are elite Chinese attitudes. Most of the Chinese participants were from universities or think-tanks (i.e. not People's Liberation Army hard-liners), but even they displayed a nationalistic confidence and rather defiant posture towards the West, especially the United States. At its most benign, this is an understandable attitude of a proud rising power. But in too many ways it is not benign, especially considering that the Chinese participants took worrisome stances on issues such as human rights, Taiwan, Tibet, mercantilist nationalism, Iran's nuclear program, shielding North Korea, and especially the security "threat" purportedly posed by the United States.     

The erosion of the "China fantasy" does not mark from a precise date, but a watershed moment ironically may have been the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Anticipated as China's grand arrival on the global stage, the Olympics were by many measures a major success -- and not just for people named "Michael Phelps." Yet surrounding the Olympics were constant reminders of Beijing's authoritarianism, whether the petulant rhetorical attacks on Tibet supporters, the draconian efforts at pollution reduction, the omnipresent surveillance, and the tight control on any voices of dissent. Put it this way -- as obnoxious are those %&*!@ vuvuzelas at the World Cup, they are also the sound of a free society.  You can bet they would have been banned in Beijing.

The end of the "China fantasy" does not necessarily prescribe a wholesale shift in the free world's posture towards China -- just a more realistic one. For the United States, this has several policy implications:

• Remember that "engagement" doesn't just apply to the government to government relationship with Beijing, but also to the people of China. A forward-looking China policy must include increased support for the seeds of civil society in China -- especially young entrepreneurs, religious leaders, human rights activists, students and scholars. Much more than the CCP, they are the best hope for the future of China.
• Keep cultivating our alliance partners in Asia, and also build ties with emerging powers. Nations as diverse as Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, and India have two things in common: they are wary of China's aspirations to regional hegemony, and they desire closer ties with the United States. 
• Strengthen our defense capabilities to deter China's emergence as a viable peer competitor. The problem with China's military build-up is not just that it is non-transparent, but that much of it seems designed specifically to counter American force projection and capabilities. For the United States, this means everything from improved cyber-security, command and control system protection, and anti-ship missile defense to, yes, a sufficient F-22 force to preserve air superiority.
• Get our debt under control. Not that the United States needs yet another reason to tackle its mind-blowing $13 trillion debt, but the fact that China owns close to $1 trillion of it is a further concern. The debate will continue over whether this debt financing imbalance actually leaves China or the United States more vulnerable in the aggregate (see this Dan Drezner article for a thoughtful analysis), but at a minimum it is a strategic constraint on the United States.

None of this precludes continued bilateral cooperation with China on important issues, or continued support for sound investment in such a vast market. The "China fantasy" was based more on hope than experience, but the benefit of recent experiences with state capitalism is the chance to replace hope with prudence.   

American success in Asia depends critically on three fundamentals. First, Washington must attend to the health of its network of alliances and partnerships; second, we need a favorable military balance of power; and third, w e must create conditions conducive to prosperity through free trade and economic liberalization. If the Obama administration is strong on these fundamentals, it will also have a more productive relationship with China. The Obama team must remember that China respects power foremost.

The key node in the network of alliances and partnerships is Japan.  But there is little doubt that the change in government in Tokyo has caused confusion and sometimes hysteria in Washington. The Obama team should be at least as patient with Japan as it has been with Iran. The Japanese people voted to change an increasingly bureaucratic and unresponsive government. Many members of the newly ruling DPJ are novices in politics and foreign policy. But that does not make them reflexively hostile to the alliance. We are in danger of falling into a trap - we may make an anti-alliance stance popular in Japan. The people of Japan voted to end Japan's economic stagnation. They also want their country to become more "normal," which means less dependent on the United States and less restricted in military operations. The Obama team can tap into the aspirations of Japan by articulating a truly sustainable alliance for the 21st century, based on shared economic growth, more equal relations, and a role for Japan in international affairs commensurate with its power. Pushing hard for a seat on the Perm 5 would be a good start.

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By Daniel Twining 

One way to judge President Obama's speech announcing (another) new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is by how it fares among those on the front lines. As one senior official in Kabul puts it in today's Wall Street Journal Asia, "We couldn't solve the Afghanistan problem in eight years, but now the U.S. wants to solve it in 18 months? I don't see how it could be done."

What about the promise of training and equipping Afghan forces to replace Western troops in Afghanistan within two years? The same newspaper quotes a Marine lieutenant who trains Afghan troops as saying, "We're still not at the point where the Afghans can either stand on their own, or at least lead or plan missions. I'd say we are at least four, five years away from that." And the outgoing U.S. commander for police training says its development is "still four to five years beyond the army's." By such reckonings, the United States and its allies have a long way to go before they can responsibly leave Afghanistan to its government and security forces, as is currently underway in Iraq.

