Björn Kindler

On Oct. 10, India and the United States signed a historic and controversial agreement permitting the United States to sell nuclear fuel and technology to India for civilian—that is, peaceful—energy-production purposes. Leonard Weiss, an individual affiliate of the Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC ), and Amandeep Gill, a visiting scholar at CISAC, present different perspectives on the agreement.

INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL:  A NEW BEGINNING
By Amandeep Gill

On Oct. 10, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee signed the so-called bilateral "123 Agreement" for civil nuclear commerce between India and the United States. This action completed a politically charged, often controversial process launched in summer 2005 by President George Bush and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and it followed a decisive 83-16 Senate vote Oct. 1.

This historic vote took place despite congressional preoccupation with the U.S. presidential race, the global financial meltdown and the ensuing $700 billion financial bailout package. It is important to note that during the last three years, Congress, which historically has taken a tough stance on non-proliferation, often at variance with the executive branch, has maintained bipartisan support for the agreement.

The bilateral India-U.S. agreement is underpinned by a set of international agreements. These include India's voluntary separation of its military and civil nuclear facilities, application of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards to India's designated civilian facilities, and an exemption to the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the 45-nation body that regulates the sale of nuclear fuel and technology. The NSG prohibits, now with the exception of India, civil nuclear trade with countries not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The 123 Agreement is path-breaking because India opted out of the NPT regime and has developed and tested nuclear weapons. Consequently, India, along with Israel and Pakistan, has been barred from civil nuclear commerce with the rest of the world. This rankles India more than its non-NPT counterparts because Israel does not have a nuclear power program and because Pakistan offers a stark contrast to India's non-proliferation record. Within India, the deal is seen as breaking the mold because India has opposed the NPT regime in principle, opting instead for a national commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation objectives. Its critics believe that the reciprocal non-proliferation commitments India has entered into, as part of the understanding, bring it closer to the regime it has always opposed, thereby compromising its strategic independence. The issue of nuclear testing, which threatened to unravel both the Indian government and the deal in its final stages, is emblematic of this opposition. The controversy within India is not about whether India needs to test but about its right to test, something that other nuclear weapon states, such as China and the United States, still have not foregone.

While critics inside India allege that it has bargained away its independence and nuclear deterrent, those outside allege that the India exception bends non-proliferation rules irreparably for political purposes and sends the wrong signal to countries such as Iran. In the United States and Europe, critics tend to equate this initiative with what they perceive to be the other foreign policy follies of the Bush administration. What they miss is that it was the Clinton administration that laid the foundation for nuclear reengagement with India. The current presidency has simply carried the process forward, not unilaterally, but with the support of major powers such as England, France and Russia, as well as the director general of the IAEA. They also miss that the NPT does not prohibit civil nuclear cooperation with non-NPT states and that the NSG originally was set up also to provide a forum for bringing non-NPT signatory states into a broader framework of nuclear control. The exemption does not wreck the NSG. It simply removes discrimination against India dating back to 1992, while maintaining the group's original focus on denial of nuclear materials and technology for weapons purposes, which India will now contribute to as a result of accepting NSG control lists and guidelines.

The decision has no bearing on Iran and North Korea's nuclear misbehavior. Unlike India, both these countries signed the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states, and their controversial nuclear programs pre-date the India deal. To paraphrase Mark Twain, news of the demise of the non-proliferation regime is somewhat premature.

In fact, the agreement strengthens non-proliferation and disarmament by bringing India, home to one-sixth of humanity, into the tent. It acknowledges that real progress on reducing nuclear threats cannot be made without partnerships across the divide within and outside the NPT. It acknowledges that nuclear energy can have a positive impact on energy and environmental choices in India's large, rapidly expanding economy.

Lastly, but not insignificantly, the agreement demonstrates how a seemingly intractable problem can be resolved when the soft, grounded energy of India combines with the forceful, can-do energy of the United States. Such creative partnerships, especially between developed and developing countries, are precisely what the world needs today. We no longer have the luxury of received wisdom and fixed frames of reference.

