The Commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral William J. Fallon, was in India last week as part of the increasing military-to-military co-operation between the two countries.
During his four day visit, his first to India, Fallon, accompanied by senior US Navy officials, met Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and senior defence officials including the Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs in Delhi, and visited the headquarters of the Western Naval Command in Mumbai.
"Since my command, the Pacific Command, has the responsibility for my people throughout this area, we are taking initiatives to meet with your government leaders to see what areas we could agree to cooperate, to move us forward and we think there's vast potential and that's what we came here to discuss," Fallon, a Vietnam veteran who took over as commander of the Pacific Command some six weeks ago, told journalists in Mumbai.
"We don't have any agreement here except the agreement to have a dialogue to explore ways in which we can have better relationship between our countries, particularly between our military," he said.
Asked about the role of US Navy post 9/11, he said, 'The terrorist groups are very diverse. Different ideologies, different objectives, but their methodologies are the same. They seem to believe in only one thing, and that's to strike fear in the hearts of people, and destabilize the conditions in various countries around the world, the only objective seems to be injuring and killing people. That's not helpful to anyone."
"So as I look at the potential for cooperation with various nations across the Pacific to fight terror, this strikes me as an wonderful opportunity, particularly in the relationship between India and the US," he said.
"We have so much in common. Huge numbers of people, very strong democracies, lots of common interests. Many people from your country who are in my country all the time. Many going to schools, particularly graduate schools. Indian communities all over the country. Lots of interaction back and forth.
"Fundamentally, we are interested in the same things," he said. "We want to see our people advance economically, we want stability, we want growth. We have a huge economic spurt that's ongoing here in your country, your growth is pretty phenomenal. There are potentials for markets and inter-operability with many nations. There's many, many areas and opportunities which could be advantageous to both of us.
"The old days of the Cold War are gone, that's over. Earlier, there were some feelings of a parallel path,
Asked how the US Navy could help economic development of the region, he said: "First of all, I am in a Navy uniform, but I represent the joint command of all the services in the US. But I believe that there is a very specific linkage between security and stability and the economic development of people.
"If you are in a situation where there are no democratic processes, where people are afraid, where there are no institutions that operate by rules of law, where people make decisions based on preference, then this is obviously is not very helpful to people who want to improve themselves.
"I believe we have a lot of tools that can help bring stability. The first thing is that we get to learn about people by meeting them, by engaging with them. And that was the one thing that was missing, much to my regret, for much of the Cold War. For the past decades, we didn't have extensive interactions between our peoples or at the military level.
"It has been my experience that when you don't have first hand knowledge, when you don't have people to people relationships, that one is left to wonder about the intentions, the motivations of the other side. The more we get to see one another, the more we get to interact, the less those uncertainties tend to be in the fore.
"In the wake of the tsunami in recent months we found ourselves working side by side to great degree to help the people suffering and in need, and I was just amazed that the degree of cooperation India provided extensive help to people, and our country did as well," he said.
During his visit, India and US signed an MoU on cooperation in military medicine, in areas like management of emerging infectious diseases, clinical trials, biological warfare and preparedness of military medical personnel in the art of casualty and disaster management
Hailing India for its offer to patrol key gateways in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the aftermath of 9/11, he said: "at the end of the day, what we are trying to do is to establish a system of trust, where we truly believe we are interested in moving forward in key areas.
"Are we going to agree on everything? Never. But certainly we can have a foundation to move forward, and that's what this is about."
