Pakistan’s nuclear bazar

Bush and AlBaradei differ on the future role of nuclear weapons. The answer is obvious: their universal abolition, which would facilitate a more robust non-proliferation global order. The dominant source of global threat, from non-state terrorist groups, could hardly be deterred by classical nuclear deterrence or, for that matter, defended against by measures like missile defences. But the US administration’s policies actually seek a renewed role for nuclear weapons in the future, albeit in smaller quantities.

We find that in spite of tightened control regimes, the nuclear bazaar has prospered far beyond anything anyone had predicted, with buyers and sellers from countries around the globe. It would be short-sighted to assume that this proliferation to Pakistan and its mushrooming outward from there took place before the non-proliferation regime was strengthened in the early 1990s. Pakistan’s nuclear import-export has gone on for a long time, and damning Pakistan and its army by itself would not eliminate future dangers.

The basic, and even unpalatable, point must be recognised, that Pakistan (and India and Israel for that matter) has not been under any international regime, treaty or legal obligation not to transfer nuclear technology beyond its frontiers. The only restraint that could operate grows from its own sense of responsibility. But when its proliferation to recipients itself has been pursued in “good faith” and for Islamic causes, as A.Q. Khan would have us believe, then we need to look beyond the self-restraint paradigm. After all, General Zia ul-Haq had stated at an OIC meeting in November 1986 that Pakistan was collaborating with “some Muslim nations” on uses of nuclear technology and would welcome cooperation with other Islamic countries. That is about the time transfers to Iran and Libya started.

The success of a global non-proliferation regime has been greatly hampered by the NPT-centric approach to non-proliferation where the acknowledged weapons states are assumed to be responsible and the non-nuclear countries bound under denial regimes. This has been made worse by non-fulfilment of commitments made under the NPT by responsible members of the international community. Unfortunately, Pakistan proves the validity of this approach. The problem in our region has been tied into another Gordian knot by the US-led India-Pakistan hyphenation. It seems that, in an extension of its “cap-reduce-eliminate” mantra, the US even expected India to institute export controls after the 1998 tests before pressing Pakistan to do so! One can only hope that now the innate desire for hyphenation would be discarded.

Bush’s seven-point plan affects us with regard to its desire for universal application of the additional protocol to the IAEA safeguards agreement. But this would require all nuclear facilities and infrastructure to be placed under intrusive international inspection. For obvious reasons, India, which stood outside the NPT accepting IAEA safeguards only selectively and maintains nuclear weapons like the P-5, albeit at a very modest scale, cannot agree to such a proposal. For the protocol to be acceptable to India, its terms would have to be negotiated to mutual satisfaction based on ground realities. Although the traditional non-proliferation community in the US may be expected to oppose it, this should not pose a major handicap since the “glide path” agreement for US cooperation with India on nuclear energy, space, dual-technology, etc, was announced last month when the scope of recent Pakistani proliferation was public knowledge.

Conventional wisdom would have it that tightening export controls would put an end to future proliferation. Such controls are necessary in the context of increasing privatisation and globalisation of markets, and technology. But they would remain of little value where organs of the state, as in Pakistan, undertake clandestine trade in “good faith” for ideological or strategic reasons. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are a reality. What may be possible is to bring Pakistan (and India) into formal, legally binding commitments. This cannot be the NPT, the wishful thinking of non-proliferationists notwithstanding. India will not sign the NPT as that can only be done as a non-nuclear weapons state.

For India to be an active partner in global non-proliferation, it must have adequate incentive to be one. One option would be to evolve a suitable protocol to the NPT which would put it in a category in accordance with ground realities; but which may open the way for voluntary IAEA safeguards on its facilities not tied to national security, join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and normalise trade in the nuclear arena. Meanwhile, the new US-India glide path agreement must be given high priority.