Nuclear energy, not weapons, matters

Nearer home, India claimed weapon power status in 1998, but this did not frighten Nepal and, notwithstanding the benign liberation of Bangladesh, mutually beneficial cooperation remains inhibited. Germany and Japan, with their economic strength, enjoy greater prestige than nuclear UK and France.

Nehru was the first statesman who warned of the pitfalls of nuclear explosions. He might have been wrong on Hungary and China, but he was prophetically right on the abuse of nuclear science. He instructed his envoys to be the first to sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963) and he would have signed CTBT if it had been advanced in his lifetime. Rather than be with Israel and Pakistan, he might have signed the NPT in 1968 and remained in step with 185 nations to crusade for nuclear disarmament.

Whether it is by politicians, strategists or scientists, the current debate on a nuclear deal with the US, which will be followed by 123 negotiations with the IAEA and subsequently with the Nuclear Suppliers Group, is a part-corrective of earlier misjudgements. The deal would entitle us to fuel and reactors for energy augmentation not just from the US but also from Russia, France, and other countries. The fundamentals hinge on the Law of Probability and economic opportunity costs. Those imprisoned by the past overlook the priority to accelerate social justice.

MacGeorge Bundy, who died more than a decade ago, in his Danger and Survival (1988), prophesied that by the first decade of the 21st century, the chances of nuclear conflagration will be 1 in 800. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis (when Bundy was security advisor to Kennedy), the world came closest to an unintended nuclear war. Khrushchev had placed missiles in Cuba as a defensive precaution. However, when discovered, he withdrew them, even in humiliation. Bundy stands vindicated after 19 years. Mathematically, every subsequent decade saw the odds of nuclear war being halved. However, since the sixties, from one district under Naxalites the area beyond law and order has steadily increased — a reported 172 districts, one-fourth of India, is now under Naxalite control.

Whatever the ideology, no government now contemplates a first strike risking retaliatory destruction, but terrorists with no responsibility are more likely to explode a crude nuclear device. Not surprisingly American cognoscenti (two Republicans and two Democrats, all earlier hawks) have now adopted India’s earlier aim to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Of course the nuclear genie including Soviet, Chinese, French, British, India’s Pokharan, Pakistan’s Baluchistan explosions cannot be bottled but, subjective satisfaction aside, the quest for greater security points to enabling more energy to fulfil people’s aspirations.

Our failure to get gas from Bangladesh is like the US in Iraq. While economic and technological development grows unrelentingly, military power, paradoxically, has atrophied. In war one can demand unconditional surrender, in diplomacy negotiations. National interest can be augmented by semantic ambiguity. Domestic compulsions of sovereign partners must be respected, especially in democracies with vigilant domestic constituencies. The New South Wales premier and non-proliferation liberals are opposed to the ‘exception’ proposed for India. The Law of Probability should be understood for the sake of the poor, distributional justice and accelerated economic growth.

The writer is a former foreign secretary