The tragedy of 9/11 presents America with another historic opportunity to underwrite peace and stability in South Asia by acknowledging the region’s geopolitical realities. Waiting for America: India and the US in the New Millennium describes how America missed several such opportunities in 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru’s envoys sought a military relationship. America is a cause as well as a country. Yet, Pax Americana flaunted the standard of democracy to prop up some of Asia’s worst despots because they spouted anti-Communist rhetoric. Neutral India, the only democracy between Israel and Japan, received scant attention. The end of the Cold War finds America prepared at last to heed Sir Olaf Caroe, steward of the British Raj and author of America’s middle east strategy, who warned that "it is impossible to see Gulf problems in correct perspective unless the view includes an India which, despite partition, still stands at the centre of the ocean that bears its name. Prospects of understanding improved further when financial desperation forced India’s leaders dramatically to change tack. Architect of change, P.V. Narasimha Rao knew that only the Lone Superpower can invest in India’s economic revolution and safeguard its parliamentary system from terrorist attack. His successors must profit from China’s example to overcome psychological and political complexes at a time when the US needs India as much as India needs the US to fight the axis of evil on India’s own borders.
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