Amandeep Gill is a visiting scholar at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He can be reached at agill@stanford.edu

 
U.S.-INDIA NUCLEAR AGREEMENT IS RECKLESS FOREIGN POLICY
By Leonard Weiss

The U.S.-India nuclear agreement is an unneeded and potentially disastrous Bush administration initiative that undermines a 30-year nonproliferation policy pioneered by the United States and adopted by 189 nations. It will accelerate both the nuclear and conventional arms races between India and Pakistan, countries that have fought three wars in the past 60 years and have come close at least two other times within the past decade.

After two years of arm-twisting by the United States, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) recently agreed to make an exception to its trade rules for India. Congress followed by voting its approval, and President Bush signed the agreement into law. Until the exception, the NSG rules required that India (and all other 184 countries in its category as defined by the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) allow international inspections of all its nuclear materials and the facilities containing them. India had consistently refused to sign the treaty, known as the NPT, and agree to such safeguards, which led to the cutoff of nuclear trade by the United States under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978. This law was motivated in part by India's 1974 nuclear test using U.S. nuclear material that violated the sale agreement prohibiting the use of such material for nuclear explosives. India's violation led to the creation of the NSG, which adopted the safeguards standard for nuclear trade in 1992.

The Bush administration hopes that the agreement will help build up India as a counterweight to Chinese influence and will induce India to follow U.S. foreign policy priorities, particularly with respect to Iran. But good U.S.-India relations are not dependent on the agreement (trade between the two countries has tripled within a decade and continues to grow). Furthermore, India has already made it clear that it intends to proceed with a gas pipeline from Iran passing through Pakistan, despite U.S. opposition.

The agreement will contribute indirectly to India's nuclear arsenal by allowing it to use imported nuclear fuel in its civilian reactors (as defined solely by India), while reserving its relatively scarce indigenous uranium for increased weapons production. This, in turn, will create new targets for theft by terrorists, as demonstrated by deadly bombings in Jaipur last year and Ahmedabad more recently. The agreement will also spur the purchase by India of billions of dollars of U.S. conventional military equipment. Unless a secret promise has been made by India, conventional military sales is where the deal will be most lucrative for the United States, since Russia and France are much more competitive in the nuclear reactor area; they are more likely to receive the bulk of high-ticket nuclear trade with India as a result of the NSG action.

The argument, by some proponents, that the agreement will reduce global warming by helping India replace coal plants with nuclear plants is bogus. India has a notoriously inefficient energy economy. The same amount of investment in efficiency improvements will reduce more greenhouse gases faster than India's plans for a greater nuclear sector over the next 20 years.

Although Congress has placed some tough requirements on the agreement, via the enabling legislation called the Hyde Act, it is clear that the deal shreds U.S. nonproliferation policy, increases the nuclear arms race in South Asia, and puts this country in the position of espousing nonproliferation for our enemies, but not our friends. This formula not only undermines efforts to rein in the nuclear ambitions of Iran, but also risks the collapse of the global nonproliferation regime and the creation of a world where nuclear terrorism can flourish. U.S.-Indian business interests lobbied furiously for the agreement, as did U.S. nuclear and defense contractors and elements of the Israeli lobby (Israel is in the same NPT category as India and, according to some reports, has raised the possibility of a similar deal for itself).

When the U.S.-India nuclear agreement was being negotiated, America's position was that India should sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, stop the production of fissile material for weapons, and place its breeder reactor program under safeguards. India refused, and the Bush negotiating team caved. Indeed, India's government has told its parliament and public that the agreement puts no restrictions on India's ability to test and build nuclear weapons.

Approval of this deal is the clearest sign yet that the world's nonproliferation regime is in deep trouble. The decision makes success more difficult for efforts to reduce and eliminate nuclear arms, as called for in Article VI of the NPT. Locking down "loose nukes" is critical, but not facilitating the production of more nukes is equally important. The risks inherent in the U.S.-India nuclear deal are too great to sustain any faith that this agreement could be a positive development for nonproliferation in the long term. It is premature at best, and another example of recklessness in the administration of U.S. foreign policy.

Leonard Weiss is an individual affiliate of CISAC and a member of the Board of the Council for a Livable World's Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978.