Bush's Nuclear Deal with India Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I'm not ready to pronounce on the merits of the deal announced tonight on nuclear proliferation between Bush and Indian President Manmohan Singh, but I will offer some early musings.  Details of the accord are here. 

The deal would open the door for the US and others to aid India in building its civilian nuclear power capabilities despite the country's refusal to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  It provides for inspections of the 14 of India's 22 nuclear facilities that the country classifies as civilian, but leaves the remaining 8 military nuclear facilities to operate unimpeded.  The agreement needs Congressional approval and some legislative amendments before it can go into effect, and whether it will get those is in question.

There's a lot to this, but let me just offer a few observations:

1. US-India Relationship.  There's been a lot of pressure on Bush to demonstrate tangible progress is tightening ties to India, mostly as a counterweight to China's rising power.  With talk of how Bush can salvage a foreign policy legacy despite the morass in Iraq, this agreement has the potential to pave the way for a realignment, strengthening the ties between two leading democracies and deepening American influence on the sub-continent.  All this is good.

2.  Future of the NPT.  Many are pointing to this deal as the potential death knell for the NPT, in that it extends to India the same privileges that were formerly reserved for countries that renounced nuclear weapons development.  This is true, but nothing new.  Mort discussed the longstanding issues in this post.   Bottom line is that the NPT has been hobbling along for years and its not clear that pretending otherwise has served the cause of nonproliferation.  This is why IAEA Chair Mohammed El-Baradei has actually endorsed the deal.  I don't see this as the worst of all things.

3.  Legitimacy of the US's Non-Proliferation Efforts - While the contradictions inherent in the US's proliferation policy have been apparent for years, this deal would seem to mark end of US efforts to contort its policies to fit the NPT.   While that may be justified, if we do not move to undergird the deal with India with a new, broader non-proliferation framework that would justify differential treatment of states based on some objective criteria we will have zero credibility in trying to crack down on proliferators like Iran.  As we learned the hard way in Iraq, credibility in such efforts is a precondition for international support which, in turn, can be a prerequisite for success.  But the Administration has failed to proffer a vision for a redesigned non-proliferation regime, leading others to conclude that we don't care whether our proliferation policies are seen as legitimate or no.  In the absence of a credible effort to relaunch the non-proliferation regime, the accord with India will be viewed as just another circumvention of the rules.  This will undoubtedly be damaging to the US.

4.  Pakistan.  The Pakistanis aren't happy about the Indians getting a sweet nuclear deal that they will never match.  Will this snubbing further embolden the extremists that have already twice tried to assassinate Musharraf and take over the country and its nuclear arsenal?  It could very well.  This is a worrying wild card.

Comments

[krishna]

This is a nice summary. I am glad that President Bush had the vision to make this deal a priority, and recognize the inherent contradictions in the nuclear policy towards India. Proliferation security initiative. I am not well informed on this, so I may be wrong, but isn't there the beginnings of a new nonproliferation regime in the nonproliferation security initiative?

I think worries about Mr Musharraf's asassination are a bit overblown. I believe that he has a considerably greater degree of control over the military and terrorist establishments in Pakistan than many seem to think. Furthermore, I think that even in the event of his assassination, another member of the military junta will take over. The only real reason to worry about this matter is the possibility that Pakistan's arsenal will come under the control of the terrorist establishment. I think that such an outcome would be unpalatable to the military, and given their control over the nuclear trigger, this change in control is unlikely.

[J Thomas]

No reason to worry about US credibility -- we don't have any anyway.

So when we go after iran, perhaps as early as the end of this month, the rest of the world will be shocked -- shocked! -- at our barbarity. But they won't do anything about it because we're the meanest toughest nuclear power on the planet and they'll mind their own business.

That's what nonproliferation has turned into -- an excuse to attack our chosen enemies before they get nukes.

We can still contribute ideas to a new nonproliferation vision. Just because our diplomats have no influence on the US government, doesn't mean they aren't smart and creative, and their ideas will be welcome. And if a workable useful nonproliferation scheme does get developed, there's the chance that someday it might get implemented.

As for pakistan, they have and will put up with a whole lot from us. We are an exceptionally inconvenient ally, but we have the advantage of being far away. All their other significant potential allies are much much closer, which provides other kinds of inconvenience. So they'll hang onto us as long as they reasonably can, despite our snubs and insults and bombing raids etc. They're in a tough spot.

