Indo-U.S. dialogue on NMD?

By C. Raja Mohan

AS INDIA prepares to engage the Bush Administration in the next few weeks, there will a renewed focus on the perennial theme of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As it turns out, the advent of the Bush Administration may have opened a real possibility for New Delhi and Washington to change the traditional framework through which they have discussed nuclear questions.

The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, is likely to meet the U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, early next month in Washington. The Jaswant-Powell meeting should be able to set the course for the long promised new engagement between India and the United States. Although Indo-U.S. relations improved significantly in the last year of the Clinton Administration, much remains to be done in finding common political ground.

Since India's first nuclear test in 1974, differences over nuclear non-proliferation have been one of the most difficult obstacles for the improvement of bilateral relations. After the second round of Indian tests in May 1998, New Delhi and Washington launched on an intensive and sustained dialogue on nuclear issues. The ten rounds of talks between Mr. Jaswant Singh and the then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott, helped reduce mutual misperceptions on nuclear issues.

While Messrs Singh and Talbott changed the tone and tenor of the Indo-U.S. nuclear discourse, there was no final bridging of the divide. The U.S. was keen to get India on board the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which New Delhi found difficult to sign. Right up to its last days, the Clinton Administration had insisted that the full potential of Indo-U.S. relations would not be realised unless the nuclear differences were resolved. While many of the U.S. sanctions imposed after Pokharan were diluted, some key measures have remained in place.

Mr. Singh and Gen. Powell will no doubt discuss the question of continuing the nuclear dialogue under the new Administration and decide the level at which it will be conducted. But what makes the next phase of Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue an exciting one is the promise of the President, Mr. George W. Bush, to depart radically from the nuclear agenda of the Clinton Administration.

The Bush national security team has come to Washington with a set of nuclear assumptions that are very different from those which informed the world view of Mr. Bill Clinton. First is a strong commitment to build defences against ballistic missiles. In the last couple of months, the Bush Administration has proclaimed its determination to go ahead with the plans despite political opposition in Europe, Russia and China. Mr. Bush has signalled that he is ready to proceed unilaterally if necessary and in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 that restricts the development and deployment of defences.

Second, the Bush Administration is also debating the possibility of negotiating deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces with Russia. There are some suggestions in the U.S. media that the Bush Administration might even be prepared for unilateral reductions in its nuclear arsenal. Third, the Bush team rejects the CTBT as a fatally flawed arrangement. Underlying that view is the assumption that some proliferation of nuclear weapons is inevitable, and treaties like the CTBT are incapable of preventing backlash states from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Somewhat counter-intuitively the Bush Administration's nuclear package appears to have opened up a rare opportunity to recast the basic assumptions of the Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue. That the CTBT, which dominated Indo-U.S. dialogue over the last few years, may no longer be central is only of limited significance. Far more important is the new direction that the Bush Administration has begun to set with its simultaneous emphasis on building defences and reducing offensive nuclear forces.

Until now, both nuclear deterrence and arms control were premised on the belief that offensive nuclear weapons were ``good'' and defences against them were ``bad''. The theology decreed that peace between nuclear adversaries could only by sustained by the certainty of retaliation by offensive nuclear forces. Defences, the mantra said, would complicate deterrence by reducing the effectiveness of nuclear forces. The new emphasis in the U.S. on defences, then, challenges the nuclear mythology of the last five and a half decades. It also implies a basic reconsideration of traditional assumptions of arms control, which is the flip side of nuclear deterrence. A new dialogue focussed on NMD and its impact on arms control should help India and the U.S. transcend the framework of their nuclear dialogue in the last couple of years.

India, on its part, had exercised some restraint in responding to the international debate on the U.S. plans for missile defences. Curbing its traditional temptation to launch into an attack mode, India reacted in a low-key manner to the NMD. India certainly cautioned the U.S. against a unilateral termination of the ABM Treaty and pointed to the dangers of militarisation of outer space. But unlike China, Russia and France, it was unwilling to get into a confrontation with the U.S. on missile defences.

The Indian reserve on the NMD has turned out to be a prudent move. Sensing the depth of the U.S. political commitment to the NMD, the West Europeans have begun to tone down their criticism. They propose, instead, to engage Washington in order to influence American policy. Russia is opposed to the NMD, but has come up with its own proposals for defences against missiles. Negotiations have now been set on the subject between the U.S. and Russia. China continues to campaign against the NMD, but it is within reason to expect that Washington and Beijing would soon talk about defences.

The U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, is also believed to have offered to talk to India on the NMD. This should provide a much wider template for a future Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue. It would open the door for the two sides to review together where the idea of nuclear deterrence is headed in the new millennium. It should also create new room for thinking about the best possible means to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the prospects for bilateral cooperation in the future.

India could adopt a positive attitude towards the emergence of missile defences, if it is part of a considered shift to a more credible nuclear order. Four elements may be critical in shaping India's approach to missile defences. One, the NMD must be accompanied by deep cuts in existing nuclear arsenals. India also believes the nuclear arsenals of the major powers must move towards a less threatening posture. Deep nuclear cuts could be an important step towards the long proclaimed Indian objective of total nuclear abolition.

Two, the transition to a defence-oriented nuclear regime must be through negotiations and widest possible consultations among the nuclear powers in order to ensure stability. Russia itself might not be averse to a negotiated modification of the ABM treaty. Three, there is a strong need for political and technological cooperation among the major powers in promoting a defensive nuclear regime. In the U.S., itself, the idea of cooperating with others has been central in the evolution of the thinking on defences.

Four, in the creation of a more effective international regime against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. needs to treat India as part of the solution and not the problem. That logic was built into the Jaswant-Talbott dialogue but could not be taken to its logical conclusion because of the basic limitations of the nuclear thinking within the Clinton Administration. But the nuclear departures being proposed by the Bush Administration may hold out the prospect, if only over the longer term, for a better nuclear understanding between New Delhi and Washington.

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