The civilian nuclear cooperation deal between the United States and
India, which President George W. Bush signed into law last week, has
been controversial from the moment it was first outlined in New Delhi
about three years ago. It would allow Washington to trade nuclear
technology with New Delhi despite the fact that India is a de facto
nuclear weapons state outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT).
Critics of the deal insist, fairly convincingly, that doing so would
cause irreparable harm to the nonproliferation regime, leaving the
non-nuclear weapon states that abide by the NPT to question what
tangible benefits exist for dutifully assuming their treaty obligations
and submitting to NPT restrictions. Conversely, supporters of the deal
legitimately point out that the benefits of a good relationship between
India and the United States outweigh any potential harm. As with most
things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle--it's unlikely
that the nonproliferation regime would remain unscathed, but it's quite
possible that the damage could be contained.
A major sticking point for critics is that the deal actually makes
it easier for India to continue producing fissile material for its
nuclear weapons program by allowing New Delhi access to the world
market in nuclear fuel for its power reactors, thereby freeing its
scarce uranium resources for the production of weapons-usable plutonium
in dedicated reactors that are exempt from any international
safeguards. Moreover, India's breeder reactor program--another
potential source of weapon-grade plutonium--is also free from
safeguards. It's hardly encouraging that India would have the
capability to increase its stock of weapon materials, but in reality,
this doesn't much matter--probably the main reason why India got away
with keeping that capability. There seems to be a worldwide consensus
that once New Delhi crossed the nuclear threshold, the amount of
weapons in its arsenal is unimportant. In fact, in some important
aspects this is exactly the case--beyond its symbolic value India's
nuclear arsenal hardly provides any security for the country. Indeed,
if the U.S.-India nuclear deal helps strengthen this understanding, it
provides some silver lining to the nuclear arrangement's drawbacks.
The deal could also provide a much needed incentive for a critical
review of some of the current nonproliferation regime's assumptions.
One such assumption is implicit in Article VI of the NPT--nuclear
weapon states and their close allies have control over nuclear
technologies. This is still largely true for advanced commercially
viable technologies, but the monopoly on weapon-relevant technology is
firmly in the past. An idea that emerged during discussion of the
U.S.-India nuclear deal was to ban the transfer of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies to India, supposedly to limit its ability to
ramp up production of weapon materials. Limiting production of
weapon-grade materials is a reasonable goal, but if the only approach
is to deny a country access to advanced centrifuges or reprocessing
plants, that battle is already lost.
Similarly, much ink has been spilled over the effort to have India
commit to a moratorium on nuclear testing as part of the deal. The
intent behind the idea was certainly laudable. But if the threat of
cutting off the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors is our best hope to
prevent India from nuclear testing, the effort to prevent new nuclear
tests is in big trouble.
Without a doubt, the U.S.-India nuclear deal presents a serious
challenge to the NPT. But it also presents an opportunity to
strengthening the regime and its most important, relevant elements. In
particular, for all of its problems and challenges, the NPT has
successfully established a norm that assumes that countries shouldn't
have nuclear weapons. The official signing of the U.S.-India nuclear
deal is a good time to remind New Delhi that if it wants to be a
responsible partner in the nuclear trade, it must assume the
obligations that come with this norm--even if India never signed the
NPT. Of course, this would require the nuclear weapon states to get
serious about their NPT obligations and responsibilities as well. And
that's not such a bad thing either.