[SDP]

I think you underestimate the damage to the NPT. Of course pretending India might someday join was fantasy, but this deal strikes right at the heart of the main bargain at the core of the NPT (peaceful nuclear technology in return for nuclear restraint). Coming on the heels of last year's failed NPT review conference, where the U.S. basically ignored the concerns of the NNWS, this deal could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. At the very least, it's going to further erode confidence in the NPT. El Baradei does not reflect the views of many NPT member states, so don't take his acceptance as a barometer of international opinion on the issue.

Even if the NPT regime doesn't collapse, this deal is going to hurt the Nuclear Supplier's Group, where more cooperation, not discord, is needed to better cope with the threat of A.Q. Khan-like networks.

Bottom line: It's complacent to say that the NPT regime can continue to muddle along. I would not bet the farm on that. I'm not saying it will collapse spectacularly, either, with a wave of angry withdrawals, but it may start to sputter out, and for all its faults, we will be very sorry if that happens.

[J Thomas]

NPT is dead, but it might keep twitching for a few years.

Yes, we'll be sorry about what happens then. But right now, we have a bunch of wingnuts who say, NPT didn't stop north korea, and it didn't stop iran, and it didn't stop iraq the first time, so what good is it? They think it only stops our friends and not our enemies.

They don't see that NPT's victories are invisible but the defeats are talking-points. And they'll never see it.

[Fun]

Suzanne should get the facts straight. Manmohan Singh is not the president of India. He is the Prime Minister.

[Glasnost]

This is a devil's choice. Absolutely, this deal with India essentially scraps the NPT, except as a figleaf for invading countries whose nuclear programs we don't like. If I was Iran, I would withdraw from the NPT tomorrow, and say, "all we want is to be treated like India."

However, critics of the NPT had a point - which is that, whatever it was, it sure was not a full solution to the proliferation problem, and there are any number of examples to prove it. If after the cold war, the US and USSR had taken steps to *completely* disarm their nuclear arsenals - not reduction, but elimination - maybe things would have changed. But the globably dynamic as a whole can only move towards global prolieration or global elimination. Middle ground is a passing phoenomenon.

The only good news is that nukes only seem to be worth the trouble for countries in acute security dilemmas. The thing to do is to stop putting other countries into them.

[T. Lace]

Glasnost's last point is an excellent one. US posturing in North Korea and Iran has done little more than accelerate their development of a nuclear deterrent. The nuclear issue cannot be treated as separate from other security concerns--it must be integrated into a broader framework. Otherwise there are no carrots or sticks in NK or Iran that could make a difference.

Will India's stronger nuclear arsenal drive Pakistan to build more nuclear weapons? Time will tell.

[DeathValleyWanderer]

"Will India's stronger nuclear arsenal drive Pakistan to build more nuclear weapons? Time will tell."

Pakistan wont be able to match india alone. One of the reasons its economy is not doing as well as it could be is the countries obsession with matching india. Indias weapons are cheaper to produce than pakistani, yet pakistan has been following the 'eat grass' to match them policy. Indias budget increasaes are difficult for them to match and quality wise they suffer too b/c unlike india they dont have a large engineering base. So unless china decides to bail them out its not happening. A small probability is that pakistan will ask saudi arabia and other likeminded islamic country to aid its program. It has done so in the past so its not something thats without precident.... so it may get more cash for its program.

[red bull]

Yeah... Bush is naturaly born cowboy...

[dhaivat]

whatever is the reasons... but the geodynamics are changing.... its clear that the stage of another huge cold war is getting set.... there are powerful democracies like US , UK, india, france on one side... and islamic extremists on another side..... i firlmy believe that history repeats itself... for centuries this wars are going on betwwen christians and islamics ... first there were crusades.. n now its going to be another big war.. the mother of all war.. which has already started with the destruction of afghanistan and iraq.. and US should now clearly understand that relationship with fundamentally islamic countries like pakistan would only create more problems for them latter... coz democracies like india , UK are well aware bout the role of pakistan in international terrorism... (london bombing , kashmir issue)

[seyid]

There are certain things in life related to smoking that simply cannot :)
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