| Summary: | President Bill Clinton's March 2000 visit to India, intended to warm relations with between the two nations, has increased the pressure on the military government in Pakistan. Less than two years after India earned worldwide opprobrium by testing nuclear weapons, India has bleached, if not erased, two problematic stigmas: it's status as a rogue nuclear power and its image as a squabbling sibling of its troublesome neighbor, Pakistan. Clinton's visit demonstrated that neither of these issues would deter him from treating India as a rising geopolitical power and a potential economic one. The main result of the visit so far is an agreement on “institutional dialogue,” which is aimed in part at helping the new U.S.-Indian friendship outlast Clinton's term as president. However, the visit did not resolve disputes on trade, and India got little satisfaction on its request for additional work visas for computer programmers. The apparent accord between both countries on Kashmir—that Pakistan should make the first move toward dialogue—places pressure on Pakistan's military regime to reduce tensions with India.
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