The Hindu Business Line : Americans’ interest in nuke deal

Why is the US, at all levels of Government, showing such inordinate interest, and exercising such intense pressure on India in respect of the nuclear deal? The mandarins of the US State Department lose no opportunity to coax and nudge the Indian Government to get cracking on all the follow-up action. The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s statement that the dropping of the deal was not the end of life immediately prompts the US President, Mr George Bush, himself to make a phone call, from which Dr Singh seems to have got second wind, strong enough to get the deal back on the rails with renewed drive and determination.

It is a long-recognised trait of the Americans to approach happenings in their life, asking, “What’s in it for me?” So, it is reasonable to assume that there must be something compellingly attractive in the nuclear deal as to make them persist so tirelessly to keep India’s spirits from sagging. What is there in it for them? The most plausible explanation has to do with the vice-like grip the business lobby has on the US Administration. Nuclear cooperation is just another name for the killing to be made in the sale of reactors and the execution of turn-key projects. Recently, the Westinghouse/Shaw consortium bagged orders to build four nuclear reactors of 1000MWs each in China for an estimated $8 billion, said to be the largest nuclear contract in history.

Benefits to the US

Applying this yardstick to India’s plans of installing 40,000 MWs of nuclear power in the next 20-30 years, it is clear that the nuclear deal will mean a business of $80 billion for the lucky ones who win the contract. Allowing for the price escalation in later years, the figure may even exceed $100 billion, enough to inject adrenalin into the economy of the countries in which the supplier firms are located.

Remember, this does not take account of the requirements of components and spares, financing of service and maintenance and royalties on technologies — all of which may assure a steady flow of $10-20 billion more for the supplier firms during the life-time of the reactors. Certainly not a prospect to be sneezed at. As regards the intangible benefits to the US, an article “America’s Strategic Opportunity with India” by Mr R. Nicholas Burns, US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the point man for all that concerns the nuclear deal, published in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs, gives an authentic exposition.

First and foremost, the deal is calculated to serve the national security interests of the US by bringing India into the international nuclear non-proliferation mainstream; second, it “will not assist the country’s nuclear weapons program in any way”; third, it gives the US control over the newly-to-be-built facility to reprocess spent fuel as it can operate only as per the specific arrangements and procedures laid down by the US; fourth, “should India decide to conduct a nuclear test in the future, then the US would have the right under US law to seek the return of all nuclear fuel and technology shipped by US firms”; and, finally, “an increasingly powerful India represents a singularly positive opportunity to advance (the US) global interests”.

Why would the US not pitch for it?

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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