[Senate Prints 109-39]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
109th Congress S. Prt.
1st Session COMMITTEE PRINT 109-39
_______________________________________________________________________
U.S.-INDIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY COOPERATION: SECURITY AND NONPROLIFERATION
IMPLICATIONS
__________
A COMPILATION OF STATEMENTS BY WITNESSES
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
Richard G. Lugar, Chairman
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire BILL NELSON, Florida
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska BARACK OBAMA, Illinois
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Letter of Introduction........................................... v
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, Minority
Leader, Senate Foreign Relations Committee..................... 4
Burns, Hon. R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political
Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC................... 6
Carter, Hon. Ashton B., Codirector, Preventive Defense Project,
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 31
Joseph, Hon. Robert G., Under Secretary for Arms Control and
International Security, State Department, Washington, DC....... 14
Krepon, Michael, Cofounder and President Emeritus, Henry L.
Stimson Center, Washington, DC................................. 62
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, Chairman,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee............................. 1
Lehman, Hon. Ronald F., II, Director, Center for Global Security
Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Ca 23
Sokolski, Henry D., Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy
Education Center, Washington, DC............................... 38
Viewgraphs................................................... 43
India's ICBM: On a ``Glide Path'' to Trouble................. 50
Feeding the Nuclear Fire..................................... 57
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Einhorn, Hon. Robert J., Senior Adviser, International Security
Program, CSIS, Washington, DC:
Letter to Senator Lugar...................................... 67
Recommended Modifications of U.S. Law and NSG Guidelines..... 70
Prepared statement........................................... 71
(iii)
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
----------
United States Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC, November 4, 2005.
Dear Colleague: On November 2, the Foreign Relations
Committee held a hearing titled ``U.S.-Indian Nuclear Energy
Cooperation: Security and Nonproliferation Implications.''
Because of the great importance we attach to the
committee's consideration of this matter we wish to make
available to you the statements and record inserts from our
witnesses.
The witnesses for this hearing were: Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns; Under Secretary
of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert G.
Joseph; the Honorable Ronald F. Lehman, II, Director of the
Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory and formerly Director of the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency; the Honorable Ashton B. Carter,
Co-Director of Preventive Defense Project and Professor at
Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and
International Security and formerly Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Policy; Henry D. Sokolski,
Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education
Center; and, Michael Krepon, Co-Founder and President Emeritus
of the Henry L. Stimson Center. This document also contains
supplementary material from the Honorable Robert J. Einhorn,
Senior Adviser, International Security Program, Center for
Strategic and International Studies, and formerly Assistant
Secretary of State for Nonproliferation. Because the topic of
this hearing is at the forefront of public debate, we wanted to
make it available to you and your staff.
Please let us know if you have any questions or comments
regarding this hearing or the other hearings on this subject.
Sincerely,
Richard G. Lugar,
Chairman.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.,
Ranking Democratic Member.
Opening Statement of
HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR
U.S. Senator From Indiana,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
november 2, 2005
----------
The Foreign Relations Committee meets today to consider the
Joint Statement issued by President Bush and the Prime Minister
of India on July 18, 2005. This document stands as a milestone
in the U.S.-Indian relationship. It covers the full range of
economic, political, and security issues, as well as matters
related to nuclear energy cooperation, and has the potential to
bring our two countries closer together than ever before.
India is an important emerging power on the world stage. It
enjoys a vibrant democracy, a rapidly growing economy, and
increasing influence in world affairs. Indians have come to the
United States to study in our universities, to work in our
industries, and to live here as citizens. It is clearly in the
interests of the United States to develop a strong strategic
relationship with India.
At this point, let me pause for a moment to express the
committee's condolences and sympathy for the people of India,
who suffered a terrible terrorist attack over the weekend in
New Delhi. We fully support India in its battle against
terrorism.
Although the Joint Statement covers many areas of policy,
commentary has focused narrowly on the nuclear energy section,
which states that India will be treated as ``a responsible
state with advanced nuclear technology.'' Critics and advocates
acknowledge that this represents a departure from previous U.S.
policies and international practices.
India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, the foundation of international efforts to stop the
spread of nuclear weapons. India has developed a nuclear
weapons arsenal, in conflict with the goals of the treaty. New
Delhi in 1974 violated bilateral pledges it made to Washington
not to use U.S.-supplied nuclear materials for weapons
purposes. More recently, Indian scientists have faced United
States sanctions for providing nuclear information to Iran.
India's nuclear record with the international community
also has been unsatisfying. It has not acknowledged or placed
under effective international safeguards all of its facilities
involved in nuclear work, and its nuclear tests in 1998
triggered widespread condemnation and international sanctions.
Prior to the July 18 Joint Statement, India had repeatedly
sought, unsuccessfully, to be recognized as an official nuclear
weapons state, a status the NPT reserves only for the United
States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
Opponents argue that granting India such status will undermine
the essential bargain that is at the core of the NPT--namely,
that only by foregoing nuclear weapons can a country gain
civilian nuclear assistance. They observe that permitting India
to retain nuclear weapons while it receives the same civilian
nuclear benefits as nations that have forsworn weapons programs
would set a harmful precedent that would encourage other
nations to take India's path. New Delhi has long claimed that
the NPT is discriminatory, and that the international community
has instituted what it calls a ``nuclear apartheid'' against
it.
Implementation of the July 18 Joint Statement requires
congressional consent, as well as modifications to
nonproliferation laws and an American commitment to work with
allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil
nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India. This
committee, and ultimately the entire Congress, must determine
what effect the Joint Statement will have on U.S. efforts to
halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To date,
no associated legislative proposals have been offered by the
administration. Likewise, there does not appear to be a
specific Indian timetable to fulfill its obligations under the
Joint Statement.
India has agreed, according to the Statement, to ``assume
the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same
benefits and advantages as other leading countries with
advanced nuclear technology.'' These responsibilities include
seven specific action steps:
(1) Identifying and separating civilian and military
nuclear facilities and programs in a phased manner and
declaring them to the IAEA;
(2) Voluntarily placing its civilian nuclear
facilities under IAEA safeguards;
(3) Signing and adhering to an Additional Protocol;
(4) Continuing India's unilateral moratorium on
nuclear testing;
(5) Working with the United States to conclude a
multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty;
(6) Refraining from the transfer of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies to states that do not have
them and supporting international efforts to limit
their spread; and
(7) Complying with the Missile Technology Control
Regime (MTCR) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)
guidelines.
There are four key questions that today's hearing seeks to
answer. First, how does civil nuclear cooperation strengthen
the United States-Indian strategic relationship and why is it
so important? Second, how does the Joint Statement address
United States concerns about India's nuclear programs and
policies? Third, what effects will the Joint Statement have on
other proliferation challenges such as Iran and North Korea and
the export policies of Russia and China? Fourth, what impact
will the Joint Statement have on the efficacy and future of the
NPT and the international nonproliferation regime?
Today's hearing will consist of two panels. On the first
panel, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas
Burns, and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security, Robert Joseph, will lay out the
administration's case for the July Joint Statement. They are
both friends of this committee, and I want to express my
personal appreciation for their efforts to meet with Senators
on this and other important issues.
On the second panel, we will hear from several outside
experts. Ronald Lehman, formerly Director of the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency and currently Director of the
Center for Global Security Research at Livermore National
Laboratory, and Ashton Carter, codirector of the Preventive
Defense Project, will present their views to the committee. Dr.
Lehman and Dr. Carter are cochairmen of the Non-Proliferation
Policy Advisory Group, an informal panel of experts that I have
convened to examine nonproliferation issues. They are joined by
Mr. Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Non-Proliferation
Policy Education Center, and Mr. Michael Krepon, cofounder and
President Emeritus of the Henry L. Stimson Center.
We appreciate the appearance of all our witnesses and look
forward to their testimony.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.
U.S. Senator from Delaware,
Minority Leader, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman, as you and I both know, there may be no more
urgent issue for our country than nuclear nonproliferation.
Today's hearing addresses some of the most difficult aspects of
this issue, and I am grateful to you for assembling such
excellent witnesses to help us.
I hope that this is only the first of several hearings on
nuclear trade between the United States and India. The matter
is complex and Congress will be asked to legislate on it, so we
need careful consultation with the executive branch. And I am
sure you agree that any needed legislation on this matter
should go through the Foreign Relations Committee.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty includes this basic
bargain: Countries that renounce nuclear weapons gain the right
to civil nuclear cooperation with the world's nuclear powers.
The NPT and this bargain at its core have deterred many
countries from pursuing nuclear weapons.
Several countries did not sign the NPT--including India and
Pakistan, which openly tested nuclear weapons, and Israel,
which is presumed to have them.
Past practice has been to ignore or reject the status of
new entrants to the nuclear ``club,'' and to forswear nuclear
commerce with them. This has not stopped those countries from
developing nuclear weapons, but it may have slowed or limited
their progress.
We are left with the problem of how to assure that these
countries do not become proliferators themselves or lead other
countries to develop nuclear weapons, as well as the concern
that a forthright nonproliferation policy might sour our
relations with important and otherwise friendly countries.
President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Singh propose to
change the rules for India. The United States would seek
changes in U.S. law and in NSG Guidelines to permit ``full
civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.''
India, in return, would separate its civil nuclear
facilities from its military ones, put its civil facilities
under IAEA safeguards, and sign and implement an Additional
Protocol with the IAEA. It would work with the United States on
a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, continue its
moratorium on nuclear testing, and improve its export control
regime.
I strongly support closer relations between the United
States and India. India is not only the world's most populous
democracy, but also a major power in the region and a long-
standing contributor to world progress in technology,
philosophy and the arts. India and the United States are
natural partners.
At the same time, both countries must ensure that closer
relations do not lead to further nuclear proliferation. If we
were to undermine nuclear nonproliferation, even by accident,
the cost to the world--in an increased risk of nuclear war or
terrorism--would be a terrible legacy to leave.
And I wonder how good the July 18 deal really is. Critics
have charged that India's promises are unclear (regarding
separation of civil from military facilities) or nothing new
(on testing, a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and export
controls).
So, it is up to the administration to demonstrate that in
dealing with the dilemma of countries that have not signed the
NPT, it will strengthen nonproliferation, rather than turning
its back on over 50 years of U.S. policy. The July 18 Joint
Statement raises several questions that I hope our witnesses
will address today, among them:
(1) Will this open the door to nuclear cooperation
with Pakistan, even if that is not our intent?
(2) What implications would an India exemption have
for potential nuclear weapon states that have abided by
the bargain implicit in NPT? What concerns did other
countries raise at the recent Nuclear Suppliers Group
meeting?
(3) Will an ``India exemption'' decrease our ability
to forge a common front against the nuclear ambitions
of Iran and North Korea? Could Russia use the India
precedent to justify technology transfers to Tehran?
Could China use it to justify sales to Tehran or even
Pyongyang?
(4) Will India allow significant international
safeguards on its civilian nuclear entities? Will it
open as many facilities as possible to international
safeguards, as the United States does, or will it take
Russia or China as its model? Will it agree to
permanent safeguards on the civil nuclear facilities it
declares?
(5) How confident are we that India shares our
nonproliferation concerns? Why were two of its senior
scientists sanctioned a few months ago?
(6) How binding are the commitments that each side
made in the July 18 Joint Statement? If India were to
conduct a nuclear test or did not put many facilities
under safeguards, or if the U.S. Congress or the NSG
were to attach conditions to their ``India
exemptions,'' would the other country be released from
its promises?
(7) How can we assure that what we do regarding India
will further nonproliferation? Is there a useful way to
address the broader dilemma of nonsigners of the NPT,
rather than just India? And,
(8) How can we assure that what we do to preserve
nonproliferation equities will not undermine the
important United States-India relationship that we all
want to improve?
These are tough questions, but that is in the nature of
serious hearings. I look forward to the testimony of our
witnesses.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. R. NICHOLAS BURNS
Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Department of State, Washington,
DC
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for
inviting Under Secretary Joseph and me to discuss the current
state of our relations with India and, specifically the
development of full civil nuclear energy cooperation between
India and the United States. The July 18 visit of Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington marked a watershed in our
ties with the world's most populous democracy.
President Bush's desire to transform relations with India
is based on his conviction that, as he has said, ``This century
will see democratic India's arrival as a force in the world.''
We believe it is in our national interest to develop a strong,
forward-looking relationship with India as the political and
economic focus of the global system shifts toward Asia. We know
that many in Congress embrace this view. And the time is right.
The cold war, when India was the ultimate nonaligned nation and
the United States the ultimate aligned nation, is long past. It
is time to shift our United States-India relationship to a new,
strategic partnership for the decades ahead.
India is a rising global power with a rapidly growing
economy. Within the first quarter of this century, it is likely
to be included among the world's five largest economies. It
will soon be the world's most populous nation, and it has a
demographic distribution that bequeaths it a huge, skilled, and
youthful workforce. India's military forces will continue to be
large, capable, and increasingly sophisticated. Just like our
own, the Indian military remains strongly committed to the
principle of civilian control. Above all else, we know what
kind of country India will be decades from now. Like the United
States, India will thrive as a multiethnic, multireligious and
multilingual democracy, characterized by individual freedom,
rule of law and a constitutional government that owes its power
to free and fair elections.
Under Secretary Joseph and I are here as part of a
consultation process with both Houses of Congress to seek
eventually the adjustment of United States laws to accommodate
civil nuclear trade with India. We are at the very beginning of
that process. We will work closely with Congress to determine
the best way ahead.
Since President Bush agreed with Prime Minister Singh on
this nuclear initiative on July 18, we have discussed with many
of you individually where best to begin the decisionmaking
process with Congress. Both of us testified before the House
International Relations Committee in September. Secretary Rice
has briefed the Senate and House leadership on this initiative.
She is eager to engage with you in more detailed discussions in
the coming months. We have already had extensive briefings of
House and Senate staff, and we even invited House staff to
attend with us the meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in
Vienna, 2 weeks ago, dealing with the Indian civil nuclear
issue. In short, we have shared with the Congress our rationale
for the July 18 agreement and have consulted consistently and
in detail on our discussions with the Indian Government since
that time.
Secretary Rice, Under Secretary Joseph, and I look forward
to continuing this dialog. We recognize that the pace and scope
of the initiative requires close consultation with Congress and
we welcome your suggestions and advice as we move forward.
Indeed, we cannot go forward on this initiative without the
express consent of Congress. The advent of full United States
civil nuclear cooperation with India requires adjustments in
United States law. I had the privilege of negotiating the July
18 agreement for the United States and remain the principal
negotiator with the Indian Government. Based on my visit to New
Delhi 2 weeks ago, it is clear that it will take some time for
the Indian Government to fulfill all of the commitments it made
in the July 18 agreement. The actions India committed to
undertake are difficult, complex and time consuming. The
administration thus believes it is better to wait before we ask
Congress to consider any required legislative action until
India is further along in taking the necessary steps to fulfill
our agreement. I believe that will likely be in early 2006.
Our judgment is that it would not be wise or fair to ask
Congress to make such a consequential decision without evidence
that the Indian Government was acting on what is arguably the
most important of its commitments--the separation of its
civilian and military nuclear facilities. I told the Indian
leadership in Delhi, 2 weeks ago, that it must craft a credible
and transparent plan and have begun to implement it before the
administration would request congressional action.
My counterpart, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, assured me
that the Indian Government will produce such a plan. He
stressed last week to a domestic audience at the New Delhi-
based Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, ``It makes no
sense for India to deliberately keep some of its civilian
facilities out of its declaration for safeguards purposes, if
it is really interested in obtaining international cooperation
on as wide a scale as possible. As India begins to meet its
commitments under our agreement, we will propose appropriate
language that would be India-specific and would demonstrate our
dedication to a robust and permanent partnership.''
I have invited Foreign Secretary Saran to Washington in
December to continue our talks, and I intend to return to India
in January to further our understanding of India's plans to
separate its civil and military nuclear facilities. We will, of
course, keep the Congress fully apprised of all these
discussions. We hope very much that India can make the
necessary progress to allow us to refer legislation to Congress
by early 2006.
THE CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION INITIATIVE
Mr. Chairman, you requested that we answer three questions
in this hearing: First, why is it necessary to draw closer to
India; second, how would United States concerns about India's
nonproliferation policies be addressed by this agreement; and,
third, will our proposed policy change apply to countries other
than India? Under Secretary Joseph and I will respond to each
of your questions.
When Secretary Rice set out last spring to develop the
structure of such a partnership, we knew we would have to deal
with the one issue that has bedeviled United States-India
relations for the last 30 years--the nuclear issue.
We determined from the start that we could not recognize
India as a nuclear weapons state. Such a step would weaken
fundamentally the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and
would be logically inconsistent with U.S. policy under the last
seven American Presidents. It was equally clear that India
would not become a party to the NPT as a nonnuclear weapons
state.
We also knew that we would have to confront the more
difficult and complex issue of whether to work with India on
full civil nuclear cooperation. India had made this the central
issue in the new partnership developing between our countries.
As you know, past administrations had decided to forgo such
civil cooperation with India due to India's nuclear weapons
program and its status outside the nonproliferation regime. We
had to decide whether this policy remained consistent with U.S.
interests in building a strong nonproliferation regime and with
our obvious priority of improving relations with the world's
largest democracy.
Because India developed nuclear weapons outside the regime,
we had no existing cooperation between our civil nuclear energy
industries and, as such, no real influence on India's adherence
to the critical international nonproliferation standards that
are the bedrock of our efforts to limit the spread of nuclear
technology. While not formally part of the NPT regime, India
has demonstrated a strong commitment to protect fissile
materials and nuclear technology. Indeed, as other responsible
countries with advanced nuclear technology, India has resisted
proposals for nuclear cooperation with nuclear aspirants that
could have had adverse implications for international security.
We weighed the pros and cons of whether or not to seek
changes to U.S. policy and ask Congress for authorization to
begin full civil nuclear energy cooperation.
We decided that it was in the American interest to bring
India into compliance with the standards and practices of the
international nonproliferation regime. And, we decided that the
only way to reach that goal was to end India's isolation and
begin to engage it. India will soon have the largest population
in the world, and to consign it to a place outside that system
did not appear to be strategically wise and has not proven
effective.
Without such an agreement, India, with its large and
sophisticated nuclear capabilities, would continue to remain
outside the international export control regimes governing
commerce in sensitive nuclear and nuclear-related technologies.
With this agreement, given India's solid record in stemming and
preventing the proliferation of its nuclear technology over the
past 30 years, the United States and the international
community will benefit by asking India to open up its system,
to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities, and to
submit to international inspections and safeguards on its civil
facilities, thus allowing it to bring its civil nuclear program
into effective conformity with international standards.
India will assume the same nonproliferation
responsibilities as other responsible nations with civil
nuclear energy and will protect against diversion of items
either to India's weapons program or to other countries. United
States-Indian cooperation on nuclear energy will therefore help
strengthen the international order in a way that advances
widespread international equities in nuclear nonproliferation.
It also will allow India to develop much more quickly its own
civilian nuclear power industry, thus reducing demands on the
world energy market and in a way that provides clean energy for
the future.
