WASHINGTON: The United States is seeking a decisively broad strategic relationship with India, including in the military field, "to help India become a major world power".
Senior administration officials told select journalists in a background briefing here that the Bush administration had concluded that the future of South Asia is "simply vital to the future of the US" and that countries like India, Pakistan and Afghanistan will play a pivotal role in Washington's strategic perspective.
They said President George W. Bush is inviting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Washington in July while he himself would visit India later this year or early next year.
The officials said the strategic dialogue with India would be on levels "you would discuss with a world power" and would include regional security issues and "things like the tsunami situation or Nepal".
India's defence requirements, high-tech cooperation, expanding the current High technology Cooperation Group and manufacturing licences and even working towards US-India defence co-production would be part of the dialogue.
The officials said the US will "respond positively" to the Indian request for information on next generation multi-role combat aircraft and will work with American companies that seek to sell this to India.
"That's not just F-16s. It could be F-18s. But beyond that, the US is ready to discuss even more fundamental issues of defence transformation with India, including transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early warning and missile defense.
"Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I think for those of you who follow defence issues you'll appreciate the significance," one official said.
The officials said the administration had made a judgement that the ongoing dialogue on Next Steps in Strategic Partnership with India with its focus on cooperation in civilian space and nuclear technology, high technology trade and missile defence, "wasn't broad enough to really encompbutt the kind of things we needed to do to take this relationship where it needed to go".
It was in that context the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice developed the outline for a "decisively broader strategic relationship", they said.
They said Rice, during her visit to India earlier this month, had presented that outline to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century. We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement.
This includes political moves like the president's invitation to the Indian prime minister to visit Washington in July and his own visit to India and other South Asian countries to enhance and consolidate a strategic dialogue, energy dialogue and economic dialogue.
They said the strategic dialogue would include global issues, "the kinds of issues you would discuss with a world power", like preventing proliferation of weapons of mbutt destruction.
The energy dialogue would include conventional and nuclear power and nuclear safety issues and a working group on space, they said and added: "India is very much a player in the issue of space launch vehicles, satellites and so on."
The officials said though the US and India have an economic dialogue, "it needs to get a little more juice."
So the economic dialogue is going to be revitalised with the discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance, they said and added that the president's chief economic adviser Al Hubbard, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta would all be visiting India this year.
