US arms companies have bagged deals over $10 billion in last one decade, mostly after the 2008 nuclear deal. Now, the US wants more.

After the dramatic victory of Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls, which has generated huge expectations of revival of Indian economy and the resultant economic advantages for those countries who maintain good political relations with India, top leaders of many powerful countries have paid their obeisance at the 7, Race Course Road, which also included the US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. Prior to his visit the US Department of State had dispatched the Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Anita Desai Biswal for preparing groundwork for all the future high-level visits from Washington to New Delhi which will culminate in the first visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to White House on September 30. The Burns visit will be followed up by the visit of Secretary of State John Kerry by the end of July and the Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel in early August. In fact Kerry’s visit will break protocol, as Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was expected to visit Foggy Bottom (State Department office) for the annual Strategic Dialogue. But Kerry proposed that since he has already decided to visit India, both the countries should hold the dialogue in New Delhi itself.

In this background, the Indian External Affairs Ministry also broke protocol by giving access to Indian Prime Minister to a not too senior functionary from the US State Department William Burns, who is somewhat equal to the Indian Minister of State rank, handed over the formal invitation from the US President Barack Obama, when he met Narendra Modi at 7, Race Course Road. In his invitation letter Obama said that he wants to work closely with Prime Minister to make India-US relations a defining partnership for the 21st century.

The contours of the defining partnership has been set long ago but was not acted upon by both the countries. In fact the issue of mid-December strip search of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York emerged as the fiercest storm in India-US relations, which Indian MEA pledged to take it to its logical conclusion after taking several retaliatory actions against the US Embassy in New Delhi. Earlier India had preferred to look aside on the National Security Agency (NSA) snooping issue in order to maintain the momentum of the bilateral relations. In fact when a US newspaper revealed that the BJP leaders phones and e-mails were also under scanner the BJP leaders made low level protest and forgot the next day when Burns landed in New Delhi. Now, the senior officials of both the countries contend that these two issues are being dealt with at the diplomatic level. In fact Burns clarified in response to media queries, “We’re confining those discussions to diplomatic channels right now. We understand the concerns that have been raised and we’ll deal with them professionally. But we also want to look ahead, as I said, in all the areas of promise in our partnership that I mentioned. That’s very much the spirit of the conversations I had with my Indian colleagues.”

Indian interlocutors are also conveniently underplaying these very emotional issues and instead focusing on the deliverables during the Modi visit to Washington. These were extensively discussed by Burns during his meetings with the Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh and later courtesy meetings with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Modi gave so much importance to his meeting with Burns that he asked his National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh to be present during the meeting.

During the meeting, Burns conveyed President Obama’s desire to strengthen economic relations, including in next-generation technologies and manufacturing sector; cooperate in enhancing energy security; deepen security cooperation, including in maritime security, counter-terrorism and intelligence exchange; expand consultation and coordination on Afghanistan; and, work more broadly for security and prosperity in Asia. In response Modi said, “I look forward to a result-oriented visit with concrete outcomes that imparts new momentum and energy to India-US strategic partnership.” The Prime Minister was of the view that re-energising the partnership between India and the United States would send an important message to the region and beyond.

In the background of recent Chinese aggressiveness in the South and East China Sea and the US policy of rebalancing Asia and its hidden desire, which was inadvertently made public last year by the US officials, to make India its lynchpin of the Asia-Pacific strategy earlier called Pivot to Asia, the Modi visit to US will be observed closely especially by Chinese Government and the international strategic observers.

However, the US has a vested economic interests in promoting relations with India. Like other major developed countries, their economic honeymoon with China seems to be over, hence they want to court India, which they find cosy only when India moves fast on the path of economic, social and political stability. The US and West has a stake in India’s fast economic progress and revival of Indian economy, which will provide them a big market for their produce and high end technology. In fact the US Administration had helped clear all the path of India’s integration with the international nuclear mainstream by signing a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India, with only hope that India will open up its more than $100 billion nuclear power market for the US nuclear companies, which in turn will generate employment to thousands of its people. The other expectation of the US policy makers was to divert India’s defence acquisition from Russia to US. Undoubtedly the US arms companies have over the years bagged deals over $10 billion in last one decade, mostly after the 2008 nuclear deal. Now, the US wants more.

Hence, the proposed New Delhi visit of the US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hegel in early August assumes importance. In order to bag mega billion-dollar deals from India, the US side has ignored its own agreements like CISMOA (Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement), LSA (Logistics Support Agreement), BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation), etc. After ensuring big-ticket defence deals from India, the US Administration is now focusing on the mega nuclear parks, which had been allotted to US companies in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. However, the US officials are extremely unhappy with the Indian Nuclear Liability Law and Burns raised this issue during his meeting with Indian leaders. This issue will be on the table again when the Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart John Kerry meet in late July with the intention to thrash out the issue in US favour before Modi meets Obama in White House on September 30, 2014.