Perhaps we can hope that President Obama's declared date for drawing down U.S. forces is the kind of deadline that President Clinton repeatedly imposed on the U.S. military mission in Bosnia in the mid-to-late 1990s to reassure Congress that he had an "exit strategy" -- only to repeatedly extend the annual deadline as the troops' success defused domestic political pressures for withdrawal. By this logic, the president is buying time for his strategy, assuaging his domestic critics while hoping that the success of the West's mini-surge in Afghanistan creates a political and strategic environment conducive to a sustained U.S. military presence -- one increasingly focused on partnering and training with Afghan forces -- beyond 2011.

Setting aside the domestic politics of Obama's decision, it's worth asking what is so necessary about removing U.S. forces from Afghanistan by a date certain. U.S. troops remain in Japan and South Korea 60 years after they first arrived there, and their presence retains the support of strong majorities in both countries.  This is also true in Europe. A defining moment of my political education occurred when Germany's then-Foreign Minister, the Green Party leader and former (anti-U.S.) student radical Joshka Fischer, emotionally lobbied my old boss John McCain not to support then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's plan to withdraw significant U.S. military forces from Germany more than a decade after the demise of the Soviet Union.  

The politics of the Islamic world are different, but polling shows clearly that a majority of Afghans remain willing to support the presence of international forces if they provide the security that Afghans crave. To the extent that foreign forces in Afghanistan are increasingly unpopular with segments of the Pashtun public, it is because of their manifest failures to improve security -- not the fact of their presence. A surge that reverses the erosion of human security in large swathes of Afghanistan would restore the legitimacy of the Western troop presence in the eyes of an Afghan majority that has no love whatsoever for the Taliban. Yet Obama's suggested "exit strategy" will raise doubts about U.S. reliability among the Afghan public -- and among the Taliban leadership, who can afford to wait out Western forces. As one Taliban foot soldier famously told an U.S. journalist several years ago, "You have the money but we have the time."

Might there be more to the president's new strategy than meets the eye? Some Indian strategists hope so. K. Subrahmanyam, the dean of India's strategic community, asks in today's Indian Express how the United States can possibly hope to train sufficient Afghan security forces to begin drawing down in only 18 months. His answer is that Washington may look to New Delhi -- which has vital equities in preventing the return of the Taliban by strengthening the Afghan state -- to help train and equip Afghan security forces, just as India has been training Afghan civil servants, building roads, schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure as the country's fourth-largest bilateral donor. 

India is a natural ally of a non-Talibanized Afghanistan. It has as much to lose from the Taliban's resurgence -- and the clear and present danger it would pose both for destabilizing Pakistan and exporting terrorism into India -- as anyone. New Delhi has considerable influence in Afghanistan in both traditional hard-power and in soft-power terms: Afghanistan is a natural part of India's economic backyard, Afghan citizens can get Indian visas on demand, and Indian movies, music, and food are pervasive in Afghanistan, many of whose elites were educated in India. It would seem natural for India's armed forces to train Afghan counterparts -- were it not for Pakistani paranoia, real or imagined, about "encirclement" by their Indian adversary. 

That said, given the links between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the resulting spread of violent extremism in Pakistan's heartland, at the end of the day a Talibanized Afghanistan would destabilize and endanger Pakistani security more than would a minimal Indian security presence that effectively expanded the capacity of the Afghan state to defend itself against Islamist insurgents. If President Obama is willing to gamble on a shortcut to exiting Afghanistan, he may indeed be tempted to turn to India for the assistance its government is all too keen to supply.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

By Daniel Blumenthal

Before President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao released their joint statement, Obama's Asia trip was underwhelming. But after the statement, Obama's foray into Asia went from empty to harmful.

Before Obama arrived in China, the trip's policy successes were minimal at best. He showed up to a major trade forum, APEC, with no trade policy. If, as Evan Feigenbaum has said, the "business of Asia is business," without a trade policy Obama is putting America out of business in the world's most economically dynamic region. And then he was stiffed by Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's outright rejection of the American proposal for a high-level dialogue to resolve basing issues on Okinawa. Not exactly a sterling performance by the new team.

But then came the joint statement after talks with President Hu. Two items in the statement struck me: one about Taiwan, the other in regard to India.

On Taiwan, the statement says:

The two countries reiterated that the fundamental principle of respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity is at the core of the three U.S.-China joint communiqués which guide U.S.-China relations. Neither side supports any attempts by any force to undermine this principle. The two sides agreed that respecting each other's core interests is extremely important to ensure steady progress in U.S.-China relations.

