On 4 May 2004, the IISS hosted a Special Round Table Discussion with Dr Ashley J. Tellis, IISS Consulting Senior Fellow and Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC.
Dr Tellis is a leading policy researcher in international security and defence studies. He served in the US State Department as senior advisor to the Ambassador at the Embassy of the United States in India and then briefly on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to the president and senior director, strategic planning and Southwest Asia. Prior to his government service, he was a senior policy analyst at RAND and professor of policy analysis at the RAND Graduate School.
Dr Tellis' research interests focus on international relations theory, military strategy and proliferation issues, South Asian politics, and U.S.-Asian security relations. His academic publications include ‘India's Emerging Nuclear Posture’ (RAND, 2001), and ‘Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future’ (with Michael Swaine, RAND, 2000). He has published widely in the journal of Strategic Studies, Asian Survey, Orbis, Comparative Strategy, Naval War College Review, and Security Studies.
Dr. Tellis’ presentation on ‘US-India Relations: Is the Honeymoon Over’ described the changes that have taken place in US policy towards India since the late 1990s. The Bush administration has taken the view that 'India matters' and has aimed to bring the two countries together on key policy issues. There has been a general agreement that India should be included in the administration’s new strategic framework. At the same time the Bush administration has developed closer relations with Islamabad in order to gain Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terrorism. In his presentation Dr Tellis argued that relations between the US and India are currently in a state of transformation, and the earlier honeymoon seems to be over.
Even though the US continues to recognise the importance of maintaining its close relationship with Delhi, its focus has clearly shifted away from India towards building relations with Pakistan and also managing the situation in Iraq. The new US relationship with Pakistan has both a public and a private dimension, which Delhi has difficulties understanding. Military ties between the US and India are largely self-sustaining, with scientific and intelligence cooperation continuing to be fruitful. However, the same is not true for economic cooperation as cooperation in the fields of law enforcement and public diplomacy. Dr Tellis suggested that there is a need to find issues of convergence and repair emerging cracks in relations between Washington and Delhi.