This was not an easy choice. We do not live in an ideal
world. We concluded we had a better chance to have India meet
international nonproliferation standards if we engaged rather
than isolated it. We believe the resulting agreement advances
our strategic partnership and is a net gain for
nonproliferation. We do not plan to offer such cooperation to
any other country.
In addition to aligning ourselves with a country that
shares our democratic values and commitment to a multiethnic,
multireligious society, developing civil nuclear cooperation
with India will bring concrete benefits to the United States
and to the international community more broadly. Under
Secretary Joseph will address this initiative in detail, but
let me outline here some of the key reasons why we believe this
initiative makes excellent sense:
Security Benefits: All the steps that India pledged
on July 18 strengthen the international
nonproliferation regime, and all align with our efforts
to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
India's September vote in the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) that found Iran in noncompliance
with its nuclear obligations reflects India's coming of
age as a responsible state in the global
nonproliferation mainstream.
Environmental Benefits: Nuclear energy is one of the
few proven sources of energy that does not emit
greenhouse gases, and thus can help India modernize in
an environmentally friendly manner that does not damage
our common atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
Commercial Benefits: As a result of our involvement
in India's civil nuclear industry, United States
companies will be able to enter India's lucrative and
growing energy market, potentially providing jobs for
thousands of Americans.
Energy Benefits: India's expertise in basic science
and applied engineering will add significant resources
and substantial talent in the development of fusion as
a cheap energy source if India can participate in the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
program and help make the next generation of reactors
safer, more efficient and more proliferation-resistant
as a member of the Generation-IV Forum (GIF).
THE BROADER RELATIONSHIP
Although our civil nuclear initiative has garnered the most
attention, it is only part of a much broader and deeper
strategic partnership with India, something that has not really
been possible until now.
In late June, Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed a New Defense
Framework that will guide our defense relations for the next
decade. We're planning to enlarge defense trade, improve
cooperation between our Armed Forces, and coproduce military
hardware. The brilliant cooperation of our two militaries
during the response to the tsunami disaster last December was a
remarkable testament to how far we have come, and the great
potential we have for the future.
A strong, democratic India is an important partner for the
United States. We anticipate that India will play an
increasingly important leadership role in 21st century Asia,
working with us to promote democracy, respect for human rights,
economic growth, stability and peace in that vital region. By
cooperating with India now, we accelerate the arrival of the
benefits that India's rise brings to the region and the world.
By fostering ever-closer bilateral ties, we also eliminate the
possibility that our two nations might overlook their natural
affinities and enter into another period of unproductive
estrangement as was so often the case during the cold war
period. By challenging India today, with a full measure of
respect for its ancient civilization, traditions, and
accomplishments, we can help it realize its full potential as a
natural partner in the struggle against the security challenges
of the coming generation, and the global threats that are
flowing over, under, and through our respective national
borders.
I visited New Delhi, 2 weeks ago, and held an extensive
series of discussions with senior Indian officials on the range
of our foreign policy interests. While there, I had broad-
ranging discussions on many issues, everything from HIV/AIDS to
the situation in Nepal to our concerns about Iran. The July 18
Joint Statement calls for government-to-government joint
cooperation in many areas, including civil nuclear cooperation;
a United States-India Global Democracy Initiative; an expanded
United States-India Economic Dialogue focusing on trade,
finance, the environment, and commerce; continued cooperation
in science and technology; an Energy Dialogue to strengthen
energy security and promote stable energy markets, an
Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, an Information and
Communications Technology Working Group; Space Cooperation; a
United States-India Disaster Response Initiative; and the
United States-India HIV/AIDS Partnership. Foreign Secretary
Saran and I have already begun working on the joint ventures
that the President and Prime Minister Singh had asked us to
undertake and plan to further our cooperation in the fields of
education, in agriculture, in science and technology, and in
space. We very much would like to welcome an Indian astronaut
to fly on the space shuttle. I think it is clear that our
interests converge on all these issues. With this ambitious
agenda, our two countries are becoming, in effect, global
partners.
Cooperation in several of these areas has already begun and
is yielding results. Just last month, the United States-India
Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters entered
into force, providing for enhanced, streamlined and more
effective law enforcement cooperation between our two
countries. On October 17, Secretary Rice and Indian Science and
Technology Minister Sibal signed an umbrella Science and
Technology Agreement that will strengthen United States and
Indian capabilities and expand relations between the extensive
scientific and technological communities of both countries.
This agreement includes a substantive Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) provision--another indication of India's
increasing recognition of the need to respect intellectual
property.
THE CHALLENGES WE FACE
We have accomplished much, but we have just scratched the
surface of our partnership with India. Ambassador Mulford and
his outstanding team in New Delhi, aided by frequent high-level
visitors to the subcontinent over the next several months, will
continue to pursue this expanding agenda.
We want the United States and India to work together more
effectively than we have in the past to become more effective
global partners. Let me provide a few examples. On the
political side of the ledger, we will be seeking early tangible
progress with India toward:
Creating a closer United States-India partnership to
help build democratic institutions in the region and
worldwide. During the Prime Minister's visit to
Washington, our two leaders agreed for the first time
to work together to promote democracy worldwide. Both
countries have contributed to the U.N.'s Democracy
Fund. We will seek ways to work together in
strengthening democratic institutions and practices in
specific countries. India's experiment in democracy has
been a success for over half a century, and its 2004
national polls were the largest exercise in electoral
democracy the world has ever seen. We share a belief
that democracy and development are linked, that
effective democratic governance is a precondition to
healthy economic development. In this regard, we hope
India will share its democratic experience with central
Asian nations, which are having a difficult time making
the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, and
assist them in building institutions necessary to the
success of democracy and the advancement of human
rights.
Advancing our shared interest in reform at the
United Nations. Members of this committee know well the
President's deep desire to promote reform at the United
Nations. This is a top priority for this
administration, and India as well. We want a far more
vigorous Indian engagement with us in the ongoing
process of reforming the United Nations into an
organization that serves the interests of its members.
I think both our countries would agree that this
process should neither be politicized nor subjected to
the sort of country bloc calculations that prevailed
during the cold war. India has much to offer in moving
reform efforts ahead.
Indian participation in the Proliferation Security
Initiative. India boasts one of the world's largest
commercial maritime fleets and a navy that demonstrated
its rapidly growing expeditionary capacity in
responding to the December tsunami. Indian support for
the multinational Proliferation Security Initiative
(PSI) would be a boon to the participating nations'
goal of tracking and interdicting dangerous terrorist
and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) cargoes
worldwide. We hope India will choose to join PSI.
United States-India cooperation for regional peace
and stability. India is one of the largest
international donors to Afghanistan's reconstruction
and works closely with us in the areas of road
construction, public health, education,
telecommunications, and human resource development.
India and the United States share the goal of a return
to democracy in Nepal and a defeat of the Maoist
insurgency. In Sri Lanka, we both support the
government's efforts to recover from the tsunami and
return to the peace process. We should do more to
promote human rights and democracy in autocratic Burma.
Our two countries should work more closely to promote
peace and stability in Asia.
Convincing Iran to return to negotiations. India and
the United States have found an increasingly positive
dialog on Iran. We are both dedicated to the goal of an
Iran that lives in harmony in its region, ends support
of terrorist groups and does not seek nuclear weapons.
We welcomed India's vote with us at the IAEA in
September to find Iran in noncompliance with its
international obligations. We appreciate India's belief
that Iran should not acquire a nuclear weapons
capability, and India's continuing cooperation with the
United States and Europe is essential to convince Iran
to return to negotiations.
We and India also need to focus on a number of important
economic challenges, both bilateral and global. Since the early
1990s, India has progressed far in liberalizing its tariff
regime and investment environment, and these major changes have
fueled the growth and increased prosperity of recent years. Any
quick survey of India's economic landscape provides thousands
of examples of innovation and excellence. India is increasingly
a global competitor in knowledge-based industries such as
information and communications technology and biotechnology
research and development.
Despite its impressive record of economic growth during the
last decade, India still struggles with many of the persistent
challenges faced by developing countries: Insufficient and
underdeveloped infrastructure, inefficient markets for goods
and services, and minimal access of credit and capital among
the urban and rural poor. In addition, India also suffers from
a shortage of foreign capital and investment, which can bring
in key, new technologies, create jobs, and modernize
industries.
In this new partnership, the United States and India have a
great opportunity to work together to overcome these
challenges, toward the continued prosperity of our peoples, and
to play a positive role in shaping the world's economic future.
The ongoing negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in the Doha Development Round offer the perfect opportunity to
work on our shared goals of trade, development, and prosperity.
Both India and the United States stand to gain from the
increasing liberalization of trade in goods and services, and
in convincing our trading partners to do the same. There is no
reason why India and the United States should not be partners
in this forum, whose success is so crucial to our common
future. We plan to work closely with India on proposals that
can translate the promise of the WTO's mission--and the new era
of United States-India relations--into reality. This effort
will take hard work on both sides, and we look forward to this
opportunity to engage India seriously, to the economic
betterment of both our people.
As we build closer economic relations, we look forward to
India's agreement to purchase American civil and military
aircraft and to open its doors further to trade with our
country.
BUILDING PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE AND PRIVATE SECTOR COOPERATION BETWEEN INDIA
AND THE UNITED STATES
The new United States-India partnership is not and cannot
be just between governments. We have seen an equally powerful
expansion of our people-to-people ties and business growth. The
immense power of the India-United States people-to-people
network goes deeper than anyone could have ever imagined. We
find thousands of Americans in Delhi, in Mumbai and Bangalore,
and even more Indians in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.
Over 85,000 Americans are living in India, lured by its growing
economy and the richness of its culture. There are 2 million
persons of Indian origin in the United States, citizens and
legal permanent residents. They are operating businesses in our
country, running for political office, and building bridges
back to India. There are more Indian students in the United
States today than from any other country in the world--80,000.
We have, in essence, the development of a true,
comprehensive, across-the-board engagement between India and
the United States, our governments, our societies, and our
peoples. This engagement by individuals and businesses will
propel and sustain the formal ties between our governments.
CONCLUSION
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to share with you
the many elements of this strategic transformation that we are
witnessing in the United States-India relationship. Both
President Bush and Prime Minister Singh have shown the
confidence and vision to pursue a common vision for the world
together. We hope the Congress will help us make that vision a
reality.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. ROBERT G. JOSEPH
Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, State
Department, Washington, DC
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Chairman Lugar, Senator Biden, distinguished members of the
committee, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss
the President's policy toward India with respect to civil
nuclear cooperation. I look forward to working with you over
the months ahead to bring this important objective to a timely
and successful outcome.
TOWARD UNITED STATES-INDIA CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION
We believe it is in our national security interest to
establish a broad strategic partnership with India that
encourages India's emergence as a positive force on the world
scene. Our desire to transform relations with India is founded
upon a contemporary and forward-looking strategic vision. India
is a rising global power and an important democratic partner
for the United States. Today, for the first time, the United
States and India are bound together by a strong congruence of
interests and values. We seek to work with India to win the
global War on Terrorism, to prevent the spread of weapons of
mass destruction and the missiles that could deliver them, to
enhance peace and stability in Asia, and to advance the spread
of democracy. India and the United States are on the same side
of these critical strategic objectives. Our challenge is to
translate our converging interests into shared goals and
compatible strategies designed to achieve these aims.
In the context of this growing partnership, the United
States and India reached a landmark agreement in July to work
toward full civil nuclear cooperation while at the same time
strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The Joint
Statement agreed to by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh
is not--as some have argued--a triumph of power politics over
nonproliferation principles. This is not a zero-sum trade-off,
whereby improvement in our bilateral strategic relationship
results in nonproliferation losses. Rather, as the broadly
constituted Joint Statement is implemented, it will prove a win
for our strategic relations, a win for energy security, and a
win for nonproliferation.
India believes, and our administration agrees, that it
needs nuclear power to sustain dynamic economic growth and to
address its growing energy requirements in an affordable and
environmentally responsible manner. Our goal--in the context of
the Joint Statement--is to provide India access to the
technology it needs to build a safe, modern and efficient
infrastructure that will provide clean, peaceful nuclear
energy.
At the same time, India has clearly demonstrated over the
past several years its desire to work with the United States
and the international community to fight the spread of
sensitive nuclear technologies. As part of an effort launched
with India during the administration's first term--the Next
Steps in Strategic Partnership--India took a number of
significant steps to strengthen export controls and to ensure
that Indian companies would not be a source of future
proliferation. Not only did India pledge to bring its export
control laws, regulations, and enforcement practices in line
with modern export control standards, but also passed an
extensive export control law and issued an upgraded national
control list that will help it achieve this goal. In addition,
India has become a party to the Convention on the Physical
Protection of Nuclear Material and has taken significant steps
toward meeting its obligations under UNSCR 1540.
The additional nonproliferation commitments India made as
part of the Joint Statement go even further and, once
implemented, will bring it into closer conformity with
international nuclear nonproliferation standards and practices.
This is a very important move for India and for the
nonproliferation community. While we will continue to work with
India and to encourage it to do more over time, India's
implementation of its commitments will, on balance, enhance our
global nonproliferation efforts. We expect the international
nuclear nonproliferation regime will emerge stronger as a
result.
As evidence of this expectation, we note with satisfaction
India's positive IAEA Board of Governors vote in September on
Iranian noncompliance, and look forward to further cooperative
action on this critical international security issue.
NONPROLIFERATION GAINS
Through the Joint Statement, India has publicly committed
to a number of important nonproliferation steps. It will now:
Identify and separate civilian and military nuclear
facilities and programs and file a declaration with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding its
civilian facilities;
Place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities
under IAEA safeguards;
Sign and adhere to an Additional Protocol with
respect to civilian nuclear facilities;
Continue its unilateral moratorium on nuclear
testing;
Work with the United States for the conclusion of a
multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) to
halt production of fissile material for nuclear
weapons;
Refrain from the transfer of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies to states that do not have
them and support efforts to limit their spread; and
Secure nuclear and missile materials and
technologies through comprehensive export control
legislation and adherence to the Missile Technology
Control Regime (MTCR) and Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG).
India's commitment to separate its civil and military
facilities and place its civil facilities and activities under
IAEA safeguards demonstrates its willingness to assume full
responsibility for preventing proliferation from its civil
nuclear program. It will also help protect against diversion of
nuclear material and technologies to India's weapons program.
By adopting an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, India
will commit to reporting to the IAEA on exports of all NSG
Trigger List items. This will help the IAEA track potential
proliferation elsewhere, and bolster our efforts to encourage
all states to adopt an Additional Protocol as a condition of
supply.
By committing to adopt strong and effective export
controls, including adherence to NSG and MTCR Guidelines, India
will help ensure that its companies do not transfer sensitive
weapons of mass destruction and missile-related technologies to
countries of concern. In July, India took an important step by
harmonizing its national control list with the NSG Guidelines
and by adding many items that appear on the MTCR Annex.
India has also committed to work with the United States
toward the conclusion of a multilateral FMCT, which, if
successfully negotiated and ratified, will ban the production
of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices.
India's pledge to maintain its nuclear testing moratorium
contributes to nonproliferation efforts by making its ending of
nuclear explosive tests one of the conditions of full civil
nuclear cooperation. Since to date Pakistan has test-exploded
nuclear weapons only in response to Indian nuclear tests, this
commitment will help diminish the prospects for future nuclear
testing in South Asia.
By committing not to export enrichment and reprocessing
technology to states that do not already have such fully
functioning capabilities, India will help us achieve the goals
laid out by President Bush in February 2004, designed to
prevent the further spread of such proliferation sensitive
equipment and technology. This will help close what is widely
recognized as the most significant loophole in the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty regime--a loophole that has clearly been
exploited by countries such as North Korea and Iran and could
be manipulated by others in the future.
Each of these activities is significant. Together, they
constitute a substantial shift in moving India into closer
conformity with international nonproliferation standards and
practices. Their successful implementation will help to
strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.
As befits a major, responsible nation, and in keeping with
its commitment to play a leading role in international efforts
to prevent WMD proliferation, we hope that India will also take
additional nonproliferation-related actions beyond those
specifically outlined in the Joint Statement. We view this as a
key component of the developing United States-India strategic
partnership and look forward to working with the Indian
Government, as well as the international community more
broadly, to further strengthen nonproliferation efforts
globally.
Through our ongoing bilateral dialog we have already
discussed with India such steps as endorsing the Proliferation
Security Initiative Statement of Principles, bringing an early
end to the production of fissile material for weapons, and
harmonizing its control lists with those of the Australia Group
and the Wassenaar Arrangement.
U.S. COMMITMENTS UNDER THE JOINT STATEMENT
On a reciprocal basis with India's commitments, the United
States has committed to work to achieve full civil nuclear
cooperation with India. In this context, President Bush told
Prime Minister Singh that he would:
Seek agreement from Congress to adjust U.S. laws and
policies;
Work with friends and allies to adjust international
regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation
and trade with India; and
Consult with partners on India's participation in
the fusion energy International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) consortium and the
Generation IV International Forum, the work of which
relates to advanced nuclear energy systems.
To implement effectively the steps under the Joint
Statement, we will need the active support of Congress and that
of our international partners. We expect--and have told the
Indian Government--that India's follow-through on its
commitments is essential to success. We believe that the
Government of India understands this completely and we expect
them to begin taking concrete steps in the weeks ahead.
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSES TO DATE
Mr. Chairman, since the July statement, we have actively
engaged with our international partners--both bilaterally and
in such multilateral fora as the G-8 and the Nuclear Suppliers
Group. I have met directly with my counterparts from many
different countries. Secretary Rice and other senior U.S.
officials discussed the initiative with states at the recent
U.N. General Assembly and at IAEA General Conference meetings.
Assistant Secretaries Stephen Rademaker and Christina Rocca
both traveled to Vienna to make presentations to the NSG
Consultative Group. And, of course, many of our Embassies have
been actively engaged on this front.
While some countries, such as Sweden, have expressed
substantial doubts about the initiative for fear of inadvertent
damage to the nuclear nonproliferation regime, others have
expressed strong support. For example, the United Kingdom has
``warmly welcome(d)'' this initiative and indicated that on the
basis of the Joint Statement it was ``ready to discuss with our
international partners the basis for cooperation in civil
nuclear matters with India.'' Similarly, France has underscored
the ``need for full international civilian nuclear cooperation
with India.'' The Director General of the IAEA has also
welcomed India's decision to place its civil nuclear facilities
under safeguards and to sign and implement the Additional
Protocol as ``concrete and practical steps toward the universal
application of IAEA safeguards.''
To date, many other countries have adopted a ``wait-and-
see'' approach. Most recognize the need to come to terms with
India and not to allow it to remain completely outside the
international nonproliferation system. They welcome the
nonproliferation steps India has committed to take in the
context of the Joint Statement. At the same time, they have
made clear that their ultimate support will depend on the scope
and pace of India's actions.
Some have understandably questioned how this complex
initiative comports with the NPT and our efforts to combat WMD
proliferation. Others have asked whether the provision of civil
nuclear technology to India would be consistent with their
obligations under the NPT not to contribute to India's nuclear
weapons program. Still others have asked why a cap on India's
production of fissile material for weapons was not part of the
deal.