The three communiqués do indeed mention respect for territorial integrity. But it is highly arguable that "respect for ... sovereignty and territorial integrity" represent the "core" of the understandings that led to Sino-American rapprochement. The Taiwan issue was treated more delicately by earlier American statesmen. Their basic idea was that we would acknowledge, without accepting, the position that Taiwan is part of China. We would continue strong, unofficial diplomatic ties with the island and we would provide for its security through the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). We thus found a way to normalize relations with China without letting China have its way with Taiwan. Both sides of the Strait have prospered since the U.S. rapprochement with China and the signing into law of the TRA and relations have been more or less peaceful.

Now consider the situation across the Strait today. China has built a military capable of destroying the island if America does not assist Taiwan. Though obligated by law, the Obama administration has not sold a single weapon system to Taiwan. There is in fact no U.S.-Taiwan agenda under the Obama administration. It is even more dangerous, then, to stress the parts of the Sino-American normalization documents that most appeal to China. Of course China wants us to reiterate that our respect for "territorial integrity" and "sovereignty" is at the core of the three communiqués. Beijing wants us to accept its argument that Taiwan is part of China and that we should respect their sovereignty over the island. Obama has thus far done so through deed. With the joint statement he comes closer to officially accepting the Chinese claim of sovereignty.

On India, the joint statement says: 

The two sides welcomed all efforts conducive to peace, stability and development in South Asia. They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan. The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.

Here, President Obama broke new ground in ways harmful to both American and Indian interests. India and Japan are the two countries within Asia that can check China's desired dominance. For now, China has less to worry about with Japan as the Hatayoma government sorts through its foreign policies. But India is a different matter. It stood firm against China's pressure when the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian territory claimed by China. Delhi was sending two messages. First, do not interfere in India's internal affairs; the Dalai Lama is free to visit anywhere in India. Second, Arunachal Pradesh is India's territory. China had been putting military pressure on the border region but the Indians did not back down. Delhi is also standing firm in its maritime competition with China in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Navy will not allow China to build a sphere of influence in that maritime region.

Beijing's India strategy is to tie it down in South Asia to stop it from breaking out as a major power. The strategy has three basic pillars. First, Beijing has supported Pakistan's nuclear and conventional military programs. Second, China wants an acknowledged sphere of influence in South Asia. And third, Beijing wants to resurrect the so called "hyphenated" approach to India. It thus needs the United States to again think of India as part of an India-Pakistan problem, rather than as an emerging great power.

During the Bush and Clinton administrations, Delhi and Washington negotiated an arrangement that acknowledged Delhi's global role and increasing influence. This arrangement is of mutual benefit. Pakistan matters less to India as Delhi expands its strategic horizons. As Pakistan's importance to India lessons, so will Indian-Pakistani tensions. But as India frees itself from the weight of its Pakistan problem it has greater maneuverability to increase its influence in East Asia. China is threatened by that.

Thus, China won a diplomatic victory by getting Washington to agree to "cooperate" on issues of peace and development in South Asia. If China and America work together on South Asian issues, such as peace between India and Pakistan, then China is the great power while India is simply another South Asian country that needs help from others to solve its problems. With the joint statement, Obama officially accorded India junior status in Asia.

We should not be surprised by China's positions. What is surprising -- and extremely problematic -- is that on these key issues Obama is acquiescing in them.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

By Dan Twining

The Indian elections beginning today will be the largest organized activity in human history (always true of Indian elections given the country's growing population). As many as 714 million eligible voters will be marking ballots for a new Indian parliament that will convene in June. The scale of this election is staggering: There are close to 1 million polling stations, 6 million deployed security personnel, and over 1,000 registered parties whose candidates are contesting 543 parliamentary constituencies.

Given democracy's roots in the ancient Greek republic, with its limited franchise and minuscule population, a national election on this scale is historic. It is also normal and unsurprising. It is hard to imagine how else India could be governed, given its scope and diversity (as opposed to its equally big northern neighbor, where 90 percent of the population is Han Chinese).

The history of Indian elections shows that prediction is a fool's game; Indian voters have constantly surprised pollsters, politicians, and pundits alike, and they may well do so again this time around. With that in mind, here are a few markers by which to make sense of this election and what to expect from it.

National vs. regional parties

India's pan-national Congress party has been in secular decline. Since 2004 it has governed India with just over a quarter of seats in Parliament thanks to alliances with smaller regional parties. The other national party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is polling at or below this threshold. This means that for either party to govern will require alliances with regional parties, with varying and diverse agendas and a focus on leveraging their roles as kingmakers.

One way to predict whether Congress or the BJP will govern is to assess the prospects of their likely coalition partners. At the moment, the BJP's regional allies look to be in more trouble than those of Congress. But Congress bears the burden of incumbency: The BJP was predicted to win the elections in 2004 but lost power in part because of voters' desire for change, a pattern that recurred in state elections last November. And despite the impeccable pedigree of its prime minister, the Congress-led government has utterly failed to implement further economic reform, calling into question its governing credentials.

