Maritime cooperation between the United States and India is the key to bridging differences over the Proliferation Security Initiative.
Maritime counterproliferation remains a hub of the Bush administration's foreign policy. The U.S.-Indian nuclear agreement President George W. Bush signed last December makes it official U.S. policy to win "India's full participation in the Proliferation security Initiative," or PSI.' Washington has attempted to woo New Delhi into this U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" against the transport of nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry and ballistic missiles for some time now-without result. Negotiations will likely continue, but for an assortment of reasons-legal qualms about the initiative, mercurial public opinion, ingrained suspicions toward international nonproliferation arrangements, desire for mastery of the Indian Ocean-success is far from certain.