We have sought to clarify that the United States does not,
and will not, support India's nuclear weapons program. As it is
for other states, this is a ``red line'' for us. We are
obligated under the NPT not to assist India's nuclear weapons
program. Our initiative with India does not recognize India as
a nuclear weapon state, and we will not seek to renegotiate the
NPT, whether to change the treaty definition of a nuclear
weapon state or in any other way. We remain cognizant of, and
will fully uphold, all of our obligations under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, and we remain committed in principle
to universal NPT adherence.
But we also recognize that India is in a unique situation
and has shown to be responsible in not proliferating its
nuclear technologies and materials. With its decision to take
the steps announced in the Joint Statement, India will now take
on new nonproliferation responsibilities that will strengthen
global nonproliferation efforts that serve the fundamental
purpose of the NPT.
India has informed us that it has no intention of
relinquishing its nuclear weapons or of becoming a party to the
NPT as a nonnuclear weapon state, the only way it could adhere
under the current terms of the treaty. Despite this, it is
important to seize this opportunity to assist India in becoming
a more constructive partner in our global nonproliferation
efforts. Indian commitments to be undertaken in the context of
the Joint Statement will align Delhi more closely with the
nuclear nonproliferation regime than at any time previously.
India has said it wants to be a partner and is willing to take
important steps to this end. We should encourage such steps.
In this context, it is important to note that the NPT does
not ban civil nuclear cooperation with safeguarded facilities
in India, nor does it require full scope safeguards as a
condition of supply. In fact, under the ``grandfather''
provision of the NSG Guidelines, Russia today is building two
nuclear reactors in India.
The NPT does preclude any cooperation that would ``in any
way assist'' India's nuclear weapons program. For that reason,
we have made clear that, under our proposal, supplier states
will only be able to engage in cooperation with safeguarded
facilities. Moreover, the more civil facilities India places
under safeguards, the more confident we can be that any
cooperative arrangements will not further any military
purposes. We expect--and have indicated to the Government of
India--that India's separation of its civil and military
nuclear infrastructure must be conducted in a credible and
transparent manner, and be defensible from a nonproliferation
standpoint. In other words, the separation and the resultant
safeguards must contribute to our nonproliferation goals. Many
of our international partners have similarly indicated that
they view this as a necessary precondition, and will not be
able to support civil nuclear cooperation with India otherwise.
We believe that the Indian Government understands this.
With respect to the cessation of fissile material
production, we continue to encourage India, as well as
Pakistan, to move in this direction as part of our strategic
dialogs with both governments. But we think it would be unwise
to hold up the nonproliferation gains that can be obtained from
the civil nuclear cooperation initiative for an Indian fissile
material cap. Moreover, in the context of the Joint Statement,
we jointly committed to work toward the completion of an
effective Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. As we have indicated
previously, the United States also stands willing to explore
other intermediate options that also might serve this
objective.
As India completes the significant actions that it has
committed to undertake in the Joint Statement, we are convinced
that the nonproliferation regime will emerge stronger.
Separately, we will continue to encourage additional steps,
such as India's acceptance of a fissile material production
moratorium or cap, but we will not insist on it for the
purposes of the civil nuclear cooperation initiative announced
by the President and Prime Minister. Even absent such a cap,
the initiative represents a net gain for nonproliferation.
KEY CHALLENGES
Five key challenges face the successful achievement of
Joint Statement implementation. These include: Developing a
meaningful civil/military separation; negotiating the
appropriate safeguards arrangement; building support within the
NSG; avoiding the temptation to renegotiate the deal; and
securing domestic legal reform.
Developing a meaningful civil/military separation: We have
indicated that the separation of civil and military facilities
must be both credible and transparent, as well as defensible
from a nonproliferation standpoint. We have engaged in initial
discussions with the Government of India, and look forward to
further discussion of a mutually acceptable approach. While
India has not yet presented a formal separation plan, we are
encouraged by Foreign Secretary Saran's public acknowledgements
both that ``it is legitimate for our partners to expect that
such cooperation will not provide any advantage to our
strategic programme,'' and that ``it makes no sense for India
to deliberately keep some of its civilian facilities out of its
declaration for safeguards purposes, if it really is interested
in obtaining international cooperation on as wide a scale as
possible.''
In our discussions to date, and in particular during Under
Secretary Burns' recent talks in Delhi, we have discussed some
straightforward principles. I will not enumerate them fully
here since the negotiations remain ongoing, but would like to
underscore just a couple of these. For example, to ensure that
the United States and other potential suppliers can confidently
supply to India and meet our obligations under the NPT,
safeguards must be applied in perpetuity. Further, the
separation plan must ensure--and the safeguards must confirm--
that cooperation does not ``in any way assist'' in the
development or production of nuclear weapons. In this context,
nuclear materials in the civil sector should not be transferred
out of the civil sector.
Negotiating the appropriate safeguards arrangement: India's
voluntary commitment to allow IAEA safeguards on its civil
facilities is both a substantial nonproliferation gain and a
key enabler for nuclear energy cooperation. A critical
bellwether of Indian intentions will be how it handles the
separation and safeguarding of its civil nuclear
infrastructure. In our discussions with key international
partners, both in the NSG context and otherwise, many have
expressed strong views that India's separation plan be
transparent and have noted the importance of IAEA safeguards
being applied to its civil facilities.
In this context, several countries have argued that it is
integral to maintaining the integrity of the global regime that
India not be granted de jure or de facto status as a nuclear
weapon state under the NPT. For this reason, many have
indicated that a ``voluntary offer'' arrangement of the type in
place in the five internationally recognized nuclear weapon
states would not be acceptable for India. We indicated at the
recent G-8 and NSG meetings that we would not view a voluntary
offer arrangement as defensible from a nonproliferation
standpoint or consistent with the Joint Statement, and
therefore do not believe that it would constitute an acceptable
safeguards arrangement. Such a course of action would in all
likelihood preclude NSG support. Conversely, should India put
forward a credible and defensible plan, we anticipate that many
states will become more steadfast in their support.
Building support within the NSG: At the recent NSG
Consultative Group meeting in Vienna, the United States
discussed the initiative with regime members. We stressed our
desire that the NSG maintain its effectiveness, and emphasized
that we do not intend to undercut this important
nonproliferation policy tool. For this reason, the U.S.
proposal neither seeks to alter the decisionmaking procedures
of the NSG nor amend the current full-scope safeguards
requirement in the NSG Guidelines. Rather, the United States
proposes that the NSG take a policy decision to treat India as
an exceptional case, given its energy needs, its nuclear
nonproliferation record, and the nonproliferation commitments
it has now undertaken. We do not advocate similar treatment for
others outside the NPT regime.
In our view, once India makes demonstrable progress in
implementing key Joint Statement commitments--with a credible,
transparent, and defensible separation plan foremost on the
list--we will be ready to engage with our NSG partners in
developing a formal proposal to allow the shipment of Trigger
List items and related technology to India. Obviously, the
number of facilities and activities that India places under
IAEA safeguards, and the method and speed with which it does
so, will directly affect the degree to which we will be able to
build support for full civil nuclear cooperation. We look
forward to discussing this more fully with NSG members at the
Consultative Group meeting in early 2006 and at the plenary
session that follows.
Avoiding the temptation to renegotiate the deal: Some
observers--both in the United States and abroad--have argued
that the United States-India arrangement as negotiated by the
President and the Prime Minister does not constitute a net gain
for nonproliferation, or at least does not reflect the maximum
gain we might in theory have achieved. According to this view,
the United States, presumably the United States Congress,
should condition United States nuclear cooperation under the
Joint Statement on additional Indian steps, such as
implementing a moratorium on fissile material production,
ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and/or joining the
NPT as a nonnuclear weapon state. Based on our interactions
with the Indian Government, we believe that such additional
conditions would likely be deal-breakers.
This is a case where the ``perfect'' is the enemy of the
``good,'' and we must resist the temptation to pile on
conditions that will prejudice our ability to realize the
important and long-standing nonproliferation objectives
embodied in the Joint Statement. We are better off with India
undertaking the commitments it has now agreed to rather than
allowing the status quo to prevail.
The Joint Statement reached by President Bush and Prime
Minister Singh is good both for India and for the United
States, and offers a net gain for global nonproliferation
efforts. Rather than layer on additional conditions or seek to
renegotiate the Joint Statement, it would be better to lock-in
this deal and then seek to achieve further results in
subsequent nonproliferation discussions. We believe that this
is a sound arrangement that should be supported because the
commitments India has made will, when implemented, bring it
into closer alignment with international nuclear
nonproliferation standards and practices and, as such,
strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.
Securing domestic legal reform: The President promised in
the Joint Statement that the administration would seek
agreement from Congress to adjust U.S. laws and policies. We
recognize that the pace and scope of civil nuclear cooperation
requires close consultations between the executive and
legislative branches. In our own ongoing review, we have
identified a number of options for modifying and/or waiving
provisions of the Atomic Energy Act that currently prohibit the
United States from engaging in such cooperation with India.
As Under Secretary Burns noted, we do not intend to ask
Congress to take legislative action until the Indian Government
takes certain important steps. We welcome your partnership as
we embark on this effort, and look forward to working with your
committee, together with your House counterparts, as we jointly
consider the best way forward in the legislative area.
BOTTOM-LINE: ADVANCING NONPROLIFERATION
We must recognize that there is today no viable cookie-
cutter approach to nonproliferation; we need tailored
approaches that solve real-world problems. We need to be
creative and adjust our approaches to take into account the
conditions that exist, so that we can achieve our
nonproliferation objectives. This has been a premise of
administration policy since the outset of President Bush's
first term, in which he established non- and
counterproliferation as top national security priorities. He
put in place the first comprehensive strategy at the national
level for combating this preeminent threat to our security, and
he embarked on changing how we as a nation, and how the
international community more broadly, design and expand our
collective efforts to defeat this complex and dangerous
challenge.
Indeed, recognizing that traditional nonproliferation
measures were essential but no longer sufficient, the President
has established new concepts and new capabilities for
countering WMD proliferation by hostile states and terrorists.
He sought increased national resources to prevent
proliferation through Nunn-Lugar type nonproliferation
assistance programs and, through the G-8 Global
Partnership, successfully enlarged the contributions
from other countries to this essential task.
He launched the Proliferation Security Initiative to
disrupt the trade in proliferation-related materials.
This initiative has achieved the support of more than
70 other countries who are working together to share
information and develop operational capabilities to
interdict shipments at sea, in the air, and on land.
He initiated the effort resulting in the unanimous
adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540,
which requires all states to enact both legislation
criminalizing proliferation activities under their
jurisdiction and effective export controls to help
protect the sensitive materials and technologies on
their territories.
These efforts in effective multilateralism, coupled with
the strengthening of our own counterproliferation capabilities,
have produced concrete successes such as the unraveling of the
A.Q. Khan network and the decision by Libya to abandon its
nuclear, chemical, and long-range missile programs.
Similarly, we must pursue approaches with respect to India
that recognize the reality that it is a growing 21st century
power, shares our democratic values, has substantial and
growing energy needs, and has long possessed nuclear weapons
outside the NPT. Status quo approaches have not acknowledged
these pragmatic considerations, nor have they achieved the
positive outcome of progressively integrating India into the
international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream.
We have begun consultations with our international
partners; have conducted a number of introductory discussions
with you, your colleagues, and your staff; and look forward to
working further with you on the steps necessary to realize the
benefits of the July Joint Statement.
Thank you.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. RONALD F. LEHMAN II
Director, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Livermore, CA
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am pleased to
accept your invitation to join with this distinguished
committee--and with my good friends on this panel--to discuss
the nonproliferation implications of the United States-India
civilian nuclear cooperation called for in the July 18, 2005,
Joint Statement of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. Over the years, I have appeared before this
committee in various capacities, and, Mr. Chairman, I am
pleased to cochair with Ash Carter your Policy Advisory Group
on the future of the nonproliferation regime. Nevertheless, I
would like to make clear that today I am speaking only for
myself and the views I express here do not necessarily
represent those of any administration, organization, or group
with which I am or have been associated.
The committee is well aware of the content of the United
States-India Joint Statement: In the context of the broader
global partnership on the economy, energy and the environment,
democracy and development, and high-technology and space
reflected in the Joint Statement, India will receive the
benefits of civil nuclear cooperation in exchange for enhanced
nonproliferation commitments. More specifically, India has
agreed to separate civilian and military nuclear facilities,
place those civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards, and
implement an IAEA Additional Protocol. India will continue its
moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and work toward a
multilateral Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. India will help
prevent the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies
to states that do not have them and adhere to the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) and Missile Technology Control Regime
(MTCR) while legislating strong export controls.
For its part, the United States Government will propose
that Congress adjust United States law and that relevant
international bodies adjust their regimes to permit full
civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India. The United
States will also consult with its partners on the inclusion of
India in certain advanced nuclear energy research associated
with both fission and fusion energy.
Before I address the three specific questions the committee
has asked about the Joint Statement, let me offer a short net
assessment. The Joint Statement is an historic milestone for
nonproliferation that creates both great opportunity and great
risk. It creates an opportunity to strengthen a nuclear
nonproliferation regime that is suffering from its own internal
weaknesses such as inadequate enforcement, the threat of
breakout once an advanced nuclear capability has been achieved,
and an inability to engage effectively the nonparties to the
NPT, Because the terms of the Joint Statement, however, also
spotlight those weaknesses, mishandling of the implementation
of its terms can have adverse consequences even when the best
of intentions are involved. The elements of the package are not
new, but the suddenness with which the particular mix of
elements was put together has caught many key players at home
and abroad by surprise. They need to take the time to think
through their positions carefully as the governments of India
and the United States flesh out their phased approach. The
executive branch needs also to consult closely with the
Congress, and within the executive branch, regional and
functional experts need close, regular, and detailed
coordination. All of this will serve to improve our ability to
work with India and other governments to enhance our efforts
against all weapons of mass destruction.
Whether one could have negotiated a somewhat better deal is
moot. The Joint Statement is in play, and we all have an
obligation to ensure that our national security is enhanced as
a result of the dynamic process now underway, especially our
ability to prevent and counter the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. If the basic approach contained in the Joint
Statement collapses, we will not return to the status quo ante.
United States-Indian cooperation will be set back, but also the
weaknesses in the existing regime will be exposed to even
greater pressure. Bringing India into a more comprehensive
regime of nonproliferation and restraint, however, could
significantly enhance our ability to reduce the dangers
associated with weapons of mass destruction. Congress can help
insure that this is a sufficiently ambitious agenda. India
could do much to help within its borders, in South Asia, in
other troubled regions, and globally.
Yet India remains a symbol of a glaring challenge to the
nonproliferation regime; namely reconciling universal
principles with very different circumstances. Is the same
verification system appropriate for both Sweden and Iran? Is a
democratic India outside the NPT really to be considered more
of a nuclear pariah than a despotic North Korea inside the
treaty? Measures to deal with specific concerns are often
inappropriate to apply universally. Yet rules that can be
applied universally are often too general to address specific
concerns, sometimes creating an inability to enforce compliance
or even encourage restraint. In many ways, progress in the NPT
centered nonproliferation regime has been measured by the
success or failure in tailoring measures to different
circumstances. One sees this in the dealings North Korea, Iran,
Iraq, Pakistan, Israel, and others over the last decade or
more. It will remain true with India.
If the process set in place by the Joint Statement were to
continue in a positive direction, it could create a more sound,
broad-based nonproliferation community with the tools necessary
to deal with the different circumstances of the real world. It
could further integrate our nonproliferation goals into our
national strategy and those of others, permitting us to more
effectively deal with the increasing availability of
destructive technology in the global economy and the
persistence of dangerous actors, both state and nonstate.
I would urge the Congress to focus on the dynamics of the
process and the goals to be achieved as a result of the United
States-India Joint Statement rather than attempting to
rearrange the pieces of the initial package. Much that one
might have detailed in the original package may be more
successfully achieved by driving subsequent interactions in the
right direction. This can only be done, I believe, if
nonproliferation is a centerpiece of strategic engagement
rather than a tradeoff. It is best achieved by retaining a
viable Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the core of a
broader nonproliferation regime that uses more targeted,
embedded engagement to address the fundamental causes and
conditions of proliferation. In short, widely shared goals
should guide our actions, but implementation will fail if a
``one-size-fits-all'' mentality is applied rigidly to different
circumstances. Let me clarify what I mean by addressing the
three questions you have asked.
(1) If there is need to draw closer to India for strategic
reasons, what are those reasons, and why does civil nuclear
cooperation weigh so heavily among them?
The NPT was designed to enhance the benefits for
membership, but for India, a nonsignatory, restrictions on
civilian nuclear cooperation are deeply resented in India
because they are seen as punitive, discriminatory, and
demeaning. The emotional quotient is high. Yes, India's nuclear
power infrastructure has suffered from lack of access to
outside technology and uranium shortages could become a major
factor in India's nuclear power future, but that future still
remains very uncertain. India's nuclear elite is divided on
what it wants and why. One can imagine a major scale-up of
India's nuclear power, but it is not clear private investment
will be there. Even smaller public investment may be unwise if
it continues the weaknesses of the current programs. Neuralgia
over the nuclear issue is intense primarily because it triggers
deeper seated resentments.
Relations between the United States and India have long
been far worse than the objective conditions warrant. The
reasons are too numerous to list. Again, they are not primarily
about nuclear cooperation. South Asia was a backwater of United
States diplomacy during the cold war, and cooperation was made
difficult by India's socialist orientation, nonaligned tactics
that often tilted toward the Soviet Union, and a related
testiness toward the West as a result of its colonial
experience. In the United States, there were many ``Years of
India,'' none of which seemed to last even that long. Indian
nonproliferation policy was draped in grandiose disarmament
rhetoric that provided moral top cover for the nuclear weapons
program that gave its population much satisfaction. Thus, India
has often been unwilling to take ``Yes'' for an answer. Long a
leading advocate of a Comprehensive Test Ban, it backed away
when rapid negotiations threatened options to demonstrate its
nuclear prowess. One of the godfathers of the Fissile Material
Cut-Off, India has been satisfied to see it buried in a
moribund Conference on Disarmament. In short, India has serious
security concerns, but its behavior is often driven by concerns
about status.
What has changed? Much. The end of the ``Permit Raj'' and
the opening up of the Indian economy has emboldened a huge,
highly educated middle class. The new demographics are also
compelling. It is not just that India will have the world's
largest population in 2030. It will be experiencing the so-
called ``demographic dividend,'' as the falling fertility rates
and improved health increase the ratio of workers to dependents
in ways that have historically driven economic growth. A
global, high technology Indian diaspora is now networked and
returning skills and investments to India. India is proud of
its information technology and seeks to do the same in
biotechnology. And if messy domestic politics is a signature of
democracy, then India is clearly a democracy. This too can
provide a basis for a new relationship with an India that may
be more able to look more self-confidently to its real
interests and leave the politics of resentment behind.
