The nuclear reality

The nuclear issue is back to dog the United Progressive Alliance government. The 21st plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), convening at Noordwijk, the Netherlands on June 23-24, undercut Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurances that the India-US nuclear deal would give India unrestricted access to technology,

fuel and equipment. It was also to facilitate high technology transfers, stymied since the nuclear tests of 1974 and 1998. The NSG’s public statement mentions discussion of “relations with India”, acknowledging that Indian membership is under consideration. It also blandly announced a decision to “strengthen its guidelines on transfer of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technologies”. The US has commented that this is not at variance with India’s clean waiver obtained from NSG in 2010, nor with the full civil nuclear cooperation that the US committed itself to. The context belies this.
Preceding the plenary there were a flurry of articles by US think tank analysts on what conditions to impose on India for its membership of the NSG: All new facilities, other than existing military ones, should be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, thus precluding the expansion or upgrading of the military programme; Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to be signed as a condition precedent, with its automatic ratification when all P5 (Permanent Five) ratify; a moratorium on testing to continue, as well as full cooperation to finalise the treaty on fissile material cut-off. The US paper circulated at the plenary talks of a criteria- based approach to assess prospective members.
US President Barack Obama’s statement in India in November 2010 that India-US relations will be a “defining partnership” of the 21st century is getting a reality check.
China’s tacit acceptance of the Indian deal was followed by their assertion that the sale of two more reactors for the Chashma complex in Pakistan pre-dated their NSG membership, which is contradicted by the Chinese declaration at the time of admission. The US, dependent on Pakistan for the war in Afghanistan and on China for the post financial crisis economic recovery, could only blink in response.
Furthermore Pakistan has ramped up its production of plutonium and tested short-range missiles seen as potential tactical nuclear weapons to negate India’s alleged Cold Start strategy. Osama bin Laden’s elimination in Abbottabad, followed soon after by an audacious attack on the Mehran air base, raising the possibility that Pakistani nuclear weapons may be vulnerable to seizure by militants, have only heightened international concerns.
In India also the nuclear deal’s efficacy is today tempered by a global re-assessment of nuclear power in the national energy mix after the disaster at Fukushima. Prime Minister Singh, when quizzed on this in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in New Delhi, remained adamant about its utility, though Germany is in rollback mode. Despite Dr Singh’s insistence, resistance at the local level to land acquisition is inevitable when even for projects less contentious than nuclear parks there is popular dissent.
A re-assessment of Indian strategic and energy options is necessary. Membership of regimes on conditions that hurt long-term interests and national honour is unacceptable. For instance, Cold Start is an option to tender controlled punishment to Pakistan when another major terrorist attack emanating from Pakistani soil occurs in India and is fathered by close allies of the Pakistani security establishment. Particularly after 26/11, when the complicity of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Inter-Services Intelligence officials was established, the response cannot merely be the suspension of dialogue.
The testing by Pakistan of possible nuclear capable tactical missiles required universal condemnation and a quizzing of the Chinese on how the Pakistanis developed a miniaturised plutonium weapon. Had there again been a clandestine design transfer? This did not happen.
American and Chinese interests may now be converging on the development of the admission criteria to the four export control regimes i.e. Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime and the Australia and Wassenaar Groups. The aim would be to technologically freeze the Indian nuclear arsenal, which is at a semi-tested and rudimentary stage, slow down Pakistan’s gallop towards a massive plutonium-based stockpile and open the door for Israel to emerge from its nuclear closet, perhaps in exchange for peace in West Asia. The West fears a loose nuke out of Pakistan and China fears a credible Indian deterrent.
The India-Pakistan talks in Islamabad on June 23-24 have revived the sub-groups for confidence-building measures in conventional and nuclear matters. The best safeguard for their interest is in talking to each other and not in trusting outside powers.
The US made a similar mistake in dealing with the Soviet Union in the period 1945-1949, when it had a monopoly over the atomic bomb. It let slip the possibility of UN-control over nuclear weapons before the USSR got their device. Leo Szilard, a nuclear scientist of the time, opined: “If you are an expert, you believe that you are in possession of the truth... you are unwilling to make allowances for unforeseen developments”. If India and Pakistan do not learn from this then the beneficiaries will be the custodians of unequal regimes, unequally applied, albeit under terms of endearment.

The author is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry