The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear issues — Face-off with Obama Administration

India needs to sensitise world opinion to the fact that countries possessing nuclear weapons have an obligation to commence negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.

India’s Special Envoy for Nuclear Issues, Mr Shyam Saran… Making it clear where India stands on issues that could become sources of friction with the Obama Administration.

G. Parthasarathy

For over three decades two Washington-based institutions — the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution — have spearheaded an international campaign to compel India to “cap, roll back and eliminate” its nuclear weapons programme.

It is symbolic of how the times have changed following the nuclear tests of May 1998 that the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Nuclear Issues and Climate Change, Mr Shyam Saran, visited Washington to proactively spell out where India stood on issues many have feared could become sources of friction with the Obama Administration. More importantly, Mr Saran spelt out India’s position publicly on March 23 at the Brookings Institution.

Mr Saran did not fight shy of addressing such issues as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) at the Brookings Institution. He made it clear that while India remained committed to its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, there were serious reservations about the CTBT, because the Treaty was not “explicitly linked to nuclear disarmament” and the manner in which it was accepted was obviously meant to circumscribe Indian nuclear options.

Moreover he added that while “we cannot be part of a discriminatory regime where only certain states are allowed to possess reprocessing or enrichment facilities”, we would be willing to work with the US to curb nuclear proliferation. Welcoming President Obama’s plan to expand the “Proliferation Security Initiative” (PSI) from merely stopping illicit nuclear shipments to eliminating the remnants of organisations such as that led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Mr Saran signalled Indian flexibility in looking afresh at the PSI.

Universally applicable

Another crucial issue which the Special Envoy alluded to was India’s readiness to accede to a FMCT provided that it was “multilateral, universally applicable and effectively verifiable”. India has to insist on the treaty being non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable, given China’s readiness to transfer fissile material and nuclear weapons know-how to Pakistan.

But the US is going to find that despite President Obama’s stated intention “to make the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons a central element of US nuclear policies”, the American establishment is going to have serious reservations about making any commitment to eliminate their nuclear weapons within a reasonable time-frame.

All that the Americans appear ready to do at present is to seek agreement with Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenal to around 1,000 strategic warheads. The Americans and Russians today possess over 20,000 nuclear warheads. Moreover, there seems to be recognition amongst scholars in the US that moves towards nuclear disarmament can succeed only if concerns of all “nuclear armed states,” including India, Pakistan and Israel, are addressed, while acknowledging that Indian concerns about China’s nuclear weapons cannot be brushed aside.

China equation

While there are different estimates of the size of the nuclear arsenals of countries it is generally accepted that, in comparison to the massive arsenals of the US and Russia, other nuclear armed states have far fewer weapons.

China is estimated to have between 160 and 400 warheads, Israel is reported to possess around 100-200 warheads. The UK has around 160 deployed warheads, France approximately 350 strategic warheads and India and Pakistan an estimated 100 and 60 warheads respectively.

There are immense practical difficulties on how China will look at the entire question of the current asymmetry between the size of its arsenal and those of Russia and the US — both countries with which it has had adversarial relations.

Equally, the triangular China-India-Pakistan nuclear equation cannot be easily addressed, given China’s refusal to acknowledge India as a legitimate nuclear-armed State and its longstanding nuclear co-operation with Pakistan. Such complications will be used by opponents of nuclear disarmament to stall moves towards a nuclear weapons-free world.

Mr Saran spoke of India’s readiness to work with the US to set up a working group for nuclear disarmament in the UN Commission on Disarmament. But what he did not mention is the recent propensity on the part of the US, France, the UK and of the NATO Alliance to threaten the use of nuclear weapons against those they choose to characterise as “rogue-states”.

Even the Russians do not subscribe to a doctrine of ‘no first use’ and never using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Chinese claims of adhering to a doctrine of ‘no first use’ are suspect, given its deployment of scores of missiles targeting India.

India needs to sensitise world opinion to the fact that refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons runs contrary to the historic World Court Ruling of July 8, 1996, which held that countries possessing nuclear weapons have not just a need but an obligation to commence negotiations, leading to nuclear disarmament and that the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons was generally contrary to the principles of international law.

In fact, the least the nuclear weapons powers could do is to de-alert their nuclear missiles and separate their missiles from the warheads.

NPT Review

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) of 1968 was premised on its “three pillars” of non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the right of access of nuclear technology to its signatories. While the five “nuclear weapons powers” amassed nuclear weapons and refused to abide by any commitment not to use these weapons against those who foreswore their acquisition, they also refused to move towards nuclear disarmament and placed highly selective restrictions on others seeking to acquire nuclear technology.

The net result was that the fifth review conference of the NPT in 2005 ended in a fiasco, with divisions between those who possessed nuclear weapons unwilling to make any commitments on nuclear disarmament and others refusing to go along with the violation of two of the “three pillars” of the treaty.

The US and its partners recognise that the forthcoming NPT review conference in 2010 will end in a similar fiasco, unless they can claim movement forward toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

Hence, the feverish moves to show progress towards disarmament, by agreeing to discus cuts in nuclear stockpiles with Russia. India has to emphasise that arms reductions by themselves do not constitute a credible move towards disarmament, unless accompanied by guarantees of no first use and de-alerting of nuclear delivery systems and the separation of warheads from missiles.

India has conveyed that, with estimated investments of $150 billion in nuclear power, it stands by its letter of intent for acquisition of 10,000 MW of nuclear power reactors from the US, provided the US fulfils its side of the bargain, recognising India as a “responsible state with advanced nuclear technology,” by upfront approval of reprocessing of spent fuel for reactors it supplies.

With Mr Saran noting that while India was scheduled to purchase around $120 billion of Defence equipment, with the US entering the arms market in a significant manner once concerns about “reliability” of supplies were addressed, and with growing convergence on issues ranging from the proliferation security initiative to the FMCT, sufficient groundwork seems to have been done to move matters forward in the India-US relationship after the general elections.

Another important area of dialogue would be prevention of military conflict in space and negotiations on an agreement to prohibit the testing of anti-satellite weapons. Much will depend on the political dispensation that emerges in New Delhi after the elections.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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