As an economic, cultural, and strategic partner, India
could offer much in the years ahead, especially if adverse
geostrategic developments in the Islamic world or Eurasia
create economic or security dangers, but a grand strategic
partnership is not inevitable. It needs to be groomed. Indian
domestic and regional politics are volatile because of
economic, class, and ethnic divisions. For all of its tradition
of business and trade, South Asia remains a region in which the
win-win often seems alien. Spoilers abound domestically and
around the region. As Indian power and influence grows, both
its ability to help and its ability to do harm will grow.
Positive steps will be accompanied by negative steps and vice
versa. Most Indians are proud of having tested nuclear weapons,
but having made this demonstration, many Indians are now more
willing to reach out and to show restraint. We will not always
have overlapping interests, but we can achieve a relationship
that is at least as good as the common interests we develop,
something we have often failed to achieve in the past.
Strong bipartisan support exists for engaging the emerging
India, much of it overly optimistic about near-term
possibilities and long-term probabilities. Still, I believe it
is the right approach, but we should not let our euphoria cause
us to undermine our most effective nonproliferation tools. We
should not assume that great economic and strategic gains that
would not otherwise be possible would result simply from
civilian nuclear cooperation. Rather we should fold our
flexibility on civil nuclear cooperation into our efforts to
work with India to strengthen the overall nonproliferation
regime including improvements in strategic relationships and
the international security architecture.
(2) The July 18 Joint Statement addresses many long-
standing Indian concerns about the NPT, the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) and United States law, but what United States
concerns about India's past and current nonproliferation
policies and laws are addressed by the Joint Statement? Please
enumerate these concerns and indicate specifcally how they are
addressed in the Joint Statement.
Many United States and Indian concerns are addressed in the
Joint Statement, but it is premature to suggest that they will
be addressed successfully. What is underway is a phased
process. Neither side will be certain of how much will be
achieved for some time. Over the years, various Indian
interlocutors have floated the idea of separating civilian from
nuclear facilities and applying safeguards to them. We have
never known the scale of the separation or the quality of the
safeguards. If India is serious about nuclear power, then its
infrastructure should be declared predominantly civilian with
permanent IAEA safeguards. To clarify the separation may take
some time, and full implementation of IAEA safeguards could
take years. A major shift to safeguard civilian activity would
be a positive step worthy of considerable movement on the part
of the United States and the international community. A token
step would be counterproductive.
India has long had a formal position in favor of a Fissile
Material Cut-Off. The Joint Statement reiterates that support
and goes further in trying to align India's responsibilities
and benefits with those of other ``responsible state[s] with
advanced nuclear technology.'' The definition of responsible
states with advanced nuclear technology is not clear, but
examples might be those that are associated with the ITER
fusion program and the GEN IV advanced nuclear reactor
programs, countries such as the United States, United Kingdom,
Switzerland, South Korea, South Africa, Japan, France, Canada,
Brazil, Argentina, China, and Russia. Nearly all already have
de facto or de jure fissile material cutoffs, and the rest are
committed to such a cutoff. Because the prospects for a FMCT
seem so poor in the Conference on Disarmament, perhaps an
interim multilateral approach could be put forth with such
states with advanced nuclear technology and other relevant
states, in part to enhance nuclear security and in part as a
``fly before buy'' experiment that might lead ultimately to
progress on an FMCT in the CD. If India were to join the rest
of the advanced nuclear community in this regard, it would be a
major contribution.
Perhaps the greatest contribution that India could make to
nonproliferation outside its own borders would be to end its
guerrilla war against the NPT and support the international
community in its efforts to encourage and, as necessary,
enforce compliance with obligations. India's stated long-term
goals are compatible with those of the NPT, but India's
insistence that the NPT is a discriminatory treaty that singles
them out has resulted in a regular campaign to undermine
support for the NPT. Certainly, it is not too much to expect of
India that, in the context of renewed civil nuclear
cooperation, the rhetoric against the treaty could be dispensed
with. A polite agreement that we have some disagreements should
be sufficient. For its part, the United States need not walk
away from its view that ultimately we would like to see
universal adherence to the NPT, but we have long ago stopped
pressing India to join as if the conditions might be near at
hand. Getting India to support adherence to treaties, including
treaties they do not belong to, should also not be an issue of
membership. The greater problem is that India has strategic and
economic objectives in addition to whatever nonproliferation
goals they may share with the United States. Whether it is NAM
politics or its strategic engagement of Iran, these can create
serious problems. India cannot be expected to alter its most
fundamental interests, but in these areas, we may find a
measure of New Delhi's actual commitment to nonproliferation
and global partnership.
Within its own borders, the growing concern over nonstate
and quasi-state actors places a premium on modem physical
security, export controls, counterterrorism, implementation of
UNSC Resolution 1540, and support for measures such as the
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). These are areas in
which the United States and India can work together and gauge
each other's commitment by our synergy. In recent years,
official Indian policy has been increasingly positive in these
areas, but the longer history has clouds. Confidence in
effective implementation would be enhanced by more direct,
bilateral engagement.
(3) The policy adopted in the Joint Statement, if fully
implemented, will require changes to international
nonproliferation rules, rules that apply to nations other than
India--in particular it is not clear how those changes would
affect United States policy with respect to Iran and North
Korea, as well as the nuclear export policies of Russia and
China. How can the administration and Congress work to ensure
that if rules are changed for India, those changes will not
result in other proliferation challenges--and if such
consequences are not avoidable, should these rules be changed?
The nonproliferation rules have constantly been changing,
becoming both more restrictive and less restrictive based upon
changed circumstances. Perhaps I can illustrate this. In
January 1992, at an historic summit of the United Nations
Security Council, further proliferation was declared to be a
threat to international security, strong words implying strong
actions. These world leaders were encouraged in their strong
statement by many historic developments. The cold war was over
and United States-Russian cooperation was accelerating.
Longstanding holdouts who had disparaged the NPT, such as
France, China, Brazil, Argentina, and others, were now members.
Historic arms control agreements were in place. The first gulf
war had imposed on Saddam Hussein's regime an unprecedented,
tailored UNSCOM inspection regime that ultimately revealed how
badly we had underestimated the WMD capability in Iraq, both
nuclear and biological. Just in time, we had learned how
difficult it is to assess what really goes on in the global
world of dual use technology. Enhanced nonproliferation
initiatives were being expanded. On the Korean Peninsula, a
North-South denuclearization agreement had been completed, and
North Korea had finally concluded an IAEA safeguards agreement.
The two Koreas were also negotiating a North-South bilateral
inspection regime that would create a stronger NPT plus regime
in that troubled region. Going beyond the Joint Verification
Experiments and the laboratory-to-laboratory exchanges, the
Nunn-Lugar programs were expanding the frontiers of engagement
and transparency. Both the international norms and the means to
engage concretely and in detail on their behalf were being
enhanced with more hands-on flexibility.
No sooner had the Security Council Summit spoken, than the
remaining challenges became clear. Talks between the two Koreas
on bilateral inspections stalled. Then implementation of the
North-South denuclearization agreement under which both Koreas
agreed to give up both reprocessing and enrichment finally
collapsed when North Korea was revealed to have a covert
reprocessing plant. When Pyongyang refused to permit an IAEA
special inspection and announced it would withdraw from the
NPT, the international community could not agree that this was
a matter for the Security Council. Instead, the world turned to
the United States to solve the problem, with great pressure
applied on the United States to use carrots rather than sticks.
However vital, nonproliferation began to loose its urgency. To
buy time, an Agreed Framework was negotiated with North Korea
under which new nuclear reactors would be provided Pyongyang as
part of a process for resolving outstanding issues. Russians
complained that the Agreed Framework subsidized a noncompliant
North Korea even though the United States had opposed Russian
sales of similar reactors when Pyongyang was thought to be
compliant. Russia cited the Agreed Framework in rejecting
United States opposition to reactor sales to Iran, which was
then accepting IAEA inspections. And of course many Indians
noted that reactors that were denied India, a democracy that
was not party to the NPT, were being supplied to a North Korea
in open violation of the NPT and still threatening to complete
its withdrawal from the treaty. Whatever the merit of such
protestations, they remind us that the difficult cases and
changed circumstances have resulted in modifications to our
basic approaches in the past, not always with good results.
Sometimes, we bowed to the inevitable. We once had very tight
limits on computer exports, but long ago we decontrolled far
more capable machines because of foreign availability.
Sometimes, we have been able to expand restraint. Because of
the close association of enrichment and reprocessing with
nuclear weapons potential, the United States and others have
pressed for a further narrowing of the access of additional
states to those technologies. Under the terms of the Joint
Statement, India has agreed to join in this selective approach
as it undertakes not to transfer enrichment and reprocessing
technologies to those who don't have them and to support
international efforts to limit their spread.
Once again, we are faced with the challenges of achieving
our basic goals under different circumstances. Common rules and
criteria can be useful, but they can also be self limiting and
counterproductive if they prevent us from developing different
rules for different circumstances to promote the same goal. Of
course, we need to keep in mind the real measures of merit. Too
often we measure nonproliferation only by the number of benign
and compliant states that have adhered to the treaty rather
than by assessing the real state of proliferation capability
and intent in a world in which much more potential is now
latent.
Mr. Chairman. In summary, the Joint Statement creates
opportunities to strengthen nonproliferation by engaging India
and reducing some of the stresses on the NPT that result from
India's pariah status on civilian nuclear cooperation. A
failure by India to step up to its side of the bargain fully
and to continue to move in the direction of cooperation and
restraint, however, could create dangers for an NPT-centric
regime that is having difficulty because of noncompliance, weak
enforcement, the spread of WMD capability into troubled
regions, and the rise of dangerous nonstate or quasi-state
actors. Ultimately, states will remain committed to
nonproliferation, and members of the NPT will remain within the
regime, only if it serves their interest. Many support the NPT
because they get civilian nuclear cooperation, but most support
the NPT because it enhances their security. So long as the NPT
serves their interests, the emergence of asymmetric
arrangements to deal with different circumstances is manageable
and necessary. Unfortunately, such arrangements can serve as a
pretext for withdrawal or nonsupport when the treaty itself no
longer serves the interests of specific parties. To strengthen
the NPT, we need to enforce compliance and concentrate on
enhancing its value to its members rather than focusing on
punishment of those who have not yet adhered, all of which are
nations with which we have friendly, if sometimes difficult,
relations.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. ASHTON B. CARTER
Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, thank you for inviting me to testify before you
about the benefits and costs of the deal between India and the
United States reflected in the July 18 Joint Statement between
President Bush and Prime Minister Singh, which for brevity I
will refer to simply as the India Deal.
Chairman Lugar has charged his Policy Advisory Group (PAG),
which I cochair, with assessing the India Deal and advising him
on its pros and cons, and with recommending steps the Congress
should take to ensure that the final version of the deal best
serves U.S. interests. The PAG, like the committee itself, has
not yet had the opportunity to hear all sides of the issue and
make its recommendations. My statement today therefore reflects
my own analysis and does not represent the views of the PAG.
THE NEED TO LOOK AT THE INDIA DEAL THROUGH A WIDE LENS
Much of the discussion--and controversy--around the India
Deal focuses on its nuclear aspects. Since preventing nuclear
war and nuclear terrorism is the single highest priority for
American national security--now and as far into the future as I
can see--I have some sympathy with this emphasis. But I believe
the deal cannot be assessed within this narrow frame. In fact,
when viewed as a nuclear-only deal, it is a bad deal for the
United States. Washington recognized Delhi's nuclear status in
return for little in the way of additional restraints on
India's nuclear arsenal or help with combating nuclear
proliferation and terrorism (that India was not already
inclined or committed to give), and at appreciable likely cost
to its nuclear nonproliferation objectives in other critical
regions.
But it seems clear that President Bush did not view the
India Deal through a nuclear-only lens, and neither should we.
The United States, in this view, gave the Indians what they
have craved for 30 years--nuclear recognition--in return for a
``strategic partnership'' between Washington and Delhi.
Washington gave on the nuclear front to get something on the
nonnuclear front. I agree strongly with the administration that
a strategic partnership with India is in the deep and long-term
United States security interest. A nuclear-recognition quid for
a strategic-partnership quo is therefore a reasonable framework
for an India Deal.
However, as a diplomatic transaction the India Deal is
quite uneven. First of all, a United States-Indian strategic
partnership would seem to be in India's interest as well as
ours. So why give them something for it? Second, the deal is
uneven in its specifics--what the United States gives is
spelled out quite clearly, but what India gives in return is
vaguer. Third, the deal is uneven in timing--we gave something
big up front, but what we stand to get lies further out in the
future.
Should Congress reject the India Deal as too uneven? I
would recommend instead trying to improve the diplomacy to
rebalance the deal. There are two ways this can be done: The
United States can give less, or it can expect more. My
statement takes the second approach--aiming to define a set of
expectations for specific benefits to the United States from a
``strategic partnership'' with India.
My statement is divided into three parts: First, I describe
what India got. Second, I describe what the United States
should aim to get. Third, I assess the chances that U.S.
expectations will actually be met.
It is premature to judge whether the expectations of this
partnership as apparently foreseen on the United States side
are shared by India and will, in fact, materialize. The deal
itself was premature. The problem with a poorly prepared
diplomatic initiative is that disenchantment will set in on
both sides. But with the deal now an accomplished fact, we and
the Indians must do our best to build upon it.
WHAT DELHI GOT
India obtained de-facto recognition of its nuclear weapons
status: The United States will behave, and urge others to
behave, as if India were a nuclear weapons state under the NPT.
We will not deny it most civil nuclear technology or commerce.
We will not require it to put all of its nuclear facilities
under IAEA safeguards--only those it declares to be civil. It
is worth noting that even if the administration wished to make
India a formal Nuclear Weapons State under the NPT (which it in
fact refused to do), it probably could not persuade all the
other signatories of the NPT to agree to the formal change.
Beyond these technicalities, nuclear recognition confers an
enormous political benefit on India. In effect, it allows India
to transcend the nuclear box that has for so long defined its
place in the international order, jettison at last its outdated
Non-Aligned Movement stances and rhetoric, and occupy a more
normal and modern place in the diplomatic world. Proponents and
critics of the deal alike agree that this is huge.
The deal has accordingly been popular in India. Criticism
from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been narrow and
technical and probably reflects regrets that a Prime Minister
from the Congress Party and not the BJP secured the deal. The
other source of criticism has been leftists in the Congress
Party. They are wedded to the old politics of the Non-Aligned
Movement which was overtaken by the end of the cold war, but
they are unlikely to be able to block the deal.
The Joint Statement contains a list of other items--
civilian space cooperation, agricultural exchanges, HIV/AIDS
cooperation, ``promot[ing] modernization of India's
infrastructure,'' and so on--that comprise Delhi's long-
standing list of desires. There is little in here for the
United States.
Other supposed benefits of the deal do not survive close
scrutiny. Energy security, for example, is terribly important
to both India and the United States. We want India's huge
population to satisfy its energy needs without contributing
further to the problems of dependence on Middle East oil,
pollution, and global warming. But the arithmetic does not
support the case that nuclear power will spell the difference
for India, though it can and should play a role. For the
foreseeable future, electricity generation in India will be
dominated by coal burning. Burning coal more cheaply and more
cleanly will do more than any conceivable expansion of nuclear
power to aid India's economy and the environment. And nuclear
power does nothing to address the principal Indian oil
consuming sector--cars and trucks--since these don't run off
the electrical grid and won't for a long time. Moreover, the
type of nuclear assistance the United States is best positioned
to provide (light water reactors operating on low-enriched
uranium fuel) is at odds with India's vision of a civil nuclear
power program built primarily around breeder reactors.
It is also said that the deal will require India to improve
its laws and procedures for controlling exports or diversions
of sensitive nuclear technology--preventing an Indian A.Q.
Khan. But to my knowledge India has a good record of
controlling nuclear exports (though not always ballistic
missile exports). India is already bound by the U.S.-sponsored
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 which requires such good
conduct, so on paper at least Dehli has sold the same horse a
second time in the deal. In any event, the United States
intends to justify the deal's nuclear recognition to other
nations around the world on the grounds that India's nuclear
proliferation behavior is already exemplary. It will be
difficult to argue this point both ways at the same time.
Missile defense cooperation is also cited in the Joint
Statement. The United States has had the world's largest and
most technically proficient missile defense R&D program for
many years; it is doubtful the United States can learn much
from India in this field of military science, though India will
benefit from United States knowledge. Basing United States
missile defense radars or interceptors on Indian soil would not
be of much benefit to the United States (in the way that such
facilities in Japan, Great Britain, or Poland are useful),
since with a few exotic exceptions the trajectories of
ballistic missiles heading to targets of United States interest
do not pass close to Indian airspace. Finally, it is possible
that the administration expects India to purchase United States
missile defense systems like THAAD to protect India from
Pakistani and Chinese missile attack. Buying such defense
systems would benefit United States industry and, through
economies of scale, subsidize DOD's own purchases of missile
defenses . . . but it is unlikely that India will make
purchases of integrated BMD systems on that scale.
WHAT WASHINGTON SHOULD GET
What is it then that the United States might expect from
the ``strategic partnership'' in return for nuclear recognition
and other items of interest to Delhi in the Joint Statement?
I would suggest that over the long run the United States
would be expecting the following strategic benefits from the
India Deal:
Immediate diplomatic support to curb Iran's nuclear
program. India will need to abandon its long-standing policy of
rhetorical support for the spread of nuclear fuel-cycle
activities and compromise, to some extent, its friendly
relations with Iran. India's September 24 vote with the United
States and its European partners in the IAEA Board of
Governors, finding Iran in noncompliance with its NPT
obligations (and containing an implicit threat to refer the
matter to the United National Security Council) was a welcome
suggestion that India's support in the international struggle
to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions will be firm. But India's
continued firmness in this and other urgent
counterproliferation efforts will be an early test of the value
of strategic partnership and its new status.
Potential counterweight to China. Though no one wants to
see China and the United States fall into strategic
competition, neither can anyone rule this out. The evolution of
United States-China relations will depend on the attitudes of
China's younger generation and new leaders, on Chinese and
United States policies, and on unpredictable events like a
crisis over Taiwan. It is reasonable for the United States to
hedge against a downturn in relations with China by improving
its relations with India, and for India to do the same. But for
now India is intent on improving its relations and trade with
China, not antagonizing China. Neither government will wish to
talk publicly, let alone take actions now, pursuant to this
shared--but hypothetical and future--common interest.
Assistance in a Pakistan contingency. Avoiding and
responding to dangers from Pakistan is another common interest
that is awkward for either India or the United States to
acknowledge. Pakistan, alongside Russia, belongs at the center
of our urgent concern about nuclear terrorism--a concern
Chairman Lugar has done so much to address. Terrorists cannot
make nuclear bombs unless they obtain enriched uranium or
plutonium from governments who have made these materials. The
exposure of the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan makes clear that
Pakistan has to be regarded as a potential source of vital
materials for nuclear terrorists--whether by theft, sale,
diversion by internal radical elements with access to bombs or
materials, change of government from Musharraf to a radical
regime, or some sort of internal chaos. Which version of the
A.Q. Khan story is more alarming--that the government and
military of Pakistan was unaware of what he was doing, or that
they were aware and permitted it? Either way it illustrates a
serious danger. Were there to be a threat or incident of
nuclear terrorism originating in Pakistan, the United States
would want to act in concert with as many regional players as
possible, including India.
