Atmospherics, substance, and US strategic partnerships

AMERICA'S global dominance is built on the support of partners who are supposed to adhere to the great power's foreign policy. But at times the allies refuse to oblige, sparking a struggle between the larger US hegemon and the smaller partner.

The United States successfully turned a declining Britain into a junior partner in the mid-1900s, and currently an economically resurgent India is becoming a US partner without the junior-partner tag.

Unlike the US-British partnership of World War II - when London had no choice but to become junior partner owing to Britain's rapid economic decline following the war and the corresponding rise of the US to global pre-eminence - India now has greater diplomatic voice as its fast-paced economic growth is helping it avoid the tag of junior partner to the US.