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Journalism of Courage
US ambassador Dennis Kux, in the title of his book, Estranged Democracies, had encapsulated the nature of relations between the world8217;s largest democracy and the most powerful, over the period which coincided with the Cold War 8212; 1947-91. By the time history crossed the last chapter of the book, estrangement had started to move on to engagement. And like in all engagements, there are moments of euphoria, of great expectations often far above what is possible or probable, and worries about actions that look different from different perspectives half way across the world and from an asymmetrical power equation.
Given the emerging constellation of global power and international equations, the shift from estrangement to engagement was almost inevitable. It is therefore but natural that the Bush-Manmohan meeting would have produced reinforced optimism in spite of a new government in New Delhi and a lame duck administration in Washington under siege for its Iraq War.
The core conceptual issue is whether building future India-US relations, or 8220;next steps8221; in that process, are to be along a linear path or along multiple parallel paths where each individual path may or may not be necessarily conditioned by linearity. Obviously, NSSP issues are very important. But they cannot, and must not, be allowed to become the central touchstone of bilateral relations. It is also clear that at every step in this process, Americans are likely to feel that they are moving rapidly and Indians would feel the progress too slow and cumbersome. But if we look at the overall relationship in terms of parallel paths, the report card is far more positive than is generally realised. Look at the points of convergence: economic trade and technology issues with US companies outsourcing R038;D to India, US investments in the Indian economy, transnational terrorism, energy security on which depends India8217;s human development and America8217;s quality of life, defence co-operation which seems to lag in spite of high-profile military to military contacts and exercises, and so on.
It is in this context that we come back to one issue in the NSSP: nuclear power 8212; and no-proliferation. Both President Bush and Senator John Kerry have named nuclear proliferation as 8220;the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States8221;. Given the past record and the non-proliferation hawks in the US, this has been, and is likely to remain, a major stumbling block in our bilateral relations. But it is surprising that the much admired US strategic culture fails to recognise that US policies only lead to retarding India8217;s capability to remove poverty and improve human lives without in any way affecting the object of the US non-proliferation target: our nuclear weapons capability.
The trouble is that strategic thinking in the US 8212; which has generally been admired 8212; has been stuck in the groove of linearity of global nuclear non-proliferation although official policy in practice is driven much more by country-specific interests. Take Pakistan, for example 8212; the world8217;s most recent and biggest nuclear proliferator 8212; being made a major non-NATO ally! Or the way Washington happily abandoned its non-proliferation policy to allow Pakistan to build its nuclear weapons capability in the 8217;80s while creating the Mujahideen that ultimately undertook the Islamic jihad that the US is now fighting! Or the recent study, Universal Compliance, led by George Perkovich, vice-president of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, that lists eight policy recommendations which require action by India without pointing to a single incentive for it to do so!
The challenge for both India and the US is to reconcile non-proliferation policies with the imperatives of nuclear power for India. China, accused by the US for decades as the largest proliferator, is adding 40,000 MW of nuclear power to its existing 6,500MW from nine reactors capacity by 2020 8212; mostly with foreign assistance. India, which can at best hope to achieve its target of 20,000 MW by that time from the present level of 2,500 MW produced by 14 reactors, is denied assistance to enlarge its civilian capacity even under international safeguards.
Strobe Talbott, former under secretary of state in the Clinton administration, has argued for adopting a 8216;528217; formula whereby 8220;India and Pakistan would earn a degree of leniency in exchange for their yielding to international arms control measures and non-proliferation safeguards8221;. In a way this can be achieved most effectively through adding a protocol to the NPT, as suggested by Thomas Graham and Anver Cohen in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists a few months ago. This idea needs further exploration in spite of long-held beliefs about the NPT on both sides. The major problem for non-proliferation is to control the nuclear materials.
The menu of parallel steps, therefore, would include other measures like a treaty to stop future production of weapon grade material, a treaty cosponsored by India and the US in 8217;93. Now that the US has shown willingness to start negotiations on this treaty, we should give it an additional momentum. But tangible progress in opening up cooperation in nuclear power would be necessary if a stronger stimulus for working together on non-proliferation is to be provided.
