04-28-2006, 07:04 AM
Friday, April 28, 2006
âUS-India deal will not trigger arms race with Pakistanâ
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Noted South Asia expert and author Stephen P Cohen told the Senate here on Wednesday that the Indo-US nuclear deal need not trigger an arms race with Pakistan, and it is certainly not a green light to India to build a thousand or more nuclear weapons.
In fact, he added, it provides the United States with an opportunity to work with India to help prevent a broader nuclear arms race, something that is certainly not in the interest of India, Pakistan, China, or America.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said that on balance, the deal should be welcomed. He reminded the committee that he had argued in print for a ânon-proliferation half-way houseâ since 1990, describing it as âan admittedly imperfect response to an imperfect situation, but far better than the status quoâ. He had also signed a letter, he added, which argues that the agreement enhances American strategic interests, and if properly implemented, it will advance, not retard, American non-proliferation objectives. The initiative will help India move to an energy strategy that makes it less dependant on imported oil and that will positively address American global environmental concerns. He said by minor modifications in the proposed legislation and changes in American policy the nuclear cooperation agreement with India could be further improved.
Cohen recalled that he was living in India during the major Indian debates over its nuclear weapons policy. In 1964-65 India debated its response to the Chinese nuclear test at Lop Nor. In 1967-68 it debated whether or not to sign the NPT, and in 1974, after its âphoney peaceful nuclear explosion,â India debated whether to weaponise. In the late 1980s, there was a major debate over the proper response to evidence of a Chinese-assisted Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. The Rajiv Gandhi âAction Planâ of 1988 was in part a last-minute attempt to forestall a response-in-kind to Pakistanâs programme. In the early 1990s, India grappled with the highly publicised American effort to cap, roll back, and eliminate its nuclear weapons programme and that of Pakistan. More recently, Cohen added, he spent a month in New Delhi observing the Indian debate over the Bush-Manmohan Singh initiative.
Cohen, who is head of the South Asia programme at the Brookings Institution, told the committee that that there were two major conclusions to be drawn from this 40-year history:
First, in most of these cases India was responding to nuclear developments elsewhere. Its strategic elite was sharply divide as to the utility and morality of nuclear weapons, and until the 1998 tests Indiaâs policy was one of maintaining an âoptionâ or a ârecessedâ â namely unannounced - deterrent. As opponents of this agreement have noted, India simply hid its small weapons programme and âviolated the spirit and the letter of agreements reached with foreign governments concerning the peaceful use of nuclear assistanceâ. For that India has been subjected to thirty yearsâ of sanctions, he added.
Second, Cohen pointed out, in all of these debates the military, and purely military calculations, have been notably absent. The Indian nuclear programme was nurtured by a small enclave of scientists and bureaucrats who were largely responsive, not pro-active in their thinking. There was - and remains - a curious blend of extravagant idealism, epitomised in the many plans for global nuclear disarmament generated in India over the years, and âKautilyan-Machiavellian realism,â epitomised by the secrecy that shrouded the covert weapons programme.
He went on to suggest that the nuclear agreement with India should eventually be folded into legislation that would develop criteria that would allow other states to enter such a ânuclear half-way house,â which would provide civilian nuclear assistance in exchange for an impeccable horizontal non-proliferation record. Right now India seems to meet most reasonable tests, as does Israel, but Pakistan and North Korea do not, he added.
Cohen called on the Bush administration to undertake an initiative that would constrain vertical proliferation via a nuclear restraint regime in Asia, and include India, Pakistan and China. Such a regime need not involve formal, negotiated limits, which would be very difficult to achieve, but could be based upon a fissile material cutoff, continued restraint on testing, and limited deployment of weapons. <b>The first two, he pointed out, do feature in the US-India nuclear initiative, but they need to be made multilateral, especially to ward off an arms race between Pakistan and India. Chinaâs decision on renewing testing will be shaped by its response to the United States, he added, while the US can continue its own ban on tests indefinitely without damaging nuclear preparedness.
</b>
Cohen said with the agreement in place, New Delhi should feel less âparanoidâ about discussing its own nuclear capabilities. As long as India felt that the US was trying to strip it of its weapons programme, Indian officials talked on endlessly about global nuclear disarmament, but they refused to discuss concrete steps that would enhance Indiaâs security through cooperative agreements with others. The Indians, he noted, are still reluctant to allow their country to be the venue for such discussions by non-government organisations, unless they are strictly scripted. Under the auspices of the new Indo-US Agreement on Science and Technology, the US should assist India in setting up a centre to study âbest practicesâ gleaned from the American and Russian/Soviet nuclear and missile experience, and the experience of other states. Washington should also expect that India will eventually join the process of nuclear arms reduction that began with US and Russian nuclear cuts.
âI am disappointed that such a long-term goal was not even mentioned in the various US-Indian communiqués,â he said. âWe do not want to continue down the road of arms reduction only to see some of the new nuclear weapons states such as India and Pakistan pass us on their way up.â Cohen said that the agreement should be the initial step in a process of crafting a diplomacy that addresses wider complex arms control and security concerns, not just meeting Indiaâs energy needs. America has such concerns in an area that stretches from Israel to China, that includes at least five states that have nuclear weapons and two that may be trying to acquire them.
