With Blair Gone, Japan, India Future U.S. Allies

Courage and tragedy are perfectly compatible. Tony Blair proved this last September when giving his final address before the Labour Party. As always, he stressed the need to be America's greatest ally, an issue that has nearly sunk his career. One wonders why Blair went out on a limb for Bush. After all, Eisenhower didn't back Britain's invasion of the Suez. Harold Wilson didn't send troops to Vietnam. In the same vein, Blair could have just put some commandos in Kabul after September 11 and revved up for the ban on fox-hunting at home.

Yet Blair was first and foremost a liberal. He saw alliance with America as the only hope for Middle Eastern democracy, and he saw Middle Eastern democracy as the only hope for defeating extremism. In a sense, it's an outgrowth of his Third Way progressivism.

Blair, then, was the best of partners because he didn't just share a threat with the U.S. He actually advanced his own vision. More precisely, he personified the two qualities that the U.S. needs from its future allies: a willingness to promote the spread of liberal institutions, and a willingness to maintain sizeable defense expenditures.

Japan and India are the prime candidates for development as future allies. While guided currently by short-term interests, they could, down the road, emerge as democratic powers, not just powers that happen to be democracies.

Japan has long been cultivating an international role for itself, despite its pacifist constitution. It first sent peacekeepers to Namibia in 1989 and now deploys larger contingents in places like Iraq. It also provided the U.S. with logistical support during 2001's Afghan War.

Still, a dramatic change can only occur if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is able to eliminate Article 9 and build up the country's forces. Some consider this goal flagrantly nationalistic, but that misses the point. Abe sees Japan as one of the world's great democracies, not a latter-day empire.

A fanged Japan wouldn't just work with the U.S. to contain North Korea. It would support a Blairist notion of progress. Its involvement in East Timor and Iraq, for instance, signals a commitment to failing states. Even its foreign aid program, Dan Blumenthal and Gray Schmitt point out in The Weekly Standard, will soon hinge on the democratic reforms of recipient nations.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has been relatively successful with India, even as its nuclear energy deal is now up in the air. The two signed an agreement last year pledging to intensify their exchange of weapons and technology. And just in the past few weeks, the U.S. and Indian navies conducted a major exercise off Goa.

This is strengthened by counter-terrorism. India has linked many attacks on its soil to sponsors in Pakistan, including the July 11 Mumbai bombings. From this, it is aware that dictatorships are unreliable with terrorists and that fellow democracies make the best partners. Britain wisely invited India into its financial task force.

But India also has longer-term goals in mind. It is a world leader in peacekeeping operations and continues to receive U.S. funds. More importantly, Prime Minister Manhoman Singh grasps that its development is tied to global markets. He in fact engineered the reforms in the 1990s that jumpstarted the economy. Within 15 years, one can see India as a promoter of this same liberalism abroad.

Singh and Abe are actually starting to get to know each other. Singh will visit Tokyo later this year to discuss trade and security-related issues. At the same time, Abe is said to be a great admirer of India.

But while the U.S. should facilitate these relations, its end objective must be broader: a new Big Three that works for political and economic openness throughout the Indian Ocean basin. This would translate into counter-terror, counter-proliferation, peacekeeping, and state-building initiatives.

And what of Britain, NATO, and the EU? The U.S. should of course remain allied with them, though one wonders if the end of Tony Blair's term marks the end of an era.

It doesn't seem that Western European leaders share his cosmopolitan sense of progress. Indeed, politicos like Chirac have tried to keep in touch with an increasingly isolationist street. Perhaps this explains opposition to U.S. imperialism, prevention of Turkish entry into the EU, and fear of the Polish plumber.

The picture looks just as bleak in Britain. Labour heir-apparent Gordon Brown isn't a natural Atlanticist, while David Cameron, the new Tory leader, used the anniversary of 9/11 to call Bush's policies "unrealistic and simplistic," a cynical ploy to tap into public opinion.

Blair, on the other hand, opted to follow Benjamin Disraeli's adage, that "to be a hero, one must believe in the heroic." Unfortunately, his heroism isn't ending all too happily. But at least the U.S. now knows what it will take to forge a new alliance of democracies. The world could be a better place for it.