Analyzing Contemporary US-India Relations Through a Mental Model Approach.

Why have the United States and India only recently come to regard each other as close allies when strong common interests between them were apparent for decades? We argue that a shift in policy may not reflect a change in preferences or interests per se as it does a changed understanding of how the world works which removes constraints on decision makers' options. When India became independent from Britain in 1947 close relations with the US seemed a logical course to follow for at least two reasons. First it was logical to expect the US to sympathize with India's struggle for independence given the two peoples' similar experiences with British colonial rule. Second, India like the US, embraced democratic governance and a pluralist political system. Despite these commonalities, US-Indian relations were a casualty of policymakers in both countries following an oversimplified model of the world. The US containment strategy was based on a very narrow Realist interpretaion of how the world was structured. The dominant US mental model was bipolarity which interpreted the world and international power structures in terms of their impact on American security imperatives based on Realism. India's mental model of non-alignment was based on dependencia and anti-colonialism. The convergence of the two countries' policy orientations toward cooperation reflects a shift from realism and balance-of-power vs. Dependencia to Neoliberalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]