Abstract
It can be said that history of international relations has always been inherited and developed. The ups and downs in relationship between India and the USA during the Cold War have been a thing of the past, but they left certain impact on the current relationship between the two countries at present. Therefore, an evaluation of nature of India–USA relationship during the Cold War to understand its current status is clearly a necessary requirement.
The book titled India–United States Relations (1947–1991) by Le Thi Hang Nga (2017) is the first work in Vietnam that has systematically and thoroughly studied about the relationship between India and the USA during the Cold War era. It is divided into four chapters: the first chapter analyses the factors affecting India–US relations; the second and third chapter analyse India–US relations in different fields—politics, diplomacy, national defence, economy, culture, education; the fourth chapter gives an evaluation of India–US relations, emphasises some key achievements and certain limitations of India–USA relations from 1947 to 1991. In addition, the fourth chapter explores the main characteristics of India–USA relations during the Cold War and analyses the effects of this relationship on the international and regional situation.
The author was very correct and successful in clarifying the factors that affected India–USA relationship during the Cold War (Chapter 1). According to the author, the major factors that affected India–USA relations during this period include the legacy of bilateral relation before 1947, regional and global context of the Cold War era, contemporary internal situation and foreign policies of the United States and India, the Pakistan and China factors, etc. As pointed by the author, 1947–1991 was a period of confrontation between two superpowers— the USA and the Soviet Union. It was also a period of switching alliance from the Russia–China alliance to USA–China collusion and a period of some hot wars, like those in North Korea and Indochina. India itself was caught up in a border conflict with China and three wars with Pakistan.
The book highlights the major differences in foreign policies of India and the USA as the key factor affecting India–USA bilateral relations during the period 1947–1991. While the USA was taking the lead in the Western capitalist world and trying to find allies around the globe in order to contain the spread of communism, India, having just gained independence from British colonialism, decided to pursue an independent and non-aligned foreign policy, which was disliked by the American policy-makers. Besides, the close military cooperation between the USA and Pakistan seriously hindered the progress of India–US relations. At the same time, India’s closeness towards the Soviet Union, especially when India and the Soviet Union signed the Peace, Friendship and Cooperation Treaty in 1971, had a negative impact on India–USA relations.
The book shows that India–USA political and diplomatic relations did not move in an upward direction, but rather, it was full of ups and downs, it was sometimes friendly and sometimes cold (Chapter 1). It explains that, India–USA relations during the period 1947–1991 in political-diplomatic and defence areas were not strong because it often faced with obstacles related to the Kashmir issue, the USA’s military assistance to Pakistan, the Soviet Union’s military aid to India and the difference between India and the USA on some international issues such as Indochina War, Arab–Israel conflict, Hungarian crisis, etc.
Details of India–USA relations in the fields of economy, culture, education, sciences and technology from 1947 to 1991 are given in Chapter 4. The author is of the view that, in terms of economic relations, India–USA bilateral trade was somewhat unstable and fluctuated. The unstable trade relation was a reflection of the hot–cold political relationship between the two countries during this time span. The USA’s food aid to India was an important aspect of bilateral economic relation, which was primarily reflected in the Food for Peace Program (PL480). In terms of educational cooperation, the USA’s educational support did help India modernise its out-dated educational system. The book points out that cultural exchange between the two countries were only promoted in the 1980s. The two sides-maintained cooperation in developing nuclear, military and space technologies and high-tech cooperation became the bright spot in India–USA relations since the second half of the 1980s.
The book has made several significant conclusions. It clearly shows the basic features of India–US relations during the Cold War. First, in terms of political-diplomatic and defence cooperation, India–USA relation was maintained in a perfunctory state, with many ups and downs. It did not develop in one direction but in many directions. Second, it was a relationship between two big democracies, which have major differences in foreign policies. Third, India–US relation was a typical relationship between a big country leading the ‘Third World’ and a superpower leading the Western capitalist world. It was the USA’s global foreign policy that led it to engage Pakistan in an anti-communist coalition and this became the stumbling block, preventing India–USA relations from further progress during the Cold War. The fact that the USA acted in collusion with China from 1971 made India move closer to Russia. In turn, this made India–USA relationship became sour. Thus, the book shows that the similar political regime between the USA and India did not hold much meaning for the relationship between two countries during the Cold War.
The book also has a section studying the impacts of India–USA relations on the world and regions, as well as on the internal development of the USA and India during the Cold War (Chapter 4). It shows that India’s non-aligned policy and its relationship with the USA have certain effect on calming down some of the heated confrontations between Soviet Union and the USA and thus had positive impact on regional and global order. Yet, the limited relationship between the USA and India deprived India of various economic development opportunities, although it did not much affect the USA’s economy.
On the whole, the book provides a comprehensive picture of India–USA relations during the Cold War. It successfully demonstrates that, India–USA relations were not ‘a waste’ as a whole. It is of the author’s view that, though bilateral relations during this period may not have yielded the desired results, the valuable lessons learnt by the two sides in the course of their relationship during the Cold War help promote a very dynamic relation between the two sides in the post-Cold War era. The lessons of the typical shift in India–USA relationship is probably the affirmation of the truth: ‘In international relations, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, but only permanent interests’. The shift in India–USA relations in the post-Cold War period, especially the strategic cooperation between the two countries in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, was the result of the ability to recover and the ‘tenacity’ of the relationship built during the Cold War years. Thus, the author argues that, instead of calling India–USA relations during the Cold War as ‘50 wasted years’, we may call it the ‘essential half century’—a necessary stage through which India and the USA could promote mutual understandings and trust and thus laid the foundation for contemporary and future relations.
A minus point of the book is that, due to the relatively wide range of issues, spanning over a period of nearly 50 years, the author could not touch all the hidden corners of the India–USA relationship during the Cold War.
However, it cannot be denied that the book has made important contribution to the existing literature on India–USA relations. So far, India–USA relationship has attracted interests and became research topic for many Indian and American scholars, but a meticulous analysis by a scholar from a third country like Vietnam has made the picture of India–USA relations to be more objective and multidimensional.
This book is well structured and written in a clear and coherent style. It can be a useful reference for policy-makers, diplomats and general readers interested in the history of India–USA relations in particular, in international relations and world affairs in general.