The Pakistan contingency is even more difficult for the
newly minted ``strategic partners'' to acknowledge publicly,
let alone to act upon. India seems intent on improving its
relations with Pakistan--despite the recent bombings in Delhi
and their impact on public opinion--and a rapprochement between
these long-time antagonists is in the U.S. interest. The United
States, for its part, has important interests at stake with the
Musharraf government--among them supporting the search for
Osama bin Laden and other terrorists on Pakistani territory,
arresting the growth of radicalism in Pakistan's population,
and stabilizing Afghanistan--and can ill afford the perception
of a ``tilt toward India.'' For now, therefore, the Pakistan
contingency, like the China counterweight, remains a
hypothetical and future benefit of the India Deal.
Joint action with the U.S. military in operations outside
of a U.N. context. India has historically refused to join the
U.S. military in operations outside of the context of a U.N.
mandate and command. In the future, when the United States
needs partners in disaster relief, humanitarian intervention,
peacekeeping missions, or stability operations, the United
States can reasonably expect India to cooperate. Judging from
the evolution of United States security partnerships in Asia
and Europe (especially NATO's Partnership for Peace),
anticipation of joint action can lead first to joint military
planning, then progressively to joint exercises, intelligence
sharing and forging of a common threat assessment, and finally
to joint capabilities. This is the path foreseen for a
deepening United States-India strategic partnership in the
defense field.
Military access and basing. There could be occasions when
access for and, if needed, basing of United States military
forces on Indian territory would be desirable. At first this
might be limited to port access for United States naval vessels
transiting the Indian Ocean and overflight rights for United
States military aircraft, but in time it could lead to such
steps as use of Indian training facilities for United States
forces deploying to locations with similar climate (the way
German training areas were used for forces deploying to the
Balkans).
Preferential treatment for United States industry in
India's civil nuclear expansion. The authors of the India Deal
might have anticipated preferential treatment for United States
industry in construction of Indian nuclear reactors and other
civil power infrastructure made possible by the deal. But there
are two barriers to realization of this U.S. benefit. First,
the United States must secure preferential access for its
nuclear industry at the expense of Russian and European
suppliers who are also seeking access to the Indian market.
Second, the United States will also need to persuade India to
focus its nuclear power expansion on light water reactors, not
the exotic and uneconomical technologies (e.g., fast breeders),
that the Indian nuclear scientific community favors. This
benefit should therefore not be exaggerated.
Preferential access for United States defense industry to
the Indian market. India is expected to increase the scale and
sophistication of its military, in part by purchasing weapons
systems abroad. In view of its concessions in the India Deal,
the United States can reasonably expect preferential treatment
for United States vendors relative to Russian or European
vendors. Early discussions have included the F-16 and F-18
tactical aircraft and the P-3C Orion maritime surveillance
aircraft.
Additional contributions to nuclear nonproliferation from
India's nuclear program. Finally, many commentators and
nonproliferation experts have recommended that Congress urge
the administration to pursue Indian agreement to certain
additional steps, not spelled out in the Bush-Singh Joint
Statement, to ``even up'' the nuclear portion of the deal.
These proposed additional steps by India include: Agreeing to
cease production of new fissile material for weapons (as the
Nuclear Weapons States have done); agreeing to forego
indigenous enrichment and reprocessing for its civil nuclear
power program in favor of the international fuel cycle
initiative proposed by President Bush in February 2004;
separating its civil and military nuclear facilities
permanently and in such a manner that all reactors producing
electricity are declared ``civil,'' and so forth.
WILL THE UNITED STATES GET THE BENEFITS OF THE INDIA DEAL?
The list above is a very substantial--even breathtaking--
set of potential benefits to the United States of a strategic
partnership with India. How realistic is it?
Some of the items on this list reflect joint, common
interests of India as well as the United States. The United
States might therefore have had many of these benefits without
having to pay the nonproliferation costs associated with
nuclear recognition for India.
Most of the items on the list are also hypothetical and lie
in a future that neither side can predict--this is certainly
the case with regard to the China counterweight and Pakistan
contingency items. Other items on the list, like Iran's nuclear
program, will unfold sooner. The United States can certainly
hope that India will behave as a true ``strategic partner'' in
the future across all the items on this list. But I believe we
may also find, when we ask India to do something they are
reluctant to do, that we come to regret having played our big
diplomatic card--nuclear recognition--so early in the process.
India, as befits a great nation on its way to global
leadership, will have its own opinions about this list. Some
American proponents of the India Deal have compared it to
Nixon's opening to China--a bold move based on a firm
foundation of mutual interest, but more a leap of trust than a
shrewd bargain. Mao and Nixon, however, had a clear and present
common enemy--the Soviet Union--not a hypothetical set of
possible future opponents. But the real difference between the
Nixon/Kissinger deal and the India Deal is that India, unlike
Mao's China, is a democracy. No government in Delhi can turn
decades of Indian policy on a dime or commit it to a broad set
of actions in support of United States interests--only a
profound and probably slow change in the views of India's
elites can do this. India's bureaucracies and diplomats are
fabled for their stubborn adherence to independent positions
regarding the world order, economic development, and nuclear
security. Proponents of the India Deal suggest that these
positions will yield to the grand gesture of nuclear
recognition by the United States. I believe this expectation is
naive. Americans view the change of long-standing and
principled nonproliferation policy to accommodate India as a
concession. India views it as acknowledgement of something to
which they have long been entitled. This is not a durable basis
for a diplomatic transaction.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is therefore
premature to tell whether the United States will achieve
security benefits from the India Deal that outweigh the costs.
That means the deal itself was premature. At this point, the
United States, including the Congress, can only do its best to
ensure that its benefits are fully realized--by both parties.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HENRY D. SOKOLSKI
Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center,
Washington, DC
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I want to thank you
for asking me to testify on the nonproliferation impact of the
U.S.-India nuclear and space cooperation deals announced July
18, 2005. Unlike the many other mutually favorable deals
announced July 18, 2005, these two, if not properly clarified
by Congress, are fraught with danger. Improperly implementing
them in their current form could not only encourage India to
make intercontinental-range ballistic missiles and more nuclear
weapons, it could devastate any firm reading of the current
nuclear rules, whether they be the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT), the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or America's
own Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).
My general recommendation to you today is that Congress
should authorize implementing these agreements only after India
commits to the limits other responsible, advanced nuclear
states have. This should be done in a country-neutral fashion
by amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to allow U.S. nuclear
cooperation with advanced, responsible nuclear states that are
not members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) if,
and only if, they meet five minimal conditions.
First, they must forswear producing fissile materials for
military purposes and, if they have a nuclear arsenal, forswear
increasing the net number of nuclear weapons in their arsenal.
Such states would also have to pledge eventually to dismantle
their nuclear arsenals as have all other NPT weapons states.
Second, they must identify all reactors supplying
electricity, all research reactors claimed to be for peaceful
purposes, all spent fuel these reactors have produced, and all
fuel making plants supplying these reactors as being civilian
and, therefore, subject to routine, compulsory international
inspections.
Third, they must uphold all previous bilateral nuclear
nonproliferation obligations they might have had with the
United States and other countries.
Fourth, they must publicly adopt the principles of the
Proliferation Security Initiative.
Fifth, they must be free of any U.S. nuclear or nuclear-
capable missile sanctions for at least 2 years and have cleared
up any outstanding sanctionable actions before U.S. cooperation
is formalized.
To be sure, insisting on these requirements will displease
those in a hurry to seal the nuclear and space deals with
India. Yet, insisting on such conditions in no way moves the
goal posts or raises the bar on the U.S.-India Joint Statement
announced July 18, 2005. At the time, both the United States
insisted that it does not regard India as a nuclear weapons
state under the NPT. As such, it should have been understood
that IAEA inspections of India's civilian nuclear facilities
might well be tighter than the unique, voluntary spot
inspections, that NPT weapons states' facilities are given.
Also, at the time, both United States and Indian officials
agreed that India would assume all those restraints that
``advanced, responsible nuclear states'' had assumed. Among the
most important of these is forswearing the expansion of one's
nuclear arsenal by renouncing the further production of fissile
material for military purposes and capping the net number of
nuclear weapons one has. Under these conditions, one could
possess nuclear weapons, modernize them, or (as the United
States, Russia, United Kingdom, and France, have done)
dismantle them, but that would be it.
It should be noted that demanding that these conditions is
more than merely desirable. They must be met if, as the deal's
backers have claimed repeatedly, the nuclear and space deals
are to enhance the cause of global nonproliferation and U.S.
security. Certainly, the credibility and success of United
States and allied efforts to curb proliferation in Iraq, Iran,
and North Korea has depended heavily on a firm reading of the
nuclear rules. The NPT bargain of giving up nuclear weapons to
secure international civilian nuclear cooperation also was
critical to securing Libya's agreement to give up its nuclear
activities, and to South Africa's and the Ukraine's surrender
of their nuclear arms. Finally, the United States has an
interest in making India behave as the United Kingdom and Japan
do, not merely as China or Iran. Indeed, only by insisting on
better behavior here will the United States, India, and other
responsible nuclear nations have the moral authority required
to pressure Iran to limit its unnecessary and dangerous nuclear
fuel making and China to stop its expansion of its nuclear
weapons arsenal.
Unfortunately, India has yet to express interest in meeting
these conditions. Nor has the Bush administration pushed very
hard to secure them. This all might be acceptable to Congress.
If so, Congress need only endorse the loose nuclear inspections
arrangements India and the executive branch are currently
negotiating and approve legislation to relax U.S. Atomic Energy
Act and missile technology controls in the sole case of India.
But Congress should understand that if it does this, it will
put the United States in the dubious position of:
1. Helping India expand its nuclear weapons arsenal by
freeing up a nuclear fuel making capacity that otherwise would
be needed to supply civilian reactors, such as those at
Tarapur, with lightly enriched uranium (see viewgraph 1).
2. Lending technical support to India's intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) project, the Surya, an incredibly
massive, inherently vulnerable, first-strike missile derived
directly from its civilian satellite launch system (the Polar
Space Launch Vehicle). India already has a medium-range
missile, the Agni, which it is upgrading to reach all of China
and can be made road and rail-mobile. Indian officials,
meanwhile, claim India's ICBM is intended to deter Europe and
the United States (see attached viewgraphs 2 and 3 and NPEC's
newly released study, ``India's ICBM: On a Glide Path to
Trouble?'' by Dr. Richard Speier).
3. Undermining United States and international efforts to
restrict nuclear and missile technology exports to states such
as North Korea and Iran by giving such help to a state that has
not yet signed the NPT, capped its nuclear weapons program,
rectified proliferation transactions that are sanctionable
under United States law, endorsed the Proliferation Security
Initiative's principles, or placed all of its nuclear
activities under compulsory IAEA nuclear inspections as all
responsible, advanced nuclear states have.
For most people, avoiding these pitfalls would be worth
considerable effort. Yet, more than a few of the deals' backers
cynically believe that encouraging these developments is
necessary to enhance United States security against a hostile
China or Iran. This, however, reflects an unwarranted,
defeatism that is unworthy of the United States. More
important, it is strategically misguided on at least three
critical counts:
1. India's Foreign Secretary and Prime Ministers insist
India's July 18 understandings with the United States are not
``directed against any third country.'' In fact, India struck a
strategic agreement with Iran in January 2003 known as the New
Delhi Declaration, not only to help develop Iranian oil and gas
fields, but to assure continued cooperation with Iran against
the Taliban in Afghanistan, many of whom threaten the peace in
Kashmir. Indian officials also are insistent that India's vote
on Iranian IAEA noncompliance was cast primarily to help
prevent referral to the United Nations and did not mean that
India thought Iran was actually in noncompliance. As for China,
the current Indian Government sees economic cooperation with
Beijing as a key to India's future development.
2. The last thing in anyone's security interest is to help
India compete against China with nuclear arms. China has 5 to
10 times the number of deployed nuclear weapons as India and
hundreds more advanced long-range ballistic missiles. Although
it no longer makes fissile materials for weapons, it has
stockpiled thousands of additional weapons' worth of highly
enriched uranium and separated plutonium. It has shied from
converting all of this material into bombs for fear of sparking
an arms rivalry with Japan, who could go nuclear by bolting the
NPT and militarizing its own massive, growing stockpile of
separated civilian plutonium. To be sure, the current Indian
Government is not interested in dramatically ramping up Indian
nuclear weapons production. Its main opponents, the BJP,
however, clearly are. If they were to return to power and no
cap had been placed on India's nuclear weapons efforts, more
Indian weapons would likely be built, which, in turn, could
provoke China--prompting a nuclear arms rivalry, not only
between it and India (and, consequently, revving up even more
nuclear competition between India and Pakistan), but with Japan
and the United States.
3. Every rupee India invests in developing nuclear weapons,
ICBMs, and missile defense is one less that will otherwise be
available to enhance security cooperation with the United
States in the imperative areas of antiterrorism, intelligence
sharing, and maritime cooperation in and near the Indian Ocean.
India's entire annual military budget of about $20 billion
(which supports a military of over 1.3 million active duty
soldiers) is roughly what the United States spends on its
nuclear arsenal and missile defenses alone. Encouraging India
to spend in these areas could easily hollow out its
conventional military and undermine the very areas most
promising for United States-Indian cooperation.
This then brings us to the weakest and least credible
arguments for pushing nuclear and space cooperation on an
urgent basis; that is that India must have substantial United
States cooperation in these fields immediately to sustain its
economic growth. In fact, for the near term just the reverse is
the case: Investing in the expansion of nuclear power in India
for the next decade is the very least leveraged way to address
India's growing need for more and cleaner energy. Instead, one
should focus first on increasing efficiencies in India's
consumption, distribution, and generation of energy (including
but not limited to its electrical sector). This would entail
transitioning to cleaner uses of coal and restructuring India's
coal industry to meet demand; introducing market mechanisms and
curbing massive energy theft and subsidies; and expanding the
use of renewable energy, e.g., biomass, small hydro, wind, etc.
(both connected and unconnected to the grid). So long as the
Indian nuclear sector continues to be preoccupied with
extremely complicated thorium-fuel cycle systems and breeder
reactors and relies on dysfunctional state secrecy and
monopoly-style management, investing in this energy sector will
be self-defeating. Instead, the United States and others should
encourage India's nuclear sector to acquire a more reasonable
set of goals and open itself up to foreign ownership and
management. This will take time (for more details, see attached
viewgraphs, 4 through 7).
As for space cooperation in the space launch area, by far
the safest, most cost-effective form of cooperation would be to
make affordable United States launch capabilities more
accessible to India. Certainly, the recent announcement that
the United States intends to include Indian astronauts in
upcoming United States space shuttle missions is the proper
path to take. Transferring satellite integration and space
launch technology to India, on the other hand, is a sure-fire
way to repeat the frightening development that Loral and Hughes
produced in the 1990s with China when their satellite launch
integration assistance literally boosted China's ICBM
modernization efforts.
For this and all the other reasons noted above, Congress
should exercise due diligence in sorting out the specifics of
United States-Indian nuclear and space cooperation. Your
committee is to be commended for taking the initiative in
requesting that any enabling legislation to implement United
States-India space and nuclear cooperation be referred to the
appropriate committees rather than on any legislative spending
vehicle. Congress and the appropriate committees also should
make their own views known on what legislative conditions they
believe the proper implementation of nuclear and space
cooperation with India and similar non-NPT states require.
Under no circumstances, should Congress allow itself to be
rushed.
[Viewgraphs and other material submitted by Mr. Sokolski
follow:]
India's ICBM--On A ``Glide Path'' to Trouble?
(A Policy Research Paper by Dr. Richard Speier, October 26, 2005)
introduction
A glide path is the gentle course that an airplane follows as it
descends to a safe landing. If the plane encounters an unexpected
development, it can divert, regain altitude, and change its course.
Because India has been developing nuclear weapons and missiles to
deliver them, United States-Indian technology relations have for many
years remained up in the air, not heading for a safe landing. After 4
years of Bush administration negotiations the United States now
describes its technology relations with India as being on a ``glide
path.''
This paper addresses the question whether, in view of India's
abundantly reported intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
development, we should divert from our present ``glide path'' approach
to space cooperation.
On October 3, 2003, the Washington Post questioned Secretary of
State Powell about the latest diplomatic developments with India.
QUESTION: . . . last week, President Bush presented [Prime
Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee with what was called, like, a
``glide path'' toward better relations. . . .
SECRETARY POWELL: . . . there was a basket of issues that
they were always asking us about called, well, we called it--we
nicknamed it, ``The Trinity.'' How could you help us? How can
we expand our trade in high tech areas, in areas having to do
with space launch activities, and with our nuclear industry? .
. . we also have to protect certain red lines that we have with
respect to proliferation, because it's sometimes hard to
separate within space launch activities and industries and
nuclear programs, that which could go to weapons, and that
which could be solely for peaceful purposes. . . . And the
``glide path'' was a way of bringing closure to this debate.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41977-
2003Oct3.html. Italics added for emphasis.
Nearly 2 years later, President Bush and the Indian Prime Minister
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
confirmed this cooperation in a joint statement.
. . . the two leaders resolve . . . Build closer ties in
space exploration, satellite navigation and launch, and in the
commercial space arena. . . .\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, July 18, 2005,
``Joint Statement Between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh,'' available at http://usinfo.state.gov. Italics added
for emphasis.
As this cooperation was being negotiated and agreed, reports
persisted that India was preparing to produce an ICBM. These reports
had been accumulating for over two decades.\3\ The latest public report
appeared less than 6 weeks after the Presidents' joint statement.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ For early reports see Islamic Defence Review Vol. 6/No. 4,
1981; Maurice Eisenstein, ``Third World Missiles and Nuclear
Proliferation,'' The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1982; ``Liquid Fuel
Engine Tested for PSLV,'' Hindustan Times, New Delhi, December 13,
1985, p.1; ``Growing Local Opposition to India's Proposed National Test
Range at Baliapal, Orissa,'' English Language Press, October 1986; and
``India Faces Rising Pressure for Arms Race With Pakistan,'' Christian
Science Monitor, March 9, 1987, p.1.
\4\ Madhuprasad, ``Boost to Indian Armed Forces' Deterrence
Arsenal; India to Develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missile,''
Bangalore Deccan Herald in English, August 25, 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the last decade the reports have been consistent in avering
that the ICBM will be called ``Surya'' and that hardware and technology
for the ICBM will come from India's gigantic Polar Space Launch Vehicle
(PSLV).
What are the capabilities of the ICBM, and why does India want it?
How did India acquire the space launch vehicle technology for the
weapon? And how did the United States come to ride a ``glide path'' to
space launch cooperation with India? These topics will be covered in
turn.
India's ICBM--what and why
In 1980s India adapted a space launch vehicle, the SLV-3, to become
the Agni medium-range ballistic missile. In keeping with India's
practice of describing nuclear and missile programs as civilian until
their military character could not be denied, India originally claimed
that the Agni was a ``technology demonstrator.'' The Agni program now
consists of three missiles with ranges, respectively, of upwards of
700, 2,000, and 3,000 kilometers.
