US adds power to India’s Israeli links:
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Both moves highlight the burgeoning alliance between the two most potent non-Islamic militaries in the Middle East and South Asia, a trend that has the enthusiastic support of Bush administration hawks, particularly in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. That alliance will again be spotlighted with next month’s scheduled visit to India by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
While Israel sees India as a comrade in the fight against Islamic militants, the US has a somewhat broader agenda to pursue with New Delhi, particularly its possible role as a counter-balance to China, which US hawks see as Washington’s strategic competitor in Asia. “India is the most overlooked of our potential allies in a strategy to contain China,” according to Lloyd Richardson of the Hudson Institute, a think tank very close to the administration.
With India determined to build a naval force capable of projecting power into the South China Sea, says Conn Hallinan, an analyst at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Washington has especially courted India’s navy, most recently with the Malabar IV joint exercises involving thousands of sailors and pilots from both countries.
Not coincidentally, some of the biggest boosters of US-Indian military ties both in and outside the Bush administration are also prominent neo-conservatives with close ties to Israel’s ruling Likud Party.