Deputy Secretary Burns On U.S. - India Partnership

A vendor exchanges money with a customer at a shop selling garlic, onions and potatoes at a wholesale market in Mumbai. India’s recent economic rise has expanded its role and deepened its stake in shaping the international system.

Our individual success at home and abroad depends significantly on our cooperation,”
“The essence of the [U.S.-Indian] partnership . . . lies in a simple truth - our individual success at home and abroad depends significantly on our cooperation,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said in Washington, DC; after his recent visit to New Delhi.

“Progress between us won’t always be measured in dramatic breakthroughs . . . [or] special alchemy that magically transforms strategic convergence and powerful aspirations into meaningful cooperation. The real measure of progress in our increasingly vital partnership will instead be steady focus, persistence, hard work, systematic habits of collaboration, and methodically widening the arc of common interests and complementary actions.”

India’s recent economic rise has expanded its role and deepened its stake in shaping the international system. The three important areas of cooperation in the U.S.-Indian partnership are strengthening strategic cooperation, building shared prosperity, and deepening people to people ties.

“As the world’s economic and strategic center of gravity shifts east, the United States is not the only nation emphasizing its role as a resident diplomatic, economic and military power in the Asia-Pacific.”
Secretary Burns said.

“India and the United States have a powerful and shared interest in an Asia-Pacific where economic interdependence drives growth and shared prosperity . . . where disputes are resolved peacefully . . . where rules are respected and patterns of political and economic behavior favor openness.”

Since the 2005 signing of the Defense Framework Agreement, the security partnership in joint exercises and defense trade has bloomed. “Our military services conduct some of their largest joint exercises with India, including over fifty formal engagements in the past year,” Deputy Secretary Burns said.

“There has never been a moment when partnership between [the United States and India] mattered more to the rest of the globe,” Deputy Secretary Burns said in conclusion.

“As two of the world’s leading-democracies and most influential powers, we can help build a new international order -- in which other democracies can flourish, human dignity is advanced, poverty is reduced, trade is expanded, our environment is preserved, violent extremism is marginalized, the spread of weapons of mass destruction is curbed, and new frontiers in science and technology are explored. That is the moment, and the promise, which lies before us.”