âUS-India deal will not trigger arms race with Pakistanâ
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Noted South Asia expert and author Stephen P Cohen told the Senate here on Wednesday that the Indo-US nuclear deal need not trigger an arms race with Pakistan, and it is certainly not a green light to India to build a thousand or more nuclear weapons.
In fact, he added, it provides the United States with an opportunity to work with India to help prevent a broader nuclear arms race, something that is certainly not in the interest of India, Pakistan, China, or America.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said that on balance, the deal should be welcomed. He reminded the committee that he had argued in print for a ânon-proliferation half-way houseâ since 1990, describing it as âan admittedly imperfect response to an imperfect situation, but far better than the status quoâ. He had also signed a letter, he added, which argues that the agreement enhances American strategic interests, and if properly implemented, it will advance, not retard, American non-proliferation objectives. The initiative will help India move to an energy strategy that makes it less dependant on imported oil and that will positively address American global environmental concerns. He said by minor modifications in the proposed legislation and changes in American policy the nuclear cooperation agreement with India could be further improved.
Cohen recalled that he was living in India during the major Indian debates over its nuclear weapons policy. In 1964-65 India debated its response to the Chinese nuclear test at Lop Nor. In 1967-68 it debated whether or not to sign the NPT, and in 1974, after its âphoney peaceful nuclear explosion,â India debated whether to weaponise. In the late 1980s, there was a major debate over the proper response to evidence of a Chinese-assisted Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. The Rajiv Gandhi âAction Planâ of 1988 was in part a last-minute attempt to forestall a response-in-kind to Pakistanâs programme. In the early 1990s, India grappled with the highly publicised American effort to cap, roll back, and eliminate its nuclear weapons programme and that of Pakistan. More recently, Cohen added, he spent a month in New Delhi observing the Indian debate over the Bush-Manmohan Singh initiative.
Cohen, who is head of the South Asia programme at the Brookings Institution, told the committee that that there were two major conclusions to be drawn from this 40-year history:
First, in most of these cases India was responding to nuclear developments elsewhere. Its strategic elite was sharply divide as to the utility and morality of nuclear weapons, and until the 1998 tests Indiaâs policy was one of maintaining an âoptionâ or a ârecessedâ â namely unannounced - deterrent. As opponents of this agreement have noted, India simply hid its small weapons programme and âviolated the spirit and the letter of agreements reached with foreign governments concerning the peaceful use of nuclear assistanceâ. For that India has been subjected to thirty yearsâ of sanctions, he added.
Second, Cohen pointed out, in all of these debates the military, and purely military calculations, have been notably absent. The Indian nuclear programme was nurtured by a small enclave of scientists and bureaucrats who were largely responsive, not pro-active in their thinking. There was - and remains - a curious blend of extravagant idealism, epitomised in the many plans for global nuclear disarmament generated in India over the years, and âKautilyan-Machiavellian realism,â epitomised by the secrecy that shrouded the covert weapons programme.
He went on to suggest that the nuclear agreement with India should eventually be folded into legislation that would develop criteria that would allow other states to enter such a ânuclear half-way house,â which would provide civilian nuclear assistance in exchange for an impeccable horizontal non-proliferation record. Right now India seems to meet most reasonable tests, as does Israel, but Pakistan and North Korea do not, he added.
Cohen called on the Bush administration to undertake an initiative that would constrain vertical proliferation via a nuclear restraint regime in Asia, and include India, Pakistan and China. Such a regime need not involve formal, negotiated limits, which would be very difficult to achieve, but could be based upon a fissile material cutoff, continued restraint on testing, and limited deployment of weapons. <b>The first two, he pointed out, do feature in the US-India nuclear initiative, but they need to be made multilateral, especially to ward off an arms race between Pakistan and India. Chinaâs decision on renewing testing will be shaped by its response to the United States, he added, while the US can continue its own ban on tests indefinitely without damaging nuclear preparedness.
</b>
Cohen said with the agreement in place, New Delhi should feel less âparanoidâ about discussing its own nuclear capabilities. As long as India felt that the US was trying to strip it of its weapons programme, Indian officials talked on endlessly about global nuclear disarmament, but they refused to discuss concrete steps that would enhance Indiaâs security through cooperative agreements with others. The Indians, he noted, are still reluctant to allow their country to be the venue for such discussions by non-government organisations, unless they are strictly scripted. Under the auspices of the new Indo-US Agreement on Science and Technology, the US should assist India in setting up a centre to study âbest practicesâ gleaned from the American and Russian/Soviet nuclear and missile experience, and the experience of other states. Washington should also expect that India will eventually join the process of nuclear arms reduction that began with US and Russian nuclear cuts.
âI am disappointed that such a long-term goal was not even mentioned in the various US-Indian communiqués,â he said. âWe do not want to continue down the road of arms reduction only to see some of the new nuclear weapons states such as India and Pakistan pass us on their way up.â Cohen said that the agreement should be the initial step in a process of crafting a diplomacy that addresses wider complex arms control and security concerns, not just meeting Indiaâs energy needs. America has such concerns in an area that stretches from Israel to China, that includes at least five states that have nuclear weapons and two that may be trying to acquire them.