Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read
Review: An interesting book on India-Pakistan nuclear ambitions and the testing they undertook some years back. Subsequent events such as Kargil war have shown how dangerous these weapons are in hands of emotional and fragile south asian leaders. The fact that it took Clinton's personal attention to avoid a potential nuclear conflict is an eye opener. Both India and Pakistan should focus on their economies and improve the life of their people, instead of using nuclear weapons to do jingositic posturing and to win elections. Pakistan's subsequent establishment of a nuclear shopping mall, in which various countries shopped for nuclear technology shows how dangerous the nuclear game is. This book also shows how Kashmir has been used as a convenient "football", by both India and Pakistan over the years.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, fast read and an eye opener
Review: Anyone who has any doubts about Pakistan's involvement in world wide terrorism should read this book. This is not some curious author discovering the facts. This is a powerful ex-official in Clinton administration who has seen it all and describes how Pakistan is responsible for helping terrorists.

Also it throws light at the behind doors world of diplomacy and how it is played out between India and US.

I recommend this book to anyone interested on the subjects of Terrorism, US-India relations, Pakistan, Non-Proliferation and Nuclear bombs.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing, relatively speaking that is
Review: Clearly Mr. Talbott has a favorable opinion of India and that alone is, I suspect, music to many an Indian's ears. Having said that, this book made me realize how little, in terms of appreciation for India and its core values, I have come to expect out of American leaders and diplomats past and present alike. While Mr.Talbott faithfully presents all the Indian arguments against the NPT, he fails to acknowledge, in spite of his relative security in retirement from public office, that those arguments make sense to ANY fair and balanced person, not necessarily Indian. Mr. Talbott, rather conveniently, switches to his I-was-just-a-state-department-peon hat to steer clear of commentary about the discriminatory and seriously flawed NPT. In the absence of that basic acknowledgement, I am unable to take to heart any of his criticisms, however justified, about India's social structure and body politic.

Mr.Talbott would have us believe that the "hyphenation" of India and Pakistan, that Jaswant Singh takes exception to, is a justifiable association rooted in common sense, while in fact, it is actually a result of a deliberate and successful cold war effort on the US State Department's part to equate the two countries.

Does Mr Talbott expect us to believe that only the purest and most innocent of assessments led to the prevalent notion in much of the western media that India and Pakistan are somehow "rivals", when in fact India is 7 times as populous as Pakistan, has an economy almost 10 times that of Pakistan, and has a system of governance that couldn't contrast any more sharply against Pakistan's?

In fact, so wildly successful has this disinformation campaign been, that any Indian suggestion to the contrary is dismissed as yet another indication of the free flowing cross-border vitriol.

To Mr. Talbott's credit he has made an honest and refreshing attempt to put into perspective the relative importance of India and Pakistan to the global world order. But I am afraid it's not enough. Not enough for the average American who needs a nuanced worldview more and more, and not enough for the average Indian who needs certificates from America less and less.


Rating:
Summary: A true story with a positive message
Review: Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, And The Bomb by Strobe Talbott (President of the Brookings Institute and the American Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001) is the fascinating true story of diplomatic relations between United States, India, and Pakistan in 1998 and 1999 - a time marked by India's underground testing of nuclear weapons. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh met fourteen times, striving with urgent issues of arms control and nonproliferation as well as visions for a U.S.-India relationship and the possibility of both economic and strategic cooperation between both nations. Even though India and Pakistan disputed the territory of Kashmir in the summer of 199, the conflict did not escalate to war or nuclear conflagration - perhaps due at least in part to the mediating influence of the U.S. A true story with a positive message, Engaging India is a raply engrossing work and a welcome addition to modern world history shelves.


Rating:
Summary: You Finally Get the Story When the Books Come Out
Review: Strobe Talbott was Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton administration. May 11, 1998 started off like any other, the usual meetings, then CNN announced that India had set off a nuclear device. In that instant India moved many steps up the priority level.

Over the next couple of years Mr. Talbott and Jaswant Singh the Indian Minister of External Affairs met fourteen times in seven countries. These meetings discussed not only the nuclear issue but the wider visions of the U.S. - Indian relationship. This ultimately lead the groundwork for Bill Clinton's trip to India in March of 2000.

This is a classic example of why you have to wait for the books to come out before you have any idea of what's really going on. The daily newscasts, even the weekly talking heads and news magazines do not cover the depth and analysis that the actual participants can give to a story after they have had a year or two to think about what happened.

In this case the story is about a historical moment little known to the general public. Yet it is a moment that could have flared into something much more serious. Just two weeks after the Indian test Pakistan responded with its own test. And the countries were in the midst of a border dispute over Kashmir.

Rating:
Summary: A fair & honest insight about India as a responsible nation.
Review: The best diplomatic memoir in recent times. Mr Talbott's has given a honest opinion about the Indian political system. This book is beyond the Talbott-Singh dialogue but also about India as a mature nuclear power nation with its leaders having a modern and modest outlook about the world. This includes Indian Politicians belonging to both ruling as well as opposition parties.

There are also ominous references to Pakistan being a dangerous place for westerners, whether they are Politicians, diplomats or journalist. This book confirms the fear that "South Asia, in particular Pakistan is the most dangerous place on Earth"