How India
is Reacting to President Bush's 7-Point Nuclear Agenda
By
C. Raja Mohan
NEW
DELHI: The sweeping agenda unveiled by the US President, George
W. Bush, last week to bypass the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) cannot be seen in isolation. It is part of a controversial
revolution that the Bush administration has engineered in American
arms control policy over the last three years.
The
seven-point action plan, announced by the President, is aimed
at restructuring the global nuclear order. The attempt to create
new non-proliferation instruments is part of a mental make-up
in the Bush administration that was reflected in many of its earlier
actions.
These
include the rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
that seeks to put an end to all nuclear tests and the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia that limited the scope of defence
against nuclear-armed missiles.
The Bush ideologues never tried to
hide their contempt for traditional arms control. The Bush administration
believed that many of the old concepts developed during the Cold
War had outlived their utility and needed to be refashioned. Cold
War arms control had two major pillars — the ABM Treaty
and the NPT. The former codified the laws of nuclear deterrence
between Washington and Moscow. The latter created mechanisms to
prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states.
The
logic of Cold War deterrence insisted that only offensive nuclear
weapons could ensure peace between rival superpowers. Any defence,
it was assumed by the ABM Treaty, would undermine it.
Pointing out that there is no longer
an all-encompassing political rivalry between Washington and Moscow,
the Bush administration argued that the threats to American security
came from the danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands
of rouge states and terrorist groups.
To
defend against these challenges, it was said, the US needed to
develop defence against ballistic missiles. The ABM Treaty that
came in the way was torn up amid protests from home and abroad.
Unlike the ABM Treaty, the NPT was
not easy to discard. It is a multilateral treaty with near universal
membership barring India, Israel and Pakistan. Washington knows
that drafting another legal instrument or reforming the current
NPT through amendment was near impossible.
At the same time, the Bush administration
believes that the threats to American security cannot be met through
multilateral treaties alone. It insists there are states which
will always cheat on their treaty obligations. Washington posited
that it is not possible to verify compliance with the NPT obligations.
It
pointed to the fact that technology of weapons of mass destruction
will continue to spread. Finally, it concluded that developing
national military capabilities and coordinated action with the
allies outside the treaty framework is more important than the
NPT in dealing with the proliferation risks. These propositions
led the Bush administration away from the traditional non-proliferation
agenda of the Europeans and the American Democrats. At the top
of the old agenda is the demand is to universalize the NPT: Get
India, Pakistan and Israel to join.
The other ideas are enforcement of
the CTBT, negotiation of the Fissile Materials Cut-Off Treaty,
a virtual ban on the trade in nuclear reactors, and an end to
sovereign control of non-nuclear weapon states over critical elements
of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Leaders of the European Union have
repeatedly called on India to sign the NPT. Senator John Kerry,
front-runner of the Democratic nomination, has said much the same
recently.
Unlike the Europeans and the Democrats
in the US, Mr. Bush is committed to the commercial future of
nuclear energy. Instead of demanding the universalisation of an
ineffective NPT, Washington is looking for alternative structures
to deal with the challenge of non-proliferation.
The first of President Bush's seven-point
action plan expands on the so-called proliferation security initiative
(PSI). The PSI calls for pre-emptive military action by selected
states to disrupt the international traffic in sensitive nuclear
technologies and materials. Mr. Bush now wants coordinated law
enforcement by states against proliferation networks of the type
found in Pakistan.
Second,
call for a United Nations Security Council resolution that demands
nations to make proliferation activity a crime, tighten export
controls and secure all sensitive materials. Third, strengthen
the current efforts to secure nuclear weapons and materials in
the former Soviet Republics and extend the program to retrain
scientists working on weapons of mass destruction in countries
such as Libya and Iraq.
Fourth, call for a ban on the sale
of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies
to nations that do not at present have full-scale capabilities
in these areas. Fifth, the proposal to ban nuclear commerce with
those nations, which do not adopt tighter inspections under the
so-called Additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA). The fifth and sixth steps call for reforms in the
functioning of the IAEA.
Together, this package amounts to
the single biggest attempt to reorder the global nuclear system
since the NPT came into force in 1970. It will significantly expand
the current international law on non-proliferation. Parts of this
agenda are expected to move rapidly in the next few weeks at the
UNSC and the IAEA.
