US President George W. Bush (R) meets with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Oval Office in September 2008. The US Senate has agreed to vote Wednesday on a nuclear pact with India, the final legislative hurdle for a deal that would overturn a three-decade ban on civilian nuclear trade with New Delhi. (AFP/File/Tim Sloan)Yesterday, the U.S. Congress gave its final approval to the long-debated U.S.-India nuclear deal. Now that the deal also has the blessings of the IAEA and the Nuclear Supplier Group, implementation is all that remains.
Over the past two years or so, I have discussed the geo-strategic importance of this deal. In an odd twist, U.S. firms may get a slow start actually securing nuclear contract work in India, since U.S. firms have been absent from the Indian market for so long.
Final approval of the deal is noteworthy not because of the relatively small trade aspects of the deal but because of the significance of this agreement for future U.S.-Indian relations. Over the next decade or so, the U.S. and India will have to cooperate on managing the increasing chaotic situation in the Hindu Kush. And through the middle of the century, the U.S. and India will find themselves cooperating to contain China’s expanding power.
These are several of the vital tasks the two countries will find themselves facing in the period ahead (Iran may end up being another). The nuclear agreement is a sign that the U.S. and India can now work together for their mutual interests, after decades of suspicion and acrimony. A decade from now, historians will discuss why the U.S.-India nuclear deal was a landmark moment for the balance of power in Asia.