Indo-US Nuclear Deal

& Its Implications

 by

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

(Parts reproduced from the internet)

August 1, 2008, the IAEA approved the safeguards agreement with India, after which the United States approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant a waiver to India to commence civilian nuclear trade. The 45-nation NSG granted the waiver to India on September 6, 2008 allowing it to access civilian nuclear technology and fuel from other countries. The implementation of this waiver makes India the only known country with nuclear weapons which is not a party to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but is still allowed to carry out nuclear commerce with the rest of the world. The US House of Representatives passed the bill on 28 September 2008. Two days later, India and France inked a similar nuclear pact making France the first country to have such an agreement with India. On October 1, 2008 the US Senate also approved the civilian nuclear agreement allowing India to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the United States. US President, George W. Bush, signed the legislation on the Indo-US nuclear deal, approved by the U.S. Congress, into law, now called the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act, on October 8, 2008. The agreement was signed.

After three years of negotiations, the deal which provides India with nuclear fuel and technology without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty is finally done.

After eight disastrous years abroad, is this finally a foreign-policy coup for the Bush administration? That's how it's being sold in Washington, but as a 'neutral' observer one would have serious doubts about its wisdom and what it means for the stability of the region.

From the American point of view, they get to sell stuff to India (not just nuclear reactors but, with luck, 126 fighter jets and lots of other materials too) and cement strategic relations with India at a time when China's aggressive diplomacy in the region - with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma - is unnerving both India and the US. However, as the torrid negotiations showed, America will never find it straightforward to deal with India, since large parts of the India political establishment deeply distrusts America and, notwithstanding China's regional ascendancy, don't want to give the US any more leverage over Indian foreign policy than necessary. The basis for a wider strategic Indo-US pact is not as strong as it might seem and as India's politics continues to regionalize and factionalize, the Indo-US relationship may get harder to manage still.

For India the deal looks like an unalloyed good, crowning the South Asian leader as the world's de facto sixth nuclear power, opening the floodgates to fuel and technology while freeing up capacity to enhance their own bomb-making programs. And all this without signing the NPT. The deal does, however, put obligations on India. Whatever is being said to soothe the anti-deal factions in India, the Indo-US deal effectively prohibits India from testing a nuclear weapon since fuel supplies and technology transfers would effectively stop if that happened. By 2050, when 25pc of India's electricity could be nuclear, testing a bomb would effectively put the lights out in Bombay. India's senior diplomats accept this in private but continue to deny it in public for the sake of the deal, just as they deny in public that the deal is the outward expression of India's incredibly rapid rapprochement and growing strategic alliance with America.

India will, however, not only seek to reduce its obligations to the US but also try to be as free as possible of any dependence upon the US. Hence dealing with France and Russia, as it is allowed, while at the same time her internal difficulties in dealings with the US aren't going to go away. If this deal is about a strategic marriage to counterbalance to China, it got off to a rocky start, with both sides having very different perceptions of what it meant for the other. These differences persist, which is dangerous in itself. So what about the neutrals, how should they view this deal? With considerable trepidation, one would suggest, as a neutral, the criteria for judging the deal should be whether it will make the region more or less stable; more or less polarized. On that basis, one may not like what one is likely to see.

Firstly, China is unhappy with this deal, as it made plain with its foot-dragging at the Nuclear Supplier's Group negotiations. China may quite be ready to do a similar deal with its ally Pakistan, just to don't  let this piece of US strategic manoeuvring go unanswered.

Secondly, the deal cuts an exception for India from the international non-proliferation regime (which however flawed, was the framework in existence) which in time will be used against the West. Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Egypt...take your pick? India has always refused to sign the NPT because it is an "˜unequal treaty', cooked up, says its detractors, by the world's self-appointed nuclear guardians. And yet ironically, this deal reinforces the West's notion that it can make exceptions to its own rules. This is dangerous.

Thirdly, following on from the above, the deal threatens to fuel the Asian arms race. Whatever India's intentions Pakistan and others will apprehend and justifiably too that the deal frees up capacity for India to increase its warhead numbers. And since the deal keeps India's military nuclear program outside international inspection, there will be no way of knowing either way. Historically speaking, Pakistan will not give India the benefit of the doubt.

Fourthly, the deal is nakedly political. That might be stating the obvious, but it's too often denied. This is not just about nuclear technology. It's a big net with far reaching implications that is being thrown over India, by the US, for being "˜democratic' and "˜friendly'. George Bush said as much when he signed the bill into the law. "This agreement sends a signal to the world: Nations that follow the path to democracy and responsible behaviour will find a friend in the United States of America." So neo-conservatism isn't dead yet. That's the kind of divisive, "with-us-or-against-us" language which daily replenishes the global well of anti-US resentment. And of course, it's just this kind of language which so riles the parts of the Indian political establishment that opposed the deal. India just cannot afford to be subservient to any other nation.

Therefore, having signed a treaty with France, India is again set to sign yet another one with Russia. Not only that, the stage is also set for entering into an agreement for the production of the Russian sophisticated state-of-the-art weaponry and weapon systems in India as currently more than 70 percent of such weaponry used by India is of Russian origin. Such close collaboration between the two, one, in the nuclear field and the second, in the joint manufacture of advanced defence materials, should be a matter of legitimate concern for the USA.  It was USA who was keen and more or less openly wooed India into signing the nuclear deal with a view to bringing  her into her (US) fold. For that, the US legislation amended Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. It let the US make a one-time exception for India to keep its nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The amendment overturns a 30-year-old US ban on supplying India with nuclear fuel and technology, implemented after India's first nuclear test in 1974.  But the Indians seem to have outsmarted the Americans on all counts.

The deal also undermines the NPT, which holds that only countries which renounce nuclear weapons qualify for civilian nuclear assistance.  The accord also sends the wrong message: it could undercut a US-led campaign to curtail Iran's nuclear programme, and open the way for a potential arms race in South Asia.

Under the amendment, India must separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, and submit civilian facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  India says 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities are civilian. It is feared that the pact could make bomb making at the other eight easier as India could divert her all nuclear resources and fuel towards them as the civilian nuclear fuel needs will be met by the US. Not only that, how would US ensure that the nuclear technology and information shared by it with India will not be passed on to the Russians, who will soon have a similar nuclear technology sharing agreement with India?   

As the vogue phrase has it, we are living in a new, "˜multi-polar' world, in which Western and US pre-eminence is being challenged rapidly by a resurgent Asia and a newly bellicose Russian Federation. The question is, "˜Does this deal, on balance, bring those poles together, or set them against each other?'  The answer seems to be the latter.

Pakistan had sought a similar civilian technology deal with the US but was refused last in March. It is the only other confirmed nuclear power not to have signed the NPT - saying it will join after India does. A school of thought is of serious views that Pakistan's own expanding nuclear program could fan the rivalry between India and Pakistan. What option does it have except to look towards East for similar nuclear collaboration? China has supported Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme since the 1980s. Could the Indo-US deal spur a similar deal between Pakistan and China in the very near future?

·        End.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

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