India,
as a self-proclaimed nuclear weapon power outside the NPT, has
a delicate diplomatic challenge in coping with the changing nuclear
order. While India has cautiously welcomed the Bush nuclear agenda,
concrete cooperation with the US awaits many clarifications from
Washington.
As
a new nuclear order begins to take shape in response to revelations
about Pakistan's proliferation activity, India is determined to
contribute. Exactly four decades ago this year, shocked by China's
first nuclear weapon test in October 1964, India initiated the
international debate on non-proliferation.
But
the outcome of that negotiation, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), did not address India's concerns and New Delhi has
remained an outsider. India was never impressed with the NPT.
But India is not gloating today over its demise for, it always
shared the objective of non-proliferation. And India's record
shows.
India
was informed of the broad thrust of the Bush initiative in advance
and its officials have pored over the seven-point agenda outlined
by Mr. Bush. On the face of it, India should have few difficulties
with the US formulations. But the devil is in the detail.
India's
positive response last week to the Bush initiative was presented
in general terms without going into the specifics. It highlighted
the inadequacy of the present regime, supported the principle
of effective non-proliferation and called for consultations on
the new Bush initiative.
The
first proposal from Mr. Bush relates to the expansion of the Proliferation
Security Initiative that was initiated last year and has steadily
gained international support. The PSI calls for interdiction of
international traffic in sensitive nuclear materials through cooperative
action by the naval and air forces of friendly nations.
Mr.
Bush wants to extend the lessons from the war on terrorism by
drawing in law enforcement agencies to crack down on networks
of nuclear smuggling of the type developed by Dr. AQ Khan in Pakistan.
Until
now, India has neither criticized nor endorsed the PSI. As the
victim of clandestine nuclear flows between Pakistan and North
Korea, India understands the importance of addressing the challenge
of international traffic in sensitive materials.
New
Delhi, like Beijing which has now agreed to discuss the PSI with
the US, wants clarity on the procedures to be adopted and the
decision-making in the PSI coalition on whom and when to interdict.
The
US is aware of the vital role that the Indian Navy could play
in monitoring and interdicting international commercial traffic
in the Indian Ocean region. But questions remain to be addressed
on the terms and conditions under which India could become a part
of the PSI, either formally or informally. India is unlikely to
object to the second Bush proposal calling for a United Nations
Security Council Resolution criminalizing proliferation and strengthening
export controls and tightening security over sensitive materials.
With
full governmental control over all nuclear-related activity, New
Delhi has a record much better than that of many nations in Europe
in preventing proliferation. Dr. Khan could not have acquired
nuclear weapons for Pakistan and spread the technology around
without active cooperation from many companies in Europe.
Third,
on dismantling weapons programs in problem countries and retraining
personnel there to civilian research, India with its experience
and technological capability could play a useful role.
The
fourth proposal relates to a ban on selling "enrichment and
reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does
not already possess full-scale functioning enrichment and reprocessing
plants."
India
will not be affected by this ban since it already has a fully
developed nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment and reprocessing.
More important, operational support from India, which is a potential
exporter of these technologies, is critical in making the ban
stick.
The
fifth proposal from Mr. Bush is trickier. He demands that "only
states that have signed the Additional Protocol be allowed to
import equipment for their civilian nuclear programs"
The
Additional Protocol designed by the International Atomic Energy
Agency applies tighter safeguards on the national nuclear programs
At the first cut, this could be seen as affecting India's search
for international cooperation in producing nuclear electricity.
But
there may be options for India to address the issue as a nuclear
weapon state and bring its many non-military nuclear facilities
under international inspection.
The
Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had made such an offer in
his address to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Trombay at
the end of 2002.
India
could easily work with the US on the last two proposals on reforming
the IAEA. India has a permanent seat on the Board of Governors
of the IAEA.
In
responding positively to the Bush initiative, New Delhi has signaled
its intent to be a partner in developing more nuclear rules. It
is up to Washington to differentiate between the non-proliferation
policies of India and Pakistan and acknowledge New Delhi's role
as an equal partner in shaping the new nuclear order.
While
there is new common ground with the US, India cannot articulate
its nuclear policy merely as a response to American initiatives.
India needs to develop a comprehensive approach, on its own, to
the new challenges from the spread of nuclear weapons and call
for a global debate. - The Hindu
