India is base of stability in S Asia: Pentagon

A senior Pentagon official has said that India is the "base of stability" in South Asia and "the United States does not want to get involved in any muddling in India's region."

Brigadier General John A Toolan, Jr. of the US Marine Corps, who is the Principal Director for South and Southeast Asia at the Department of Defense, declared, "We want to work together, and that's at the heart of that stakeholder concept and that's at the heart of the whole relationship of the strategic partnership between India and the United States."

Toolan, who was the first speaker at the conference titled 'US-India Security Alliance,' hosted by the Indian American Security Leadership Council -- one of several Indian American organisations formed last year to help push through the enabling legislation to facilitate to the US-India civilian nuclear agreement -- on Capitol Hill, however said he did not believe the relationship between Washington and New Delhi could be termed an alliance.

 "Alliance is quite a bold word, and I think alliance is probably not quite the right word," he said. Perhaps, it is "more along the lines of a security partnership that allows India to maintain its non-alignment and its independence which they cherish clearly."

Toolan said that what the US and India "are forging" is a strategic partnership "to become much like our relationships with Japan or Australia or other places, and in many ways the US would like to see the relationship grow."

"The United States is confident that by virtue of its overlapping values and interests that this partnership will deepen over time and without requiring a (defense) treaty," he added.

Toolan said that India is seen "as a regional stakeholder" by the US in South Asia, and Washington saw the same stakeholder relationship "as we do with China," in Southeast Asia.

Dismissing the contention in some quarters that the Malabar Exercise among India, the US, Australia, Japan, and Singapore is part of a strategy to ultimately contain China, the Pentagon official asserted that "the operation is not to target China, (but) it is designed to shape the strategic choices being made by all of the regional actors in the area."

"It is important that we in these exercises make that perfectly clear. (But) Unfortunately, if you look at some of the media today, it is as if it for the containment of China."

Toolan recalled that in President Bush's inaugural speech, "he talked about his democracy agenda," and said, "The work that's being done between the United States and India is at the heart of the President's democracy agenda."

At the outset of his remarks, Toolan recognized what he described "as the great deal of effort that's been put in by the Indian American community who have done an awful lot to seal, or at least have put together the 123 Agreement and civilian nuclear agreement."