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A nuclear era in south Asia
The nuclear window opened for India has objectives far beyond a solution of its energy problems.
- By Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:13 October 3, 2008
- Image Credit: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
On Wednesday night, the US Senate ratified the Indo-US deal 86 to 13, a week after the House of Representatives approved HR 7081 with 298 votes for and 117 against it.
The Democrat, Howard Berman, abandoned his long time opposition to the "United States-India Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, and for other purposes" and gave his name to the bill, HR 7081 destined to have momentous implications for the Indo-US strategic partnership, for nuclear policies in the region and, above all, for the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Most observers assume that all Congressional and administrative processes will be completed to enable Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to formally sign the landmark agreement in New Delhi, at the earliest.
Bush had lobbied relentlessly for the agreement through all the difficult national and international procedures. In his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the US Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, William J. Burns has now prophesied that by 2025, India's economy would most likely rank amongst the world's five largest economies and that India will support a peaceful balance of power in Asia, an observation that reveals the deeper strategic calculations of the Bush administration that go beyond commercial gains for the American companies that the accord would bring.
It was, indeed, the nuclear issue by which Bush had earlier eliminated the traditional hyphen between India and Pakistan in the US South Asia policy. During his last visit to the region, he asserted bluntly that their histories were different and, therefore, the civil nuclear cooperation offered to India could not be extended to Pakistan.
Since then he has painstakingly worked to make India a major hinge of his Asian policy that aims at counter-balancing the emergence of China as a global power. He saw Pakistan increasingly in a more restricted frame primarily as an ally in the war against terrorism
Though the reasons greatly varied, the Indo-US deal evoked considerable opposition in India and in many international institutions committed to nuclear non-proliferation. Interestingly enough, apart from occasional comments that the deal unjustly discriminated against Pakistan, Islamabad largely muted its own security concerns. It did not launch any initiative to delay or block the deal in sensitive forums such as the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group where a single dissenting vote would have withheld approval.
A comprehensive seminar on September 25 in Islamabad's Institute of Strategic Studies with which I am associated was notable for the absence of any anti-Indian polemics even as many experts dwelt on the potentially adverse impact of the Indo-US deal on the existing non-proliferation regime.
It has taken India a mere three years to join the mainstream of nuclear cooperation and commerce through exclusive India-specific measures in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the US Congress. Bush and Manmohan Singh launched their nuclear cooperation initiative on July 18, 2005. The US Congress passed the enabling Henry J. Hyde US-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act (Hyde Act) in December 2006.
It got an operational structure under Section 123 of the US Atomic Power Act in July 2007. The IAEA approved the indispensable the India-specific Safeguards Agreement on August 1, 2008 followed soon by the approval of the Nuclear Suppliers Group where at least half a dozen countries initially had serious reservations about the provisions of the 123 agreement.
This forceful approach to get the deal through all the stages, however, never quelled the apprehensions of the non-proliferation lobby. It continues to argue that Bush has literally staked the future of an already fragile global nuclear non-proliferation order on his project to convert India into a strategic ally after decades in which it had pursued broadly non-aligned policies.
The executive director of Washington's Arms Control Association, Daryl Kimble, described the decision of the Nuclear Suppliers Group as "a profound setback to the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament system that would produce dangerous ripple effects for years to come."
The highly respected Stimson Centre of Washington has observed that "the IAEA badly weakened international standards to safeguard civil nuclear facilities to accommodate Indian sensibilities and the Bush administrations' lobbying." The nuclear expert Sharon Squassoni felt that the Nuclear Suppliers Group had dealt a serious blow to the world's non-proliferation regime.
Inspection
India will separate its civil and military facilities and place a total of 14 reactors under safeguards and open those to inspection by 2014. The military reactors will have no check on the production of fissile material. There is widespread apprehension that India would use this window of time to divert nuclear material to build a big nuclear arsenal that will accelerate a nuclear arms race. Independent observers continue to point out that the United States met New Delhi's demands by deviating from its own nuclear norms and even by subtly moving away from the spirit of non-proliferation written into the Hyde Act itself.
Initially, the deal was sold to the world largely as a means of redressing India's rapidly growing energy deficit.
There is, indeed, a worldwide concern about affordable power. Global energy demand is projected to be 50 per cent higher in 2030 than today. Over 60 per cent of the increased demand would still be met by coal, oil and natural gas though there may be a limited and tightly controlled expansion of nuclear power generation.
India is the only case where the United States has committed itself to making nuclear power generation a major instrument of meeting the energy crunch though, even in the best case scenario, nuclear power will account for only 16 per cent of India's energy spectrum.
Clearly the nuclear window opened for India has all along had objectives far beyond a solution of its energy problems. Pakistan is now expected to operate at two levels: consider enhancing its own strategic nuclear assets and, secondly, intensify the quest for civil nuclear cooperation with any country willing to take advantage of the space created by concessions made to India.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan who currently heads Islamabad's Institute of Strategic Studies.
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