During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow, President Putin made it clear that Russia expects to play a major role in future civil nuclear energy projects in India. But he saw this as part of a broader international cooperation on enabling India to have access to civil nuclear energy. He said, “As India continues to settle its problems with other countries, including those of NSG, we hope Russia will have an opportunity to participate and contribute to its huge projects and programmes for peaceful use of nuclear energy.” He further clarified that he believed that India was “taking all the necessary steps to build its relationship with the international community, including with the countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.(It) is separating its military and peaceful programmes. It has adopted the necessary legislation and is actively working with the members of the NSG.”The message from this is quite clear. Russia expects India to work towards the implementation of the July 18, 2005, agreement with Washington. Presumably the arguments put forward in India that separation of civil-military nuclear facilities was near impossible, or it would cost astronomical sums, could not sell in Russia. The expectations in some quarters that now that Washington has come forward to exceptionalise India, Moscow could be nudged to go further and carry out that exceptionalisation in advance of others, proved over-optimistic. Moscow wants a large slice of the civil nuclear market in India, but only as part of an agreed international exceptionalisation arrangement and not independent of that.That should make our decision makers work harder on the separation plan and start clarifying in their own minds the size of the Indian arsenal; how soon they want to build it up; and what number of reactors they want for that purpose. In addition, they will have to decide what other facilities they would like to keep out of the safeguards. This decision has not been reached though more than four months have passed since the Washington summit.Secondly, whatever our requirements, they have to be negotiated with the US administration which has to get them through the Congress, in spite of all opposition from the nuclear non-proliferation fundamentalists. Since the US administration took the initiative to come up with this offer, and are engaged in persuading the rest of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to go along with their proposal for India’s exceptionalisation from the NPT regime, we have to start with the assumption that the US administration has a stake in getting this arrangement through, and in their declared commitment to help India in its moves to become a world class power.India can, therefore, leverage the US stake in its negotiations with the US administration. The history of conclusion of July 18, 2005, agreement as well as preceding events establish that this Indian initiative is a ‘top down’ one, involving President Bush, Secretary Rice, her deputy Zoellek, Councilor Zelikow and Under Secretary Burns. Therefore the hawkish pronouncements of various others can be ignored. As were made clear in the House of Representatives and the Senate, this issue is going to be decided on the basis of politico-strategic considerations, and not on the nitpicking issues on which a lot of news columns have been wasted.There should be clarity on our side that this is not merely a technical issue solely decided by the Department of Atomic Energy but a strategic one in which politico-strategic judgments are involved at the highest leadership level. No doubt some risk taking is involved. That risk has to be calculated on the basis of broad world views. The greatest risk we suffer from, is the cold war mentality, obsolete views about nuclear war and strategy and the role of nuclear weapons in international strategy.President Putin has rendered a service in indicating that India has to get its nuclear exceptionalisation internationally acceptable if at all it is to have a civil nuclear future. If we start negotiating, we may find that there are friends on the other side who have high stakes in reaching agreement. The costs of delay and inaction could be ruinous. The opportunity India has been presented with is analogous to the one Henry Kissinger presented to China in 1971. Mao and Zhou did not let it go. Are we going to be less far sighted?
