India & US are ideal partners: Cohen

Asserting that the Indo-US nuclear deal ended decades of 'misunderstanding' about India's nuclear intent, a former top US official has said that the increasing strategic connections between the two countries should progress to closer military and economic cooperation.

"Strategically, militarily and economically the US-India partnership makes perfect sense," former Defence Secretary in the Clinton administration William Cohen said while highlighting India's galloping economic growth as well its 'global leadership as a committed democracy.'

Hailing the Indo-US nuclear deal, Cohen said aside from having the potential to engender goodwill and partnership, it finally removes 'the cinder from the eye' and hence ends decades of misunderstanding and distrust about India's nuclear intent and capabilities.

"The increasing strategic connections between the US and India should progress to closer military coordination and cooperation," Cohen wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Exchanges of technology, strategy and troops advance the capabilities and strategic capacities of both democracies. Such exchanges enable the US and India to engage in coordinated action and to function independently at higher levels of proficiency, said Cohen, who is the CEO of the Cohen Group and Member of the Board of the United States India Business Council.

Cohen is leading a high-powered business delegation to the Bangalore air show along with the former American ambassador to India Thomas Pickering, currently a top executive at Boeing.

Terming the two countries as 'ideal partners,' Cohen said, "With closer cooperation, India and the US will reap the rewards of mutual respect and trust working as equal partners and exerting a positive influence in the 21st century."

India and the US are working as partners to secure democracy and to defeat extremism in South Asia and around the world. The healthy relationship between the two, he said, also furthers the common objective of promoting stability in the world.

India can be proud of its economic rise, which places it as the fourth-largest economy, with GDP galloping at a rate exceeding 8 per cent annually, Cohen said.

"Some economic forecasts predict that India's economy measured in absolute dollar terms will overtake Italy, France and Britain in the next decade," the former senior official of the Clinton administration said.

Claiming that the effects of Indo-US economic cooperation 'will shape the destiny of the 21st century,' Cohen said India has been progressively dismantling its commercial barriers while strengthening intellectual property rights.

Opening its infrastructure, insurance, banking and retail markets to foreign competition will go a step further in creating the potential of more than $1 trillion in new investment in India's infrastructure sector where it is needed most, he said.

Cohen, however, pointed out that India has still 'far to go' in terms of developing first-world infrastructure and delivering world-class education and health care to all its citizens and that these challenges can best be met by true partnership and bilateral cooperation.

Already, US defence industry leaders such as Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics have committed to significant co-production with Indian partners, recognising India's engineering prowess.

Also, US companies have demonstrated a commitment to work with Indian partners to help India achieve a second Green Revolution, Cohen said. The public-private approach that has worked so well in the US, which has brought high technology to all aspects of the economy, can serve as a model for India as its farmers work towards achieving greater agricultural productivity.

Cohen pointed out that currently more than 100,000 Indian students enroll in American universities with an effort to grant more visas to provide greater access in the future. Appreciating the contribution of the 2.2 million Americans of Indian origin, he said they are becoming increasingly influential in shaping the dynamics of the US political stage.