India may have officially begun the Surya project (also sometimes
known as Agni IV) in 1994.\5\ Reports cite various dates perhaps
because the project has several decision points. Reports generally
agree that the Surya program, like the Agni program, will result in
missiles with various ranges.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Vivek Raghuvanshi, ``Indian Scientists Poised To Test-Launch
Country's First ICBM,'' Defense News, April 30, 2001, p. 26.
Surya-1 will have a range of about 5,000 kilometers.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ International missile nomenclature defines an ICBM as a
ballistic missile with a range of 5,500 or greater. However, Indian
commentators have tended to exaggerate their missiles' capabilities by
bumping missiles into the next higher range classes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surya-2 from 8,000 to 12,000 kilometers.
Surya-3 up to 20,000 kilometers.
Table 1 compares the Agni and Surya families of missiles.
TABLE 1.--THE AGNI AND SURYA MISSILE FAMILIES \7\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Missile Size Range Mobile? Probable Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
lxd............................. (km) (m)
Agni-1.......................... 15xl............... 700-1000+.......... yes............... Pakistan
Agni-2.......................... 20x1............... 2000-3000+......... yes............... China
Agni-3.......................... 20x1 or 13x1.8..... 3000-5000+......... yes............... China
Surya-1......................... 35x2.8............ 5000.............. no................ China
Surya-2......................... 40x2.8............ 8000-12000......... no................ United States
Surya-3......................... 40+x2.8............ 20000.............. no................ Global
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reports agree that the Surya will have the option of a nuclear
payload--and sometimes the claim is made that the payload will consist
of multiple nuclear warheads.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ The low-end figures for the Agni family are commonly reported.
The high-end figures are more uncertain. In the case of Agni-3, the
high-end figures may relate to later Agni models or even to the Surya.
Surya lengths are approximations based on the lengths of the PSLV and
GSLV missile stages.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reports generally agree that the Surya will be a three-stage
missile with the first two Surya stages derived from PSLV's solid-fuel
rockets. India obtained the solid-fuel technology for the SLV-3 and the
PSLV from the United States in the 1960s.\8\ The third Surya stage is
to use liquid fuel and will be derived either from the Viking rocket
technology supplied by France in the 1980s (called Vikas when India
manufactured PSLV stages with the technology) or from a more powerful
Russian-supplied cryogenic upper stage for the Geosynchronous Space
Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which is an adaptation of the PSLV.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Gary Milhollin, ``India's Missiles--With a Little Help from Our
Friends,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1989, available
at http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/india/misshelp.html and
Sundara Vadlamudi, ``Indo-U.S. Space Cooperation: Poised for Take-
Off?'', The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2005, p.
203.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If--as reported--the Surya uses PSLV rocket motors, it will be an
enormous rocket with solid-fuel stages 2.8 meters (about 9 feet) in
diameter and a total weight of up to 275 metric tons. This will make it
by far the largest ICBM in the world--with a launch weight about three
times that of the largest U.S. or Russian ICBMs.
There appears to be no literature on Indian plans to harden or
conceal the Surya launch site or to make the missile mobile, any of
which would be difficult to do because of the missile's size and
weight. If a cryogenic third stage is used, the launch process will be
lengthy. This means that the Surya is likely to be vulnerable to attack
before launch, making it a ``first-strike'' weapon that could not
survive in a conflict. Indeed, the Surya's threatening nature and its
prelaunch vulnerability would make it a classic candidate for
preemptive attack in a crisis. In strategic theory this leads to
``crisis instability,'' the increased incentive for a crisis to lead to
strategic attacks because of each side's premium on striking first.
Why would India want such a weapon? The reported ranges of the
Surya variants suggest the answer.
5,000-kilometer Surya-1 might overlap the range of a
reported 5,000-kilometer upgrade of the Agni missile.\9\ Surya-
1 would have only one advantage over such an upgraded Agni.
That advantage would be a far larger payload--to carry a large
(perhaps thermonuclear) warhead or multiple nuclear warheads.
India has no reason to need a missile of ``ICBM'' range for use
against Pakistan. 5,000 kilometers is arguably an appropriate
missile range for military operations against distant targets
in China. As illustrations of the relevant distances, the range
from New Delhi to Beijing is 3,900 kilometers, from New Delhi
to Shanghai 4,400 kilometers, and from Mumbai to Shanghai 5,100
kilometers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Moscow Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey internet news service in
English, 1252 GMT November 1, 2004; and a publication of more uncertain
quality, Arun Vishwakarma, ``Agni--Strategic Ballistic Missile,'' April
15, 2005, available at http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MISSILES/
Agni.html. It is possible that either or both of these references have
conflated the Surya-1 the Agri program.
An 8,000-to-12,000-kilometer Surya-2 would be excessive for
use against China. However, the distance from New Delhi to
London is 6,800 kilometers, to Madrid 7,400 kilometers, to
Seattle 11,500 kilometers, and to Washington, D.C., 12,000
kilometers. An Indian Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) official wrote in 1997, ``Surya's targets
will be Europe and the United States.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Wilson John, ``India's Missile Might,'' The Pioneer in
English, New Delhi, July 13, 1997, p. l, available as FBIS-TAC-97-195
BK1407155097, July 14, 1997
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A 20,000-kilometer range Surya-3 could strike any point on
the surface of the Earth.
Indian commentators generally site two reasons for acquiring an
ICBM: To establish India as a global power and to enable India to deal
with ``high-tech aggression'' of the type demonstrated in the wars with
Iraq.\11\ Because there is no obvious reason for India to want a
military capability against Europe, there is only one target that
stands out as the bulls-eye for an Indian ICBM--the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ For example, Brahma Chellaney, ``Value of Power,'' The
Hindustan Times in English, May 19, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How India got here
The established path to a space launch capability for the United
States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China was to
adapt a ballistic missile as a space launch vehicle. India turned the
process around, adapting a space launch vehicle as a ballistic missile.
If Brazil, Japan, or South Korea were to develop long-range ballistic
missiles, they would probably follow India's example.
President Kennedy was once asked the difference between the Atlas
space launch vehicle that put John Glenn into orbit and an Atlas
missile aimed at the Soviet Union. He answered with a one-word pun,
``Attitude.'' Paul Wolfowitz is said to have compared space launch
vehicles to ``peaceful nuclear explosives'' (PNEs); both have civilian
uses but embody hardware and technology that are interchangeable with
military applications. India has demonstrated this interchangeability
with both space launch vehicles and PNEs.
The path to India's ICBM capability took more than four decades.
Early 1960s: NASA trains Indian scientists at Wallops
Island, Virginia, in sounding rockets and provided Nike-Apache
sounding rockets to India.\12\ France, the UK, and the Soviet
Union also supply sounding rockets.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Vadlamudi, op cit.
\13\ Milhollin, op cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1963-64: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, an Indian engineer, works at
Wallops Island where the Scout space launch vehicle (an
adaptation of Minuteman ICBM solid-fuel rocket technology) is
flown.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1965: Upon Kalam's return to India the Indian Atomic Energy
Commission requests U.S. assistance with the Scout, and NASA
provides unclassified reports.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1969-70: U.S. firms supply equipment for the Solid
Propellant Space Booster Plant at Sriharokota.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Vadlamudi, op cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1973: India tests a ``peaceful nuclear explosion.''
1970s: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam becomes head of the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO), in charge of developing space
launch vehicles.
1980: India launches its first satellite with the SLV-3
rocket, a close copy of the NASA scout.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Alexander Pikayev, Leonard Spector, et al., Russia, the U.S.
and the Missile Technology Control Regime, Adelphi Paper 317,
International Institute for Strategic Studies, March 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 1982: Kalam becomes head of DRDO, in charge of
adapting space launch vehicle technology to ballistic missiles.
1989: India launches its first Agni ``technology
demonstrator'' surface-to-surface missile. The Agni's first
stage is essentially the first stage of the SLV-3. Later, the
Agni becomes a family of three short-to-intermediate-range
ballistic missiles.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen, ``India's Nuclear Forces,
2005,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 61, No. 05, September/
October 2005, available at http://www.thebulletin.org/
article_nn.php?art_ofn=so05norris.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1990: Russia agrees to supply India with cryogenic upper
stage rockets and technology. The United States imposes
sanctions on Russia until, in 1993, Russia agrees to limit the
transfer to hardware and not technology. However, India claims
it has acquired the technology to produce the rockets on its
own.
1994: India launches the PSLV. Stages 1 and 3 are 2.8 meter-
diameter solid-fuel rockets. Stages 2 and 4 are liquid-fuel
Vikas engines derived from French technology transfers in the
1980s.
1994: This is the earliest date for which the Surya ICBM
program, using PSLV technology, is reported to have been
officially authorized. However, India's space and missile
engineers--if not the ``official'' Indian Government--had
opened the option much earlier.
1998: India tests nuclear weapons after decades of
protesting that its nuclear program was exclusively peaceful.
1999: India flies the Agni II, an extended range missile
that tests reentry vehicle ``technology [that] can be
integrated with the PSLV programme to creat an ICBM'' according
to a defence ministry official.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ V.G. Jaideep, ``India Building ICBM with 8,000-Plus Km
Range,'' The Asian Age in English, February 8, 1999, pp. 1-2 and
Barbara Opall-Rome, ``Agni Test Undercuts U.S., Angers China,'' Defense
News, April 26, 1999, p. 17.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1999: Defense News cites Indian Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO) officials as stating that the
Surya is under development.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Vivek Raghuvanshi, ``India To Develop Extensive Nuclear
Missile Arsenal,'' Defense News, May 24, 1999, p. 14.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 6, 1999: India's Minister of State for Defence (and
former head of DRDO) Bachi Singh Rawat says India is developing
an ICBM known as Surya that would ``have a range of up to 5,000
km.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Canadian Security Intelligence Service, ``Ballistic Missile
Proliferation,'' Report # 2000/09, March 23, 2001, available at http://
www.cisiscrs.gc.ca/eng/misdocs/200009_e.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 23, 1999: Rawat is reported to have been stripped
of his portfolio after his ICBM disclosure.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Iftikhar Gilani, ``Premature Disclosure of ICBM Project, Rawat
Stripped of Defence Portfolio,'' New Delhi, November 23, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001: Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center
announces that it will supply five more cryogenic upper stages
to India within the next 3 years.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Moscow (Interfax), ``Khrunichev Space Center To Supply Rocket
Boosters To India,'' April 16, 2001, available at http:/spacer.com/
news/india-01d.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001: The cryogenic engine is reported to be ``the Surya's
test-bed.'' \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Cf. footnote 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001: A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate states, ``India
could convert its polar space launch vehicle into an ICBM
within a year or two of a decision to do so.'' \25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ National Intelligence Estimate, ``Foreign Missile Developments
and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015,'' December 2001,
available at http://www.cia.gov/nic/special_missilethreat2001.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004: A Russian Academy of Sciences Deputy Director states
that India is planning to increase the range of the Agni
missile to 5,000 kilometers and to design the Surya ICBM with a
range of 8,000 to 12,000 kilometers.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Cf. footnote 9.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2005: According to Indian Ministry of Defence sources, there
are plans to use the non-cryogenic Vikas stage for the Surya
and to have the missile deliver a 2\1/2\ to 3\1/2\ metric ton
payload with two or three warheads with explosive yields of 15
to 20 kilotons.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Madhuprasad, op cit.
The common threads in all these reports are that space launch
vehicle technology is the basis for the Indian ICBM, and that India
obtained the technology with foreign help.
How the United States got here
The United States has a policy against missile proliferation, but
the policy has not been in place as long as the Indian missile program.
Nor has the policy been consistently applied. Some markers:
1970s: The United States begins to consider a broad policy
against missile proliferation.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Richard Speier, ``The Missile Technology Control Regime: Case
Study of a Multilateral Negotiation,'' manuscript funded by the United
States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., November 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980s: The United States and its six economic summit
partners secretly negotiate the Missile Technology Control
Regime (MTCR). After 1\1/2\ years of difficult negotiations on
the question of space launch vehicles, all partners agree that
they must be treated as restrictively as ballistic missiles
because their hardware, technology, and production facilities
are interchangeable. The MTCR is informally implemented in 1985
and is publicly announced in 1987.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Speier, ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1990: Two weeks after the United States enacts a sanctions
law against missile proliferation, the Soviet Union announces
its cryogenic rocket deal with India. The two parties are the
first to have sanctions imposed on them under the new law.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Pikayev, et al, op cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1993: The United States and Russia agree that Russia may
transfer a limited number of cryogenic rocket engines to India,
but not their production technology. \31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998: India tests nuclear weapons. United States imposes
broad sanctions on nuclear and missile/space-related transfers.
1999: Kalam says he wants to ``neutralise'' the
``stranglehold'' some nations had over the MTCR that had tried,
but failed, to ``throttle'' India's missile program. ``I would
like to devalue missiles by selling the technology to many
nations and break their stranglehold.'' \32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ ``Agni IRBM Built to Carry Nuclear Warhead,'' Jane's Defence
Weekly, April 28, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 22, 2001: United States lifts many of the
technology sanctions imposed in 1998. Subsequently, India's
Prime Minister visits the United States amid agreement to
broaden the technology dialogue.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Vadlamudi, op cit., is an excellent source for recent
developments in the U.S.-Indian space dialogue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2002: Kalam becomes President of India.
2002: The United States tells India it will not object to
India launching foreign satellites, as long as they do not
contain U.S.-origin components.\34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ C. Raja Mohan, ``U.S. Gives Space to ISRO,'' The Hindu in
English, September 30, 2002, p. 11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 2003: The last mention of India is made in the
Director of Central Intelligence's unclassified semi-annual
report to Congress on the acquisition weapons of mass
destruction. Future reports deletes descriptions of India's
activities.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Director of Central Intelligence, ``Unclassified Report to
Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass
Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January Through 30
June 2002,'' posted April 2003, available at http://www.cia.gov.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2003: Secretary of State Powell speaks to the
Washington Post about the ``Trinity'' and the ``glide path.''
\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Cf. footnote 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 2004: President Bush agrees to expand cooperation
with India in ``civilian space programs'' but not explicitly to
cooperate with space launches. This measure is part of a
bilateral initiative dubbed ``Next Steps in Strategic
Partnership.'' \37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Statement by
the President on India, ``Next Steps in Strategic Partnership with
India,'' January 12, 2004, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2004/01/20040112-1.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 2005: President Bush agrees to cooperate with India on
``satellite navigation and launch.'' The Prime Minister of
India agrees to ``adherence to Missile Technology Control
Regime . . . guidelines.'' \38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Cf. footnote 3.
The common thread in these developments is that the U.S. clarity
about the relationship between space launch vehicles and missile
proliferation appears close to being obscured in the case of India.
India's agreement to adhere to the MTCR's export control guidelines is
a welcome development but does not entitle India to missile (or space
launch vehicle) technology. Without India's adherence, if India were to
export missile technology restricted by the MTCR, it would be a
candidate for the imposition of sanctions under U.S. law.
Analysis
The story of India's ICBM illustrates short-sightedness on the
parts of both India and the United States. If India completes the
development of an ICBM, the following consequences can be expected:
An incentive to preempt against India in times of crisis,
A diversion of India's military funds away from applications
that would more readily complement ``strategic partnership''
with the United States,
Increased tensions and dangers with China,
Confusion and anger on the part of India's friends in Europe
and the United States,
A backlash against India that will hinder further
cooperation in a number of areas, and
A goad to other potential missile proliferators and their
potential suppliers to becoming more unrestrained.
The governments of India and the United States have nothing to be
proud of in this business. In seeking to become a global power by
acquiring a first-strike weapon of mass destruction the Indian
Government is succumbing to its most immature and irresponsible
instincts. The U.S. Government, by offering India the ``Trinity'' of
cooperation, is flirting with counterproductive activities that could
lead to more proliferation.
There are, of course, arguments in favor of such cooperation:
Strategic cooperation with India is of greater value than
theological concerns about proliferation.
India has already developed nuclear weapons and long-range
missiles, so resistance to such proliferation is futile.
And India is our friend, so we need not worry about its
strategic programs.
It is true that there is considerable value to strategic
cooperation with India. But nuclear and space launch cooperation are
not the only kinds of assistance that India can use. It has a greater
use for conventional military assistance, development aid, and access
to economic markets. Moreover, nonproliferation has a strategic value
at least as great as that of an Indian partnership. A little
proliferation goes a long way. It encourages other nations (such as
Pakistan, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) to consider similar
programs. And the example of U.S. cooperation encourages other
suppliers to relax their restraint.
It is true that India has already developed nuclear weapons and
long-range missiles. But India has a long way to go to improve their
performance, and it has a history of using nuclear and space launch
assistance to do just that. Some areas in which India can still improve
its missiles are:
Accuracy. For a ballistic missile, accuracy deteriorates
with range. India's ICBM could make use of better guidance
technology, and it might obtain such technology with ``high-
tech'' cooperation with the United States.
Weight. Unnecessary weight in a missile reduces payload and
range. Or it forces the development of gigantic missiles such
as India's PSLV-derived ICBM. India is striving to obtain
better materials and master their use to reduce unnecessary
missile weight.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Mir Ayoob Ali Khan, ``Agni-Ill to get light motor for bigger
bombs,'' The Asian Age in English, New Delhi, October 14, 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reliability. India's space launch vehicles and medium range
missiles have suffered their share of flight failures.
Engineering assistance in space launches could improve India's
missile reliability--as was demonstrated with unapproved
technology transfers incident to launches of U.S. satellites by
China.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ The ``Cox Commission'' Report, House of Representatives Report
105-851, ``Report of the Select Committee on US National Security and
Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China,''
June 14, 1999, available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/
hr105851/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Multiple warheads. India's reported interest in missile
payloads with multiple nuclear warheads means that certain
elements of satellite technology may get diverted to military
use. Deliberate or inadvertent transfers of technology
associated with dispensing and orienting satellites could, as
in the Chinese case, make it easier to develop multiple re-
entry vehicles.
Countermeasures against missile defenses. Assistance to
India in certain types of satellite technology, such as the
automated deployment of structures in space, could aid the
development of penetration aids for India's long-range
missiles. Given that the United States is the obvious target
for an Indian ICBM, such countermeasures could stress U.S.
missile defenses.
Supplier restraint can slow down India's missile progress and make
such missiles more expensive and unreliable--perhaps delaying programs
until a new regime takes a fresh look at them and considers
deemphasizing them. Apart from the technical assistance that the United
States is considering supplying, the relaxation of U.S. objections to
foreign use of India launch services will augment the ISRO budget for
rocket development. Even if India were not materially aided by U.S.
space launch cooperation, the example is certain to kindle hopes in
such nations as Brazil that they can get away with the same tactics.
And France and Russia, India's traditional and less-restrained rocket
technology suppliers, are certain to want a piece of the action.
It is true that India is our friend and ``strategic partner,'' at
least at the present time. History raises questions whether such
friendship would continue through a conflict with Pakistan. And India's
interest in an ICBM, which only makes sense as a weapon against the
United States, raises questions whether the friendship is mutual.
