U.S. n-assistance to India, Pak.?

By C. Raja Mohan

BANGKOK, AUG. 5. Will the United States, after years of opposing the nuclear programmes of India and Pakistan, now try and ensure that their nuclear arsenals remain safe and secure? The advent of the Bush administration has sharpened the debate in the U.S. between those calling for such nuclear assistance in the name of realism and those who oppose it citing the principle of non- proliferation.

The new U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, is in the camp of the realists. Suggesting that the U.S. cannot expect to reverse the nuclear programmes of India and Pakistan, he says such assistance to help stabilise the nuclear equation in the subcontinent may be pragmatic.

In a recent interview to the CNN, Mr. Rumsfeld said the U.S. and others must and try and ``be helpful to both India and Pakistan, to see that they develop the kind of capabilities, management, controls and confidence-building measures and warning systems and understandings'' so that the likelihood of those weapons ``being made use of is lowered to the point that it's near zero''.

But there are many others in Washington who think any suggestion of such ``nuclear stability assistance'' is heretical. Those voices come from the arms control ayatollahs who believe any such assistance will set a very bad example. Such assistance, they argue, is tantamount to ``rewarding'' proliferators such as India and Pakistan, and undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the U.S. laws. The pragmatists would argue that if there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, it is the laws that must change and not the reality.

The U.S. institutions and bureaucracies committed to promoting nuclear non-proliferation are bound to oppose any such assistance to India and Pakistan. But a genuine debate appears to be under way in the U.S.

Gen. Henry Shelton, Chairman of the U.S. Joint chiefs of Staff, was asked during his visit to India last month whether the U.S. would consider such assistance. Without committing himself to any outcome, Gen. Shelton indicated that the issue could figure in the coming talks between the defence establishments of India and the U.S.

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It appears that under the Bush administration the balance has shifted in favour of the realists, who were smothered during the Clinton years by the ideologues of nuclear non- proliferation.

One such leading ideologue, Mr. Robert Einhorn, held sway over the U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy in the State Department for the entire period of the Clinton administration.

The very affable Mr. Einhorn, with his sharp intellect and savvy bureaucratic skills, was determined to prevent any dilution of the non-proliferation ideology by the regional specialists who came to the problem from an entirely different perspective. Mr. Einhorn was a key player in the nuclear dialogue during 1998-2000 between the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott. Those privy to the details of the dialogue believe Mr. Einhorn's rigidity was probably one reason why the Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue could not eventually clinch that elusive nuclear deal.

With Mr. Einhorn now heading to the world of think tanks in Washington, there will be an expectation in New Delhi that the nuclear policy of the Bush administration will shift towards greater pragmatism and moderation in the coming years.

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The illogic of the global non-proliferation system, when it comes to dealing with India has been specially highlighted by France. In the post-Pokhran phase when the U.S. and others were trying to punish India for its nuclear audacity, France was working hard to prevent a tighter sanctions regime against India.

The French Special Envoy, Mr. Gerard Errera, recently in India for the seventh round of the strategic dialogue with Mr. Brajesh Mishra, pointed to one of the paradoxes of the nuclear non- proliferation system. From the point of view of non- proliferation, it makes a lot of sense to try and prevent the spread of military nuclear technology to those countries which do not have nuclear weapons.

But what sense is there, Mr. Errera asks, in blocking the sale of civilian technologies to a country such as India which already has nuclear weapons? Good question; but that precisely is what the current global rules on nuclear technology transfers do - deny nuclear power reactors to India.

New pragmatism on non-proliferation could eventually get the Americans, Russians and the French to move towards a regime that brings India on board the international regime on nuclear technology transfers and allow the sale of nuclear power reactors to India.

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The questions relating to nuclear instability in the subcontinent and how the U.S., India and Pakistan can address them is being discussed in an academic conference organised by the Stanford University here this week. The conference brings together experts and former policy makers from three countries.

Bangkok might appear an unlikely place to hold a conference on the security issues in the subcontinent.

But over the last decade, as international interest in the nuclearisation of the subcontinent grew, seminars on the security problems in the subcontinent have been held in the remotest parts of the world.

It used to be said once, ``join the peace movement and see the world''. During the international peace movements of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Indian intellectuals and political activists went all over the world to discuss issues of war and peace.

Since the 1990s, when the U.S. foundations began to put in a lot money into supporting research on the nuclear threat in South Asia, there has been a proliferation of seminars, conferences on the region's security problems.

This seminar circuit, however, may have done more than letting academics, retired diplomats, former soldiers, and journalists from the subcontinent travel round the world. It has helped achieve two important objectives in the region.

One is to generate greater awareness of the risks and problems associated with nuclear weapons and the importance of the effective management of these horrible weapons in the subcontinent.

The other is to create a community of scholars from India, Pakistan and the U.S. who interact with each other frequently, develop an understanding of the concerns of the others, and explore ground for common action.

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