Why US is shifting nuclear stand with India

Certainly, the US increasingly sees India as a "good guy," both in terms of the South Asian region but also in international affairs. President Bush referred to "our shared values" during Mr. Singh's White House visit Monday, while State Department officials say the agreement points the way for US-India relations for the coming decades.

In a speech to Congress Tuesday, Prime Minister Singh emphasized India's record of guarding its nuclear technology from a dangerous spread, assuring members of Congress that India "never will be a source of proliferation of nuclear technologies." Harrison says the US agreement would also rectify an anomaly in the "outdated" international nonproliferation regime that allows the US to sell civilian nuclear technology to China but not to India.

The White House plan does not formally recognize India as a nuclear power, but some critics say it does grant de facto recognition.

Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asian affairs during the Clinton administration, recognizes the plan will be controversial among many nonproliferation experts and in Congress. But he adds: "It's the right call for us and for the world, really. This is a way to bring India into a global nonproliferation regime, rather than leaving it on the outside."

Yet while the nuclear agreement signals new thinking on US-India relations, it won't really mean a new chapter in the partnership unless the administration is willing to fight for the plan and convince Congress of its merits, Mr. Harrison says. "This is a litmus test, for Indians and for others as well, as to whether the US is really serious about seeing India as a key and rising player in global calculations," he says.

No doubt China will be watching how far the US plans to take the relationship. So will Europe - in particular a European Union that does not see the rising challenge of China in the same terms as the US, but which has put off arms sales to China in response to US concerns. China is clearly a factor in US calculations on India, experts say, but some also warn that the US has little to gain if it develops ties to India primarily as a counterweight to another rising power.

"I know a lot of people are busy devising the scenarios of India counterbalancing China and joining us in confronting a rising power, but we need to be careful not to get into a triangular trap," says Mr. Inderfurth, now at George Washington University. The problems the global powers face, from poverty to the spread of nuclear weapons, are nothing any one country can address, he says. "We need to develop relations with both countries and work in a cooperative, not a competitive way."

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