Moreover, nonproliferation policy is often directed against programs in
friendly nations. Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa,
South Korea, Taiwan, and Ukraine are all friendly nations for which the
United States has attempted to hinder WMD and missile programs without
undermining broader relations. An exception for India is certain to be
followed by more strident demands for exceptions elsewhere. Is the
space-launch component of ``friendship'' worth a world filled with
nations with nuclear-armed missiles?
India's missile program has evolved over more than four decades.
The history of proliferation demonstrates the difficulty of holding to
a strong nonproliferation policy over years, let alone decades.\41\
There will always be temptations to trade nonproliferation for some
bilateral or strategic advantage of the moment. In the current
situation, India may have out-negotiated the United States. After
India's 1998 nuclear weapon tests, the United States imposed sanctions
and then gradually lifted them. In nuclear and rocket matters, this was
not enough for India. And once the United States began easing up on
India, the United States kept easing up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Richard Speier, ``United States Strategies Against the
Proliferation of Mass Destruction Weapons,'' doctoral dissertation,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1968.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States professes to be holding to its ``red lines''--in
Secretary of State Powell's words--in whatever kind of cooperation it
is considering. But the world needs to know where these lines are when
it comes to ``space launch'' cooperation. It is one thing for the
United States to provide launch services for Indian satellites. It is
another thing for the United States to use or help improve India's
ICBM-capable rockets. Are the ``red lines'' firm or flexible? Is the
``glide path'' a slippery slope? This brings us to this paper's
recommendations.
Recommendations
Under the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement, the United States and
India committed themselves to ``build closer ties in space exploration,
satellite navigation and launch, and in the commercial space arena.''
This does not require nor should it encourage U.S. cooperation on
India's ICBM program directly or indirectly. In fact, the United States
has already taken a step in the right direction by offering to launch
Indian astronauts in upcoming space shuttle missions and to involve
them to the fullest extent in the International Space Station
The United States should do more to encourage India to launch its
satellites and science packages on U.S. and foreign launchers by making
these launches more affordable. The United States also should be
forthcoming in offering India access, as appropriate, to the benefits
of U.S. satellite programs--including communications, earth resource
observation, and exploration of the cosmos. India, in fact, has some of
the world's best astrophysicists and cosmologists. It is in our
interest, as well as the world's, that we make all of the data from our
space observation programs involving the Hubble telescope and similar
systems available to Indian scientists to analyze.
(1) Do not be naive about the nature of India's program
After more than two decades of reports about India's interest in an
ICBM--including reports from Russia, statements on India's ICBM
capability by the U.S. intelligence community, and the firing of an
Indian official after he publicly described the Surya program--there
should be no illusions. All of the reports state that India's ICBM will
be derived from its space launch vehicle. The United States should not
believe that it is possible to separate India's ``civilian'' space
launch program--the incubator of its long-range missiles--from India's
military program. There should be no illusions about the target of the
ICBM. It is the United States--to protect India from the theoretical
possibility of ``high-tech aggression.'' The U.S. intelligence
community's semi-annual unclassified reporting to Congress on India's
nuclear and missile programs was discontinued after April 2003. This
reporting should be resumed.
(2) Do not assist India's space launch programs
The United States should not cooperate either with India's space
launches or with satellites that India will launch. India hopes that
satellite launches will earn revenues that will accelerate its space
program--including rocket development. U.S. payloads for Indian
launches--such as the envisioned cooperative lunar project--risk
technology transfer (see recommendation No. 3) and invite other nations
to be less restrained in their use of Indian launches. Because there is
no meaningful distinction between India's civilian and military rocket
programs, the United States should explicitly or de facto place ISRO
back on the ``entities'' list of destinations that require export
licenses.\42\ Certainly, Congress should insist that the United States
explain it's ``red lines'' regarding space cooperation with India. If
these lines are not drawn tightly enough, Congress should intervene.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ U.S. Department of Commerce, ``Control Policy: End-User and
End-Use Based,'' Export Administration Regulations, Part 744, available
at http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/744.pdf. ISRO was removed from
the ``entities'' list under a U.S-Indian agreement signed on September
17, 2004. See Vadlamudi, op cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3) Review carefully any cooperation with India's satellite
programs
India is reportedly developing multiple nuclear warheads for its
long-range missiles. If India develops an ICBM, the next step will be
to develop countermeasures to penetrate U.S. missile defenses. Certain
satellite technologies can help India with both of these developments.
The United States should review its satellite cooperation to ensure
that it does not aid India inappropriately in the technologies of
dispensing or orienting spacecraft, of automated deployment of
structures in space, or of other operations that would materially
contribute to multiple warheads or countermeasures against missile
defenses.
conclusion
The target of an Indian ICBM would be the United States. The
technology of an Indian ICBM would be that of a space launch vehicle.
The United States should not facilitate the acquisition or improvement
of that technology directly or indirectly In this matter, U.S. clarity
and restraint are what the world--and India--need.
______
Feeding the Nuclear Fire
(By Zia Mian and M.V. Ramona, September 20, 2005)
The July 18 Joint Statement by U.S. President George Bush and Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has attracted a great deal of comment. The
focus has been on the possible consequences of United States promises
to support India's nuclear energy program in exchange for India clearly
separating its military and civilian nuclear facilities and programs
and opening the latter to international inspection.
Much of the debate on the deal has arisen between what can be
broadly called nuclear hawks and nuclear nationalists. The hawks
believe that New Delhi's nuclear program is a great success and that
India is more than able to take care of itself. They see the deal as
imposing unnecessary constraints on India's nuclear program and
impeding the creation of a large nuclear arsenal--including
thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs)--which they believe to be
essential for India to achieve ``great power'' status.
The clearest expression of this perspective comes from former Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who
seek the largest possible nuclear weapons capability. Vajpayee argues
that: ``Separating the civilian from the military would be very
difficult, if not impossible . . . It will also deny us any flexibility
in determining the size of our nuclear deterrent.'' When he refers to
``flexibility'' in determining the size of the Indian nuclear arsenal,
he does not include reducing or eliminating it. Rather, his term
expresses the fear that separating civil and military facilities may
curb the arsenal's size.
Nuclear nationalists have a less ambitious, more traditional
perspective that considers Indias nuclear program a great national
technological achievement and necessary for India's economic and social
development. They see the deal as offering a way to sustain and expand
the nuclear energy program without unduly restricting a ``minimum''
nuclear weapons arsenal.
The current government has embraced this nationalist view, as have
many defenders of the deal. The Prime Minister laid it out most clearly
to Parliament on July 29, saying: ``Our nuclear program . . . is
unique. It encompasses the complete range of activities that
characterize an advanced nuclear power . . . our scientists have done
excellent work, and we are progressing well on this program as per the
original vision outlined by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Homi
Bhabha.'' Singh went on to argue that ``nuclear power has to play an
increasing role in our electricity generation plans,'' and he noted
that the deal is flexible because ``our indigenous nuclear power
program based on domestic resources and national technological
capabilities would continue to grow.'' The expected international
support, both in nuclear fuel and nuclear reactors, will help ``enhance
nuclear power production rapidly,'' he added. At the same time, he made
it clear that ``there is nothing in the Joint Statement that amounts to
limiting or inhibiting our strategic nuclear weapons program.''
These two positions have by and large dominated the debate so far.
There are many problems with both views. The first is their shared
belief in the success of India's nuclear energy program and the need to
continue with and expand this effort. They fail to recognize that the
deal is actually a testament to the long-standing, expensive, and
large-scale failure of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to
safeguard health, safety, the environment, and local democracy.
Both camps also contend that nuclear weapons are a source of
security, though this conviction has been extensively debunked. Those
who persist in this belief also ignore the essential moral, legal, and
criminal questions of what it means to have--and be prepared to use--
nuclear weapons. The only differences between the two camps are in the
character and size of the genocidal weapons they desire and in the
number of people they are prepared to threaten to kill.
a history of failure
The establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1948 was
framed by the rhetoric of indigenous national development. Led by Homi
Bhabha, the AEC portrayed India as forging its own path in the new
nuclear age. That was not to be. There was no progress until the United
Kingdom offered the design details and enriched uranium fuel for the
first Indian nuclear reactor, Apsara. In what was to become a pattern,
the official announcement when the Apsara reactor went critical
declared the landmark a ``purely indigenous affair.''
Similarly, the CIRUS reactor, which provided the plutonium used in
the 1974 nuclear test (and quite likely some used in the 1998 tests as
well), was supplied by Canada, and the heavy water used in it came from
the United States. An American firm, Vitro International, was awarded
the contract to prepare blueprints for the first reprocessing plant at
Trombay. The first power reactors at Tarapur and Rawatbhata were
supplied by the United States and Canada respectively. And foreign
collaboration did not just extend to reactors. Many of India's nuclear
scientists were schooled in America and elsewhere. Between 1955 and
1974, over 1,100 Indian scientists were sent to train at various United
States facilities.
Extensive foreign support of the nuclear program ended only after
the 1974 nuclear test. The international community led by Canada and
the United States--both of whom were incensed by India's use of
plutonium from the CIRUS reactor, which had been given purely for
peaceful purposes--cut off most material transfers relating to New
Delhi's nuclear program. However, India's nuclear facilities
surreptitiously procured components from abroad, and foreign
consultants continued to be hired for projects. Moreover, DAE personnel
still had access to nuclear literature and participated in
international conferences where technical details were freely
discussed.
Even with all this help, DAE's failures were many and stark. In
1962, Homi Bhabha predicted that by 1987 nuclear energy would
constitute 20,000 to 25,000 megawatts (MW) of installed electricity
generation capacity. His successor as head of the DAE, Vikram Sarabhai,
predicted that by 2000 there would be 43,500 MW of nuclear power. In
1984, the ``Nuclear Power Profile'' drawn up by the DAE suggested the
more modest goal of 10,000 MW by 2000, India never came close to
meeting any of these goals.
After over 50 years of generous government funding, nuclear power
amounts to only 3,400 MW, barely 3 percent of India's installed
electricity capacity. This capacity is expected to rise by nearly 50
percent over the next few years but not because of the DAE. The largest
component of the expansion will be two 1,000 MW reactors purchased from
and being built by Russia.
This history of failure explains the escalating demands from the
DAE and other nuclear advocates to gain access to international nuclear
markets. Only with international help can the DAE ever hope to achieve
its latest promised goal of 20,000 MW by the year 2020.
Another pressure driving the deal with Washington has been the
DAE's failure to manage its existing nuclear program. In its
determination to build more and more reactors--something to show for
all the money that it gets--the DAE has failed to provide reactor fuel.
Soon after the United States-India deal was announced, this oversight
became apparent in a statement from an unnamed official to the British
Broadcasting Corporation who admitted: ``The truth is we were
desperate. We have nuclear fuel to last only till [sic] the end of
2006. If this agreement had not come through we might have as well
closed down our nuclear reactors and by extension our nuclear
program.'' The former head of the atomic energy regulatory board has
reported that this is not a new problem, he notes that ``uranium
shortage'' has been ``a major problem for the officials of NPCIL and
the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) for some time.''
The issue is simple. Apart from Tarapur I and II, all DAE reactors
are fueled using uranium from the Jaduguda region of Jharkand. The
total electric capacity of the heavy water-based power reactors is
2,450 MW. At 75 percent operating capacity, they require nearly 330
tons of uranium every year. The reactors that are supposedly dedicated
to making plutonium for nuclear weapons, CIRUS and Dhruva, consume
perhaps another 30-35 tons. When mining started in Jaduguda, the
average ore grade was about 0.O67 percent. Now it is reportedly less
than half that. The current mining capacity is around 2,800 tons of
uranium ore per day. This means the DAE may only be producing about 300
tons of uranium a year, which falls well short of the fueling
requirements. The DAE has been able to continue to operate its reactors
only by using stockpiled uranium from earlier days when nuclear
capacity was much smaller. This stockpile should be exhausted by 2007.
The DAE has been desperately trying to open new uranium mines in
India, but it has been met with stiff public resistance everywhere.
This local resistance stems from the widely documented negative impacts
of uranium mining and milling on public and occupational health.
The limits on domestic uranium reserves have been known since the
nuclear program was started. This concern was the justification for the
three-phase nuclear power program that Bhabha originally proposed and
that continues to be pursued. This program involves separating
plutonium from the spent fuel produced in natural uranium reactors and
setting up breeder reactors, which in turn could theoretically be used
to utilize India's thorium resources for energy production. But the
three phases are far from being realized. The DAE has failed to build
and sustain enough natural uranium-fueled reactors for the first phase.
The second phase is still experimental, and the first plutonium-fueled
power reactor has yet to be completed. Even if it becomes fully
functional, breeder reactors are unlikely to be a significant source of
electricity for several decades. The thorium fuel cycle, the third
phase, is still far in the future.
implications of the agreement for nuclear energy in india
If the deal with Washington goes through, the DAE will be free to
purchase uranium from the international market for its safeguarded
reactors. This has some important consequences. For starters, it will
reduce pressure on domestic uranium reserves. Since imported uranium
will be much cheaper than Indian uranium, it may also marginally reduce
the operating costs of Indian nuclear plants. Although the DAE hides
its actual costs, there is little doubt that nuclear electricity is
more expensive than other major sources of power in India.
At the same time, access to cheap, imported uranium will remove
what has been the DAE's primary justification for much of its long-term
nuclear plan. For decades, the DAE has cited a shortage of domestic
uranium as justification for India's breeder program, even though poor
economics and countless engineering problems have effectively killed
similar breeder reactor programs in the United States, France, and
Germany. The high cost of breeder reactors stems from their need for
plutonium fuel produced at reprocessing plants by chemically treating
spent (i.e., used) nuclear fuel from ordinary reactors. The separated
plutonium is then fashioned into breeder fuel at special and costly
fabrication plants. There are enormous economic costs, environmental
repercussions, and public health risks associated with this whole
scheme.
If cheap uranium becomes available to India, there will be no need
for any of this. Even so, the DAE may balk at giving up its breeder
reactor program. It may instead choose to emulate Japan, which imports
uranium to power its nuclear reactors and, ignoring the costs and
risks, continues to pursue its breeder reactor program. If so, the
DAE's institutional interests will have once again triumphed over
economic good sense and concerns about health and the environment.
India's existing nuclear capacity--and any increases in it,
domestic or foreign, that the United States deal facilitates--should
not to be considered a benefit. Nuclear electricity is expensive, and
it would be far better to invest in other, cheaper sources of power as
well as energy conservation measures. There are also important safety
concerns associated with nuclear power. At least one of the DAE's
nuclear reactors has come close to a major accident. One can barely
imagine the consequences of a Chernobyl-like meltdown involving the
release of large quantities of radioactive materials at a reactor in a
densely populated country like India. Other facilities associated with
the nuclear fuel cycle have also experienced accidents, though these
have primarily affected workers within the plant.
Apart from extreme accidents, there are many environmental and
public health consequences associated with the many facilities that
make up India's nuclear complex. A scientific study of the health
consequences on the local population around the Rajasthan Atomic Power
Station (RAPS) located at Rawatbhata near Kota observed statistically
significant increases in the rates of congenital deformities,
spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and 1-day deaths of newborn babies,
and solid tumors.
And, to cap it all, there is the unsolved problem of managing large
amounts of radioactive waste for many tens of thousands of years. The
question that really needs to be discussed (but has hardly figured in
the debate) is whether India needs any nuclear power plants at all.
There are many who believe India would be better off giving up this
costly and dangerous technology and finding ways to meet the needs of
its people without threatening their future or their environment.
how many bombs are enough?
Nuclear energy and nuclear weapons have been linked from the
beginning, and this will continue under the deal with Washington.
Access to the international uranium market for fueling reactors will
free up domestic uranium for India's weapons program and will likely
boost New Delhi's nuclear clout.
There are several ways in which India could use its freed-up
domestic uranium. It could choose to build a third reactor dedicated to
making plutonium for nuclear weapons. There have been proposals for a
larger reactor to add to CIRUS and Dhruva at the Bhabha Atomic Research
center in Mumbai. India could also start to make highly enriched
uranium for nuclear weapons. Pakistan has used such highly enriched
uranium, produced at Kahuta, for its weapons. Both paths, which need
not be exclusive, would allow India to increase its fissile materials
stockpile at a much faster rate. A third use for domestic uranium would
be in supplying the fuel for a nuclear submarine that has been under
development since the 1970s. Modest uranium availability and the more-
pressing need to keep the power reactors running have restricted all
such plans in the past.
If the proposed agreement is solidified, India could use both its
current stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and all future production
to make nuclear weapons. The current stockpile is estimated to be
perhaps 400-500 kg, sufficient for about 100 simple fission weapons.
(It is usually assumed that 5 kg is needed for a simple weapon. More
sophisticated designs typically require less plutonium.) CIRUS and
Dhruva produce about 25-35 kg of plutonium a year. This means that by
2010 India's potential arsenal size could be about 130 warheads using
only existing facilities.
But there are other sources of weapons-grade fissile material.
Power reactors can be used to make weapons-grade plutonium by limiting
the time the fuel is irradiated. Run this way, a typical 220 MW power
reactor could produce between 150-200 kg/year of weapons-grade
plutonium when operated at 60-80 percent capacity.
Another source of fissile material is the stockpile of plutonium in
the spent fuel of power reactors. Though it has a slightly different
mix of isotopes from weapons-grade plutonium, it can be used to make a
nuclear explosive. The United States conducted a nuclear test in 1962
using plutonium that was not weapons-grade. One of India's May 1998
nuclear tests is also reported to have involved such material.
Over the years, some 8,000 kg of reactor-grade plutonium may have
been produced in the power reactors not under safeguards. Only about 8
kg of such plutonium are needed to make a simple nuclear weapon. Unless
this spent fuel is not put under safeguards-i.e., declared to be off-
limits for military purposes, as part of the deal--India would have
enough plutonium from this source alone for an arsenal of about 1,000
weapons, larger than that of all the nuclear weapons states except the
United States and Russia.
Lastly, there is the plutonium produced in Kalpakkam in India's
small, fast-breeder test reactor (FBTR). Even more plutonium will be
produced by the 500 MW prototype FBTR now under construction. It is
curious that ever since the 1960s, the DAE has resisted placing India's
breeder program under international safeguards, even though both
Germany and Japan, neither of them nuclear weapon states, subjected
their breeder reactor programs to such safeguards. In theory,
international scrutiny prevents plutonium or uranium from civil nuclear
facilities from being used to make nuclear weapons. The DAE's
resistance to safeguards begs the question as to whether the breeder
program is, or ever was, only for civilian purposes.
A.N. Prasad, former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
(BARC), has argued that these large stocks of weapons-usable material
are beside the point. Prasad asserts that the deal with Washington
should be rejected because ``our military activities are not aimed at
stockpiling nuclear weapons,'' since the weapons become old, their
materials degrade, [and] they have to be dismantled and replaced.
But Prasad is disingenuous. It is estimated that the plutonium used
in U.S. nuclear weapons may not need to be replaced for 45-60 years.
The material can then be recycled into new nuclear weapons. Moreover,
many of the aging effects that plutonium experiences can be avoided
with proper storage, allowing existing stocks of plutonium to last
indefinitely. All other nuclear weapons states have stopped producing
new material for their nuclear weapons programs-only India, Pakistan,
and Israel appear to be producing new weapons ingredients.
