Dec 7, 2009

India’s Nuclear Treaties Dilemma

            The United Nations Security CouncilResolution 1887 which resolves to, “create the conditions for a world withoutnuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the Treaty on theNon-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)”, heralds the beginning of adifficult period for Indian diplomacy facing varied dilemmas on the country’snuclear identity. The Ministry of External Affairs preempted the UN Resolutionby a letter to the United States as the current President of the SecurityCouncil stating India’s well established position on NPT, testing and universaldisarmament.

            However nuclear winds may possiblyedge the country into the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and eventuallythe NPT despite apprehensions of yield of the thermo nuclear test in May 1998.The award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 to the USPresident Barack Obama may only complicate things for Indiaas the press release by the Nobel foundation lauds his, “vision of and work fora world without nuclear weapons”.

             A flash back to the United States Presidentialelections campaign in 2008 would reveal that then Senator Barack Obama,eventually won as the Americans saw a fresh approach to the Presidency jadedwith clichés of neo conservatism. Playing upon this sentiment in the Democraticprimaries as well as the final run to the Presidency, Obama could defeatveterans as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, the lady having graciously joinedhis foreign policy team. One of the key agendas of the, “change” by the Obama –Biden team was nuclear non proliferation. They promised to, “crack down on nuclear proliferation bystrengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” and move towards a nuclearfree world.

President Obama and his team have followedup these issues through much diplomatic shuffling with the President making ahistoric trip to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitriy Medvedev and announcing jointlyto begin, “bilateral intergovernmental negotiations to work out a new,comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategicoffensive arms to replace the START Treaty”. This was followed with a seminal declaration by President Obama on 5April in Prague; capital of the Czech Republic one of the countries where elements ofthe missile shield proposed by his predecessor George W Bush was to be locatedin Europe. He reiterated the resolve to reduce andeliminate nuclear arsenals and most significantly move towards ratification ofthe CTBT and “completion of a verified Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.”

 Thenext step was reviewing the land based missile shield replacing it with a shipbased one to take Moscow on board. It diffused larger Russian fears of United States encroaching its traditional sphere ofinfluence, Eastern and Central Europe. The immediate result was the public announcement by Moscow of possible sanctions if Iran did not provide greater transparency forits nuclear enrichment programme.

In back room diplomacy Israeli primeminister, Binyamin Netanyahu visited Moscow which was accepted openly only afterPresident Medvedev revealed it in an interview. Some analysts believe that thetalks include apart from a promise that Israel would not strike Iran’s nuclearfacilities if Russia stopped the S 300 anti air defence missile sale under a2005 contract to Tehran, also negotiations to roll back Israel’s nuclearweapons programme, the existence of which has never been accepted by Tel Aviv.

This brief survey of the nuclear nonproliferation agenda of President Obama would reveal that for the first time inmany years the two premier nuclear powers on the globe the United States and Russia appear to be on the same page. They havealso bound the other members of the nuclear club, Britain, France and China through the UN Resolution and are nowworking to get the pariahs of the nuclear regime, Iran, North Korea and may be even Israel on board. What results Chinese PremierWen Jiabao presently on a visit to Pyongyang achieves in this sphere remains to beseen.

The campaign to bring India on board has also quietly begun. The nextsteps are likely to be the preliminaries leading to review of the NPT in May2010. Over the week end on 3 and 4 October the International Commission onNuclear Non proliferation and Disarmament promoted by Japan and Australia, staunch US allies with very strong non proliferationinclinations met in New Delhi. Led by Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, former foreign ministers andinternational diplomats with impeccable credentials, the agenda of theConference was promoting CTBT and universalisation of the NPT. India, Israel and Pakistan were singled out as crucial tocontrolling proliferation. Indian luminaries who attended were key policy andopinion makers, K Subrahmanyam, Brajesh Mishra, Shyam Saran and B G Vargheseamongst others.

Thus as Dr Manmohan Singh is feted at theWhite House on 24^th November in what has been heralded as the,“first state visit of the(Obama) administration”, possibly two issues will be critical, climate changeand nuclear non proliferation. How does the Indian policy establishment respondto these challenges remains to be seen?

The path charted out by the ObamaAdministration for non proliferation is not easy or achievable in the shortterm. There is likely to be extensive domestic opposition to the agenda of sayratification of the CTBT within the United States. On nuclear disarmament until China is on board, there is unlikely to be anyforward movement as far as India is concerned. To what extent Beijing will go along with the US and Russia remains to be seen, while Iran and North Korea remain as unpredictable as ever.

India’s position on nuclear related treatiesmay be justified at this juncture given the sense of discrimination and thecombined challenge posed by China and Pakistan; however it is time to think ahead,review our isolationist posture and leverage our principled stand to advantageby seeking parallel cutbacks in the arc of our nuclear deterrence. Integrationwith the World is the hallmark of statesmanship as well as a great power.[First Published in Mint, New Delhi].