Manmohan's Washington yatra

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is in Washington for the first state visit hosted by the Obama Administration, expecting the trip to culminate in intensified cooperation with the United States in matters such as intelligence sharing and announcing an agreement on arrangements relating to the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, an issue that had impeded the completion of the 2005 agreement on nuclear cooperation. This is evidently intended as a token of the new administration's continuing commitment to nuclear cooperation with India, which is also looking to garner US support for securing a UN Security Council seat.
Various lobbyists have been burning the proverbial midnight oil in Washington to acquire support for India in various aspects like Ashley Tellis of Carnegie Endowment for the UN Security Council slot and - Selig Harrison of Woodrow Wilson International Centre to get India to play an even bigger role in Afghanistan. However, the think tanks in Washington and the powers that be must rethink the prospects of this unnatural strategic alliance.
The US is perhaps betting on the wrong horse. If the US is propping up India to be a bulwark against China, it must take cognisance of the factor that India neither has the will nor the courage in the real sense to confront China. The scars of its thrashing at the hands of the Chinese in 1962 still run deep. Moreover, despite all its arms build-up and war preparations, India is no match for China. It also knows that China is next door while the US will not be able to come to its aid in time from thousands of kilometres away if actual hostilities breakout. The US think tanks should use pragmatism to weigh their relations with India. They should have learnt a lesson from history, when during the First World War, they were let down by their strategic allies Italy and France through deceit and double play when the German forces attacked them.
The US investment in India's capacity building is likely to be an excessive and cost prohibiting exercise. India remains a satellite of Russia; it has learnt its lessons well from the Cold War era, when it was ignored by the west because of its ties with the erstwhile Soviet Union. It has mastered the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. With US approval, Israel has been providing the latest and most lethal weapons to India in a bid to wean it away from Russia but the Indians are making hay while the sun shines, acquiring weapons and technology both from Israel and Russia, while the US Military Industrial Complex is also wooing Indian market for defence sales.