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United States wants to go beyond simply enhancing its bilateral ties with India. It wants New Delhi's help to resolve the daunting global challenges of the day.
Co-Deputy Secretary of State for Policy, James Steinberg, in articulating for the first time the Obama administration's foreign policy toward India in a major speech at The Brookings Institution, said, "The future of our relationship depends on more than strengthening bilateral ties and engagement."
He argued that "as India emerges as one of world's leading economic and political power, the central question is how United States and India can work together to address the regional and global challenges that no country alone can solve."
Steinberg said, "To paraphrase (Brookings president and former Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration) Strobe's (Talbott) and my old boss, President Clinton, the central question facing India in the coming years is how India defines its greatness as it takes an increasingly prominent role in global affairs."
He noted that "in the past, the emergence of new powers placed enormous stress on the international system, because power was seen as a zero sum game, the rise of new powers was viewed as an inherent threat to the status quo."
"But in the 21st century, the emergence of India as a strong, stable, democratic and outwardly looking global player with global interests, has the potential to advance and enhance the effectiveness of the international system and the security and well being of all, in a positive-sum game," he predicted.
Steinberg said, "For this reason, the real test of our relationship will be how we work together on the common challenges of our era, strengthening the global trade and investment systems, addressing trans-national threats like nuclear weapons proliferation, terrorism and pandemic diseases and meeting the urgent danger posed by climate change."
"As great powers together we have an obligation to help produce what we at least former academics call global public goods to pursue an enlightened vision of self-interest that recognizes that individual nations will only thrive if we all thrive, and that to build the institutions of cooperation, we need to facilitate common efforts to meet challenges," he declared.
"Whether at the UN, the World Trade Organization, or the Conference of Disarmament," Steinberg said, "we both have a responsibility to eschew rhetoric in favour of forward looking, practical solutions to the great issues of our time."