Theodore Taylor, a former US nuclear weapons testing expert, says that to be able to build boosted fission and fusion weapons would require a full-scale testing programme at yields between a quarter to the full yield of the intended warhead. Going by his advice and by several reports of the US government, India cannot become a nuclear weapons power without undertaking a proper testing programme.
Ashley Tellis, a key architect of the original India-US nuclear deal, has himself concluded that India cannot be credited with the capability to build boosted fission and fusion weapons. Further, he has even pleaded with the US Congress not to insist on extracting an Indian commitment to put a stop to nuclear testing, mindful of Indian sovereignty. Our own negotiating team did not seem to care.
Former, current and future Superpowers are all boosting their nuclear werewithal in preparation for what they see as an insecure future in a time of global power transition amidst a rising scarcity of natural resources. But we in India have decided that since we conducted six little, controversial tests, we have already become masters of all things nuclear. Our hubris will prove our undoing.
The irony couldn't be greater. At a memorial lecture in honour of Dr. Raja Ramanna, one of the key members of the team that conducted the 1974 N-test and who requested Indira Gandhi's permission to conduct a second round of tests in 1983, the country's chief negotiator on the India-US nuclear 'deal' declared that India was unlikely to conduct a nuclear test in the future.
United States President George Bush is to sign the Hyde Act into law on Monday. The Act will govern the terms of a future India-US nuclear cooperation agreement. Although both the US and Indian establishments have claimed that the bill does not constrain India’s nuclear weapons programme, its critics in India are worried that several of the bill’s provisions are designed to do exactly that.
The Hyde Act enabling the US to negotiate an agreement with India to resume nuclear trade with the latter is about to become law. But what does the Bill say exactly and how will it impact India's interests?
The striking thing about this nuclear ‘deal’ and this long drawn-out legislation process, which has produced the ‘Hyde Act’ on India-US nuclear cooperation is that it was not necessary at all.
In early December, the ball will be in India’s court. But at least three unacceptable clauses will likely remain. First, the reporting requirements; second, the bill prohibits the transfer of reprocessing technologies; third, the bills stipulate that nuclear cooperation will end if India tests again.
The India-US relationship has shaped up into the first post-Cold War alliance between two major powers. It is the most important bilateral relationship of the twenty first century. It will be a tragedy if failure over the nuclear deal were allowed to damage this relationship.
If a lot of strategic experts are still wondering whether the US Congress will pass the final nuclear deal bill in a way that does not seek to halt India’s nuclear progress, they must remember something about the nature of nuclear weapons and their owners: nuclear weapons allow their possessors to raise their ambitions, and they allow them to pursue independent foreign policies.
The Democrats are likely to make reconciliation of the House and Senate versions of the bill more difficult, especially any attempts to address Indian concerns over the several unacceptable clauses and references in the Senate version. That is, if the bill comes up for consideration at all in the Senate during the ‘lame duck’ session.
After being put through months of anxiety as Indian negotiators seemed to be ‘selling out’ on the nuclear deal with the US, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech in the Rajya Sabha in mid-August and his subsequent meeting with former heads of the nuclear establishment have afforded the nation a measure of relief.
After the heated debates of the past months over the Manmohan Singh-George Bush nuclear deal, it is now perhaps time to sit down and re-evaluate India’s objectives as well as the deal being considered in the US Congress as we wait for the Senate to take up the S. 3709 Bill in November.
Ultimately, there is more than one way in which to produce power for the electrical grid. But there is only one currency of power in international politics, one guarantee of security in a world of nuclear weapons states – the possession of and readiness to use a large and high-quality nuclear arsenal. The nuclear deal being offered will endanger even our existing small, nuclear weapon capability.
First the Americans said the nuclear deal was for building a 'strategic partnership' with India. India applauded. Then the Americans said it was meant to achieve non-proliferation goals. Our government accepted that too. Those seeking enlightenment surrender to the Buddha. Manmohan Singh and Shyam Saran, seeking 'enlightened national interest', are surrendering the 'smiling Buddha' itself.
During President Bush's visit to Delhi, Indian scientists had insisted on nuclear fuel supply guarantees and managed to get assurances from the US delegation. But the much bandied about 'ironclad guarantees' are about to become an 'ironcladding' around India to bind it to American non-proliferation objectives, and a 'guarantee' for the US that it can have India so bound and beholden.
Up until now, India’s entire nuclear programme has been a closely guarded affair, with no parliamentary control over it. Jawaharlal Nehru instituted this arrangement in the 1940s to protect a fledgling nation’s fledgling nuclear programme from superpower pressures. Now that the PM himself is seeking to subject it to international inspections, the parliament must demand to be in charge.
America has only one choice. The world's lone superpower has to maintain stable international arrangements for the sake of perpetuating its own global pre-eminence. To do so, America must somehow integrate India into that order to prevent stresses from developing in it due to the combination of India's rising power and the freedom of action it has because of its outsider status.
In all the brouhaha over whether India should submit its fast breeder reactors to safeguards or not, the debate seems to have overlooked the crucial question that India should want an answer to when President Bush comes visiting: what kind of legislation and final agreement is the US Congress likely to ratify? Would they have implications for India’s military nuclear programme?
The Bush administration says, 'India's pledge to maintain its nuclear testing moratorium contributes to non-proliferation efforts by making its ending of nuclear explosive tests one of the conditions of full civil nuclear cooperation.' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ‘pledged’ to the Indian Parliament that nothing in the nuclear deal ‘amounts to limiting or inhibiting our nuclear weapons program
The story of the mongoose that saved a baby from a snake only to be killed by its rash mother flashed across my mind several times this past week as I read one writer after another accuse India’s nuclear scientists of every conceivable kind of undemocratic behaviour – simply because Dr. Anil Kakodkar wouldn’t allow the Breeder programme to be placed under safeguards as demanded by the US.
Even after the India-US deal, nuclear commerce will remain hostage to congressional reviews of Indian good behaviour. This is true for any sort of cooperation agreement the US Congress might ratify, except if India is excepted from all American non-proliferation laws and freed from reviews. The US Congress can stop nuclear cooperation for any reason at any point of time.
The July 18 India-US Joint Statement was a result of a Bush administration initiative to find new allies who could help it counter rising China. Subsequently, however, it turned into a second-order non-proliferation effort.The time to either redeem or reject this deal is now.