A Third Front?

If regional parties do too well, India faces the prospect of a government led not by one of the national parties but by a coalition of regional parties. In one scenario, such a coalition would enjoy the support of Congress or the BJP. In a more interesting scenario, such a coalition would exclude either national party.

The primary pretender to lead what is called a Third Front in the second scenario is Kumari Mayawati, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (population: 185 million), and a Dalit outcaste whose ascendancy would be revolutionary in a political system where upper-caste, Western-educated elites have dominated. Interestingly, India's foreign policy would likely not change much in such a scenario given the strength of the bureaucracy. But the impact on the Indian economy could be significant -- and negative -- if a Mayawati-led government pursued a populist agenda of extending government affirmative-action programs into the private sector.

Rural vs. urban India and the question of economic reform

India's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 9 percent since 2004, a growth rate that produces dramatic social change. Indeed, The Economist and other observers judge the Indian middle class to be as large as the population of the entire United States. Redistricting also makes this national election the first in which India's expanding urban population will punch its weight electorally. The BJP's modernizers have attempted to redefine the party's identity away from an exclusive Hindu nationalism toward one that emphasizes economic reform and competence, appealing to the urban middle class that values these qualities. In some respects, Congress has moved in the opposite direction, putting in place extensive rural welfare schemes and showering money on Indian farmers.

This is astute, because 65 percent of Indian voters still live in rural areas. It was rural voters that turned the BJP out of office in 2004 in a backlash against its "India Shining" campaign: How can India rise as a world power when it has more people living in absolute poverty than all of Sub-Saharan Africa? On the other hand, widespread, rapid economic growth premised on aggressive liberalization and infrastructure development is more likely than government welfare schemes to pull rural India out of poverty.

Security

Beyond pocketbook issues and local concerns, security threats -- Indians are the world's leading victims of terrorism -- could impact the elections. Conventional wisdom that the 11/26 Mumbai terrorist attack would benefit the BJP's harder line on security was upended when multiple state elections held only days later saw the BJP underperform and Congress do rather well. On relations with Pakistan, the hard-line BJP can claim a Nixon-to-China quality: it was the last BJP prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who launched Indo-Pakistani rapprochement at a groundbreaking summit in Lahore in 1999, and it was current BJP leader L.K. Advani who recently was savaged within his party for going back to Lahore to praise the vision for peace of Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

In its favor, the current Congress government made important progress in back-channel negotiations with Islamabad before the Mumbai attacks, which emanated from Pakistan, and has shown remarkable restraint thereafter. But militant attacks across the Line of Control in Kashmir have tripled this spring, and cities like Mumbai and Delhi are braced for election-season terrorism. The Naxalite insurgency that afflicts vast tracts of the Indian heartland, identified by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the country's gravest national security challenge, could also affect the vote: Only yesterday, insurgents conducted a "triple strike" in Jharkhand and Bihar that Indian's Home Minister described as an attempt to disrupt the elections. Which political party can best claim to boost Indians' prosperity while strengthening their security against these dangers?

What's not on the table 

As important as what Indian political candidates are running on is what they aren't. U.S.-India relations are not an election issue, reflecting the widespread consensus among all but the far left of the political spectrum that a cooperative relationship of equals with the United States can only benefit a rising India. Polling shows that the civilian-nuclear deal was popular even in rural Indian villages -- not because farmers understood the technical details but because partnering with the United States to make India more prosperous and powerful is inherently attractive at all levels of society.

Nor is Islamic extremism a compelling election issue in the sense that radical Islamist parties are contesting the elections on platforms of sharia law and anti-Westernism/anti-modernism of the kind that impact elections in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia. Such parties are absent from the Indian election outside Jammu and Kashmir, and there, Islamists either boycott elections -- or lose them.

Nonetheless, big issues are at stake in India's elections. A weak coalition government will find it hard to move on economic reform, potentially condemning the Indian poor to another generation of grinding rural entrapment and constraining India's great power rise. A government of ideologically and politically diverse parties will find it hard to define an agenda that makes India an active leader in international politics -- rather than a country that remains, in some respects, insular and unwilling or unable to assume international responsibilities on issues like climate change.

A Congress-led government in which Manmohan Singh serves only as a placeholder leader until the ascendance to the prime ministership of Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's first family, will reinforce the dynastic quality of Indian political life. A BJP-led government in which the party's sectarian warriors rather than its economic modernizers hold the upper hand could foment communal discord within Indian society in ways that artificially and ahistorically divide its Hindu and Muslim communities, creating an opening for radicalization and sectarian violence.

Amid all this uncertainty, however, one thing in clear: When the votes are counted on May 16, not only Indians will be watching; the world will be too.