US–Indian Relations ―A Multifaced Partnership Under Construction

1. The history of US–Indian relations 1.1 1947-1990: The Cold War era US–Indian economic relations were never insignificant following India's independence, but mutual understanding was lost during the Cold War system, resulting in suppressed progress in the bilateral economic relationship. As a result of India's adoption of a parliamentary democracy after independence, the US assumed that as a country with the same values, India would naturally adopt an economic policy encouraging free development of corporate activities. As a result, the US had high hopes that India would be one of the powerful countries of the free world under the Cold War system, and provided India with generous support. By contrast, India was concerned about the intensification of tensions under the Cold War system, and upheld the banner of non-alignment outside of both the Eastern and Western blocs, in addition to domestically adopting a state-led development model. To the US mindset, which believes in clearly defining black and white, India's external posture of accepting aid from both the US and the USSR as well as its economic policy that was rather controlled were very difficult to understand. From India's point of view, by contrast, US foreign policy was very intrusive and American capitalism valued materialism above all else, and thus they were not easily assented to. The Indo–Pakistani hostility led to a still wider gap between India and the US. The US deployed an equidistant diplomacy to India and Pakistan, and at the same time leveraged Pakistan as an anti-Communist bastion. When the Indo–Pakistani War of 1965 broke out, the US, which had maintained amicable relations with Pakistan, temporarily suspended aid to India. Furthermore, at the time of the Indo–Pakistani War of 1971, the US deployed the USS Enterprise, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, to the Bay of Bengal to check India. Amidst the Sino-Soviet split and Sino-Indian hostility, the US position of proximity to Pakistan inevitably tilted India towards the USSR. In 1971, the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed, which strayed far from the principles of non-aligned diplomacy. Furthermore, when India set boldly forth with its first nuclear test in 1974, the US formed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), implementing measures restricting the export of nuclear technology and related equipment to non-signatories to the Nuclear