A world away from its self-declared international war on terror, Washington has spied greater and more potent threats on the horizon. India’s nuclear programme - built in isolation, from scratch, after American-imposed sanctions in the 70s - is such a threat.

Not only has a poverty-stricken country, without outside help, built a nuclear industry, but its scientific community has also mastered the technically difficult reprocessing cycle and achieved a series of unique breakthroughs in nuclear technology. India might one day be “free’’ to assemble as large an atomic arsenal as possible and, even more problematic for US, end up with a monopoly on an energy source of the future.

By comparison America has not built a nuclear reactor for three decades. Conscious of being dependent on oil in a time of rising prices, Bush decided to reactivate the country’s nuclear programme and capture the benefits of the labour of others. It is this that informs American thin-king on how to deal with risks to its dominance, not some fuzzy talk of a special relationship with India built on shared values.

Yet US propaganda continues. Condoleezza Rice neatly encapsulated the Bush policy as a”balance of power that favours freedom’’. Casting India as a friend and Iran as a foe can also be conveniently justified on such terms. However, American bullying of smaller states undermines this moral consensus around democracy and freedom. India’s size, geography and economic clout mean it is less susceptible to the kind of tactics used to intimidate Tehran.

But India’s energy policy has already come under serious pressure from America; the last petroleum minister had ambitious plans to build an Asian grid of oil and gas pipelines. This plan, to be kickstarted by a pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan, ran counter to Washington’s interests. Last mo-nth he lost the oil portfolio.

America is determined to ensure that the rise of India, and its larger neighbour China, will not mean the decline of the US. Washington may be prepared to concede that there might be bigger economies in the world, but aims to remain pre-eminent in industrial power.

To do so Washington is willing to restrict access to capital markets and technology, promoting its national interest under the guise of a moral foreign policy. The blocking of a Chinese oil company’s bid for a US rival last year is just one example of this new policy, and Indian potential could be restrained by similar means. As Bush’s own nuclear negotiating team has made clear in testimony to Congress, the administration wants to “lock in’’ India to a deal before moving to tie down and restrain the country’s nuclear potential in non-proliferation talks.

The dressing up of hard-nosed realism as high-minded altruism lies at the heart of Bush’s nuclear diplomacy in the subcontinent. How history unfolds is often decided long in advance. Leadership matters, but if an opponent has been weakened by policy, intrigue and opportunism, victory becomes easier.

Unlike the cold war, where America shut out its rivals from the world market and refused to trade with them, its policy in the coming decades is to entangle rising powers in a web of rules designed to favour itself. As India may find to its cost, getting into a hot embrace with Washington is easy; getting out may be much harder. — The Guardian