Another nuclear weapons resource is tritium, a gas used to boost
the yield of fission weapons. The DAE claims to have tested a tritium-
boosted weapon in 1998. However, tritium decays relatively quickly (its
half-life is just over 12 years). Thus, to maintain a stockpile of
tritium for a long time requires either a very large initial amount or
production at a rate that balances decay. Tritium is a byproduct in
nuclear reactors dedicated to producing plutonium for weapons. These
reactors can also be used specifically to generate more tritium.
In short, the deal with Washington promises not only to leave New
Delhi's weapons capability intact but to allow for a rapid and large
expansion of India's nuclear arsenal. And both parties to the pact
accept this as a good thing.
The effects of the use of both the smaller yield fission weapons
and the more destructive thermonuclear weapons in India's arsenal are
well-known. Put simply, the smaller weapons will kill almost everyone
within 1.5 km of the explosion, and the larger weapons will kill most
people out to distances of 3.5 km. The effects of radioactive fallout
would spread tens of kilometers further. Either kind of bomb would be
enough to destroy a modern city. The question that needs to be asked
is, ``How many cities do India's leaders wish to be able to destroy?''
There are many who believe that no country should have nuclear
weapons, since such weapons engender fear through the threat of
genocide. In the 60 years since Hiroshima, we all should have learned
that there is no security to be found in the threat to kill millions.
conclusion
The nuclear agreement between the United States and India has many
problems and raises two fundamental questions. The first is whether
India needs nuclear energy for its development and the well-being of
its people. A good case can be made that it does not.
The second question is whether India needs nuclear weapons if it
truly wants to live in peace with its neighbors and with the world.
Many believe, with good reason, that it does not.
The outcome of the proposed nuclear agreement, therefore, is a
future in which a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed India swaggers
along in Washington's shadow. Such a choice could not be more stark.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
MICHAEL KREPON
Cofounder and President Emeritus, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington,
DC
BEFORE THE
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
NOVEMBER 2, 2005
----------
The debate now unfolding on the Bush administration's
nuclear cooperation initiative is not about isolating and
penalizing India. India is already the beneficiary of
significant changes in U.S. Government policy. The real issue
at hand is how to greatly improve bilateral ties without
greatly weakening rules against proliferation.
Many ardent admirers of India and staunch defenders of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty are conscientiously struggling with
this dilemma. The NPT faces a number of problems more severe
than India's nuclear program. But these problems can be
compounded by how we handle India. The rules we change on
India's behalf can also weaken the rules we want other nations
to abide by.
We can't sidestep this dilemma by distinguishing, as
advocates within the administration do, between friendly states
and problem states. Such distinctions are rarely permanent or
clear cut. We all know that friendly states can also be problem
states, that yesterday's friend can become tomorrow's
adversary, and vice versa.
Another significant problem with making U.S.
nonproliferation policy dependent on country-specific
distinctions between good and bad states is that this approach
will seriously damage domestic laws and international treaties
that set norms against proliferation. Domestic traffic laws
don't allow some people to speed, but not others. Nor do
international treaties distinguish between friends and foes,
since one nation's friend can be another's foe. Instead, the
rule of law applies to all. It allows us to distinguish between
those who abide by the law and those who break it. Laws still
get broken, but that doesn't diminish the importance of rules.
Having rules, laws, and international norms provides the basis
for prosecution, coalition building, and enforcement.
I will describe below four fundamental principles that I
hope will serve as guideposts for your deliberations:
Strengthen nonproliferation norms more than you
widen loopholes. Country-specific exemptions are bad
for norms;
The net effect of any changes in public law should
make proliferation harder, not easier;
Follow the guideline of proportionally: Link
conditions to changes in public law. The greater the
exemption sought, the greater the need for compensatory
steps against proliferation; and
No exemption should assist the recipient to enhance
or enlarge its nuclear arsenal.
My first principle is that country-specific exemptions are
corrosive to nonproliferation norms. If the United States were
to champion a country-specific exemption, there is a strong
likelihood that other nuclear suppliers would seek other
exemptions, and that the United States would lose leverage to
prevent such transactions.
Thus, if after thoughtful deliberation, you conclude that
some relaxation of our laws is advisable, I strongly urge you
not to do this on a country-specific basis. Instead, I urge you
to establish conditions under which the relaxation of public
law would apply to any state seeking an exemption that meets
congressional conditions. In this way, exemptions would be
granted on the basis of performance, not on the basis of a
particular country.
A second general principle that I would propose for your
consideration is that the net effect of changing public law
should be to make proliferation harder, not easier. Put another
way, the strengthening effects of the conditions established by
the Congress should outweigh the weakening effects of the
exemptions granted.
Not all proposed relaxations of public law are equal. Since
some kinds of U.S. nuclear assistance would have minimal
negative impact on global nonproliferation norms, the
conditions set by the Congress to allow for such transactions
might also be modest. Conversely, other types of U.S. nuclear
assistance could potentially have larger adverse impacts on
nonproliferation norms and treaties. In such instances, the
Congress might set very stringent conditions--or prohibit such
transactions altogether.
To address the fact that there are widely disparate
gradations of nuclear commerce, I would propose that the
Congress consider a third principle when considering changes to
public law--the principle of proportionality. If the Congress
deems it advisable to establish conditions associated with U.S.
nuclear assistance, different types of assistance might be
conditioned on different strengthening measures against
proliferation. Minor adjustments in existing law would
therefore be possible when modest conditions are met; major
adjustments would be possible when significant conditions are
met.
The first two principles would mesh with the third: When
applying the principle of proportionality, a relaxation of
public law should be accompanied by conditions that, in all
cases, result in a net strengthening of the global norm of
nonproliferation. Moreover, these conditions should not be
country specific. Instead, these considerations should apply to
every applicant meeting congressional standards.
The fourth fundamental principle that I would urge for your
consideration is that the relaxation of U.S. nuclear assistance
must not assist the recipient to enhance or enlarge its arsenal
of nuclear weapons. If U.S. nuclear commerce were to result in
more and more capable nuclear weapons on the part of any
recipient, global nonproliferation norms would be dealt a
severe blow. The reassertion by Congress of this fundamental
objective and purpose of public law is essential because the
July 18 Joint Statement by President Bush and Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh could lead to this negative result, depending on
how it is implemented.
How might these four general principles be applied in the
proposed U.S.-India agreement? Let's take a look at both ends
of the spectrum reflected in this initiative, and at two cases
in between.
The most troubling kinds of nuclear commerce--aside from
the outright sale of bombmaking material and bombs--have to do
with enrichment and reprocessing. This kind of nuclear commerce
offers nations very costly ways to produce electricity, but
essential means to produce nuclear weapons, regardless of cost.
Given the negative proliferation consequences of commercial
trafficking in enrichment and reprocessing technologies,
President Bush spelled out his administration's opposition to
this practice in a speech delivered at the National Defense
University on February 11, 2004:
The world must create a safe, orderly system to field
civilian nuclear plants without adding to the danger of
weapons proliferation. The world's leading nuclear
exporters should ensure that states have reliable
access at reasonable cost to fuel for civilian
reactors, so long as those states renounce enrichment
and reprocessing. Enrichment and reprocessing are not
necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes.
In the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement, President Bush
endorsed a very different formulation. He promised to ``work to
achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India'' and
to ``seek agreement from Congress [and to] work with friends
and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil
nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.''
President Bush's February 2004 statement is consistent with
a principled position to strengthen nonproliferation norms,
much like the one I am asking you to consider. His July 2005
promise appears to carve out an exception to this principled
position. A rules- and norms-based system would seek to set the
highest barriers against transfers that could do the most
proliferation damage--without exception.
On the other end of the spectrum, the July 18 Joint
Statement discusses bringing India into international research
efforts related to advanced development concepts for civil
nuclear power generation. While the particulars of such
engagement matter--since some research and development
initiatives could have more utility for nuclear weapon programs
than others--in general this type of engagement would be
consistent with the general principles advocated here.
Two cases in between these poles are not so easy. One is
providing fuel for safeguarded facilities at Tarapur. The other
is selling new nuclear power plants to India. Providing
commercial assistance to Tarapur, which the Government of India
seeks in the near term, would be of far narrower scope than
signing contracts for new nuclear power plants, but both steps
would be contrary to the ``full-scope safeguards'' standard
that the United States has long insisted that other nuclear
suppliers live up to.
In these intermediate cases, the fundamental principles
enumerated above ought to apply: Norms should be strengthened,
rather than exceptions; the net effect of any changes in public
law linked to conditions should strengthen, not weaken, these
norms; the principle of proportionality should apply; and no
assistance should be given with respect to the military nuclear
capabilities of the recipient state. The last of these
fundamental principles would mandate that any relaxation of
nuclear commerce for particular facilities be linked to the
requirement that such facilities be safeguarded in perpetuity.
But this still begs the question of what to do about the full
scope safeguards requirement that U.S. administrations have
finally succeeded in establishing as an international norm.
A key formulation embedded in the July 2004 Joint Statement
suggests one way to proceed. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
stated that his government is ``ready to assume the same
responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits
and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear
technologies.'' This passage suggests that India would be
treated in the same way--and would behave in the same way--as
the nuclear weapon states recognized under the Non-
Proliferation Treaty.
The ``equal benefits for equal responsibilities''
formulation has some merit. But what would it mean in actual
practice? In actual practice, the five nuclear weapon states
recognized under the NPT have stopped producing fissile
material for nuclear weapons. India has not. In actual
practice, the five nuclear weapon states recognized under the
NPT have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Three of the
five have ratified the treaty. The Senate of the United States
has not consented to ratification. But under international law,
all five are equally obligated not to undermine the objectives
and purposes of this treaty, pending its entry into force.
India has not signed the CTBT. Government officials have
affirmed, using the present tense, the absence of current plans
to test. These statements do not carry equal weight, nor do
they impose equal responsibility, to the obligations accepted
by the 176 states that have signed the CTBT.
If India were serious about the ``equal benefits for equal
responsibilities'' formulation, then New Delhi would be well
advised to favorably consider a moratorium on the production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons, and to sign the CTBT.
Such steps would clarify that India seeks commercial nuclear
transfers to fuel its economic growth and not to increase or
enhance its nuclear arsenal. These steps would also clarify
that the net effect of the changes Congress is being asked to
consider would strengthen, not weaken, global nonproliferation
norms. Under the principle of proportionality proposed above,
such steps by the Government of India would open up a much
wider range of cooperative nuclear endeavors.
While I endorse this structure for handling the dilemmas
posed by the Bush administration's nuclear cooperation
initiative with India, I most emphatically do not recommend
that the Congress direct the Government of India to take such
steps. Any such directive would be counterproductive and deeply
offensive to most Indian citizens. India is a proud, sovereign
state facing vexing security problems. It will not take
dictation from a nation with many thousands of nuclear weapons
and large stocks of fissile material that has tested nuclear
weapons over 1,000 times.
Decisions regarding a moratorium on fissile material
production and nuclear testing are India's to make. India will
make these decisions in light of its perceived security
requirements, and not as a result of foreign pressure. We must
respect New Delhi's decisions, which could facilitate or impede
nuclear cooperation. Either way, these are New Delhi's
decisions to make. My preferred approach respects New Delhi's
powers of decision, while reinforcing a principled stance by
the United States against proliferation.
By laying out a set of fundamental principles associated
with changes in public law, and by establishing conditions for
different levels of relaxation, the Congress could provide
consistency and clarity that are lacking in the July 2005 Joint
Statement, while strengthening global norms against
proliferation. Improved bilateral ties with India will continue
to proceed on many fronts, including trade, investment, non-
nuclear energy, agriculture, defense cooperation, and public
health issues. There is no compelling reason why improved
relations should come at a great cost to the nonproliferation
norms that have buttressed national and international security.
Working out the particulars associated with a statement of
principles and conditions will not be easy. But, in my
judgment, this approach could substantially strengthen
bilateral relations and nonproliferation norms, rather than
pitting one against the other.
Additional Prepared Statement and Material Submitted for the Record
----------
October 28, 2005.
Hon. Richard G. Lugar,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Lugar: I'm sorry that, because of a long-
standing commitment to be in Moscow next week, I will not be
able to attend the Nonproliferation PAG meeting or appear as a
witness at the SFRC's hearing. I would nonetheless like to
convey to you and members of the PAG my thoughts on the issues
you will be discussing.
Please find below answers to the questions posed to us by
Tom Moore. I am also attaching a one-page summary of my
recommendations for modifying U.S. law and the Nuclear
Suppliers Group guidelines as well as my prepared statement for
a hearing held by the House International Relations Committee
this past Wednesday, October 26. I would appreciate it if these
papers could be circulated to PAG members.
1. Why does civil nuclear cooperation weigh so heavily in U.S.-Indian
relations?
A key reason is the huge expansion of Indian energy needs
in coming decades. Although the role that nuclear power can
realistically play in meeting those needs is exaggerated by
India's influential nuclear lobby, it is clear that nuclear
will be an increasing share of India's future energy mix.
Moreover, given India's limited domestic supplies of natural
uranium, its ability to import yellowcake--which it cannot do
under current Nuclear Suppliers Group restrictions--has become
a critical requirement if India's nuclear energy program is to
expand.
But there is also a political reason why the nuclear issue
weighs so heavily. Civilian nuclear cooperation with the United
States and other NSG members has been the forbidden fruit that
Indian political elites crave. More than anything else, U.S.
willingness to set aside NPT-related rules to engage in nuclear
cooperation with India has been sought by Indians as both a
validation of their status as a nuclear weapon state and as a
litmus test of the U.S. desire to transform the bilateral
relationship.
2. How does the Joint Statement address U.S. nonproliferation concerns?
The United States has long urged India to align its
policies and practices more closely with the international
nonproliferation regime and, in general, to make its own
contribution toward strengthening that regime. The Joint
Statement brings India a few steps closer to the
nonproliferation mainstream, but the benefits are limited.
Most of India's pledges in the Joint Statement are either
reaffirmations of existing positions (to continue its
unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, strengthen its export
control system, and work toward a fissile material cutoff
treaty), codifications of current Indian practices (no
transfers of enrichment or reprocessing technology to states
without fuel-cycle facilities), or announcements of steps India
had already agreed to take in the context of an earlier
bilateral dialog on technology transfer and export control
(adherence to the NSG and MTCR guidelines).
The genuinely new Indian commitment is the pledge to
separate civilian and military nuclear facilities and to place
civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards and the Additional
Protocol. This has the symbolic value of helping reduce the
perceived discrimination between countries that are obliged to
accept safeguards on all their facilities and those that are
not. But at this stage we don't know how complete will be the
list of facilities India designates as civilian. And regardless
of how inclusive or selective the list turns out to be, the
pledge will not affect India's ability to continue producing
fissile material for nuclear weapons at facilities not
designated as eligible for safeguards. Without a halt to such
production, the U.S.-India deal could facilitate an increase in
India's stock of bomb-usable nuclear material (see my HIRC
testimony).
In a serious omission, the July 18 agreement doesn't call
on India to play a more active role in helping address today's
most acute proliferation challenges, especially Iran. India's
``yes'' vote on the recent IAEA Board resolution that found
Iran in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations was
a welcome step. But since then, the Indians have tried to
mollify the Iranians, saying that they actually oppose the
finding of noncompliance and that they had voted for the
resolution only because that was necessary to get the Europeans
to back down from pursuing referral to the U.N. Security
Council. The key test will be whether India makes a sustained
and determined effort in the months ahead to persuade Iran to
forgo its own enrichment capability and whether, if it becomes
necessary, India votes yes to refer the question to the
Security Council.
3. What are the risks of the deal and how can they be minimized?
Following are among the risks if the deal goes forward as
it currently stands:
By seeking an exception to the rules for India, the
deal will make others less inhibited about engaging in
risky nuclear cooperation with friends of their own--
Iran in the case of Russia, Pakistan in the case of
China.
Bush administration initiatives in the NSG to
tighten export controls will be harder to achieve if at
the same time we're asking the Group to relax the rules
for India.
By sending the signal that the United States will
eventually accommodate a decision to acquire nuclear
weapons, the deal will reduce the perceived costs to
states that might in the future consider going nuclear.
It will make it more difficult to address
proliferation challenges such as Iran. The Iranians
have won some support internationally by asking
publicly why they, as an NPT party, should give up
their right to an enrichment capability while India,
which rejected the NPT and acquired nuclear weapons, is
being offered nuclear cooperation.
In general, the deal conveys the message that the
United States now gives nonproliferation a back seat to
other foreign policy goals--which will give others a
green light to assign a higher priority to commercial
and political interests relative to nonproliferation.
Among the ways of minimizing these risks are the following
recommendations:
Require that India stop producing fissile materials
for nuclear weapons, perhaps as part of a multilateral
moratorium. This would bring India in line with the
practices of the five original nuclear powers, all of
whom have already stopped. A multilateral moratorium
would help fight nuclear terrorism by capping stocks of
bomb-grade material worldwide and thereby making those
stocks easier to secure.
Urge India to use its standing with Iran and the NAM
to press Iran to give up its enrichment and other fuel-
cycle capabilities.
Preserve a semblance of the long-standing ``NPT
preference policy'' by maintaining a distinction
between India and NPT parties in terms of the nuclear
exports they would be eligible to receive. Accordingly,
U.S. law and NSG guidelines should be modified to
permit nuclear exports to India except equipment,
materials, or technology related to enrichment,
reprocessing, and heavy water production. This would
permit India to acquire uranium, enriched fuel, and
nuclear reactors, but not items most closely related to
a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, in keeping with
U.S. NPT obligations and existing U.S. law, we should
allow nuclear exports to India only to facilities that
are under IAEA safeguards in perpetuity--not to
facilities under voluntary safeguards arrangements that
allow countries to withdraw materials or facilities
from safeguards for national security reasons.
Pursue changes to U.S. law and NSG guidelines in a
country-neutral manner--not as a special exception to
the rules for India alone. An India-specific approach
heightens concerns that the United States is acting
selectively and self-servingly on the basis of its own
foreign policy interests rather than on the basis of
nonproliferation performance. Modified U.S. law and NSG
guidelines should therefore permit nuclear cooperation
with any state not party to the NPT that meets certain
criteria of responsible nuclear behavior. Such criteria
can avoid the pitfalls of making a country-specific
exception without opening the door to nuclear
cooperation in cases where it is clearly not yet
merited. (Suggested criteria are contained in the
attached one-page paper.)
I hope these responses to Tom Moore's questions and the
attached papers can be of some assistance to you next week in
your meetings on the U.S.-India nuclear deal.
Yours truly,
Robert Einhorn.
------
Recommended Modifications of U.S. Law and NSG Guidelines
Nuclear cooperation--except in the areas of enrichment,
reprocessing, or heavy water production or with facilities not under
IAEA safeguards in perpetuity--would be permitted with any state not
party to the NPT as of January 2002 * that has demonstrated a strong
commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and has a sustained, consistent
record as a responsible nuclear power. Such a state will be considered
a responsible nuclear power if it:
Has provided public assurances that it will not test nuclear
weapons;
Is not producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons;
Has placed under IAEA safeguards its civil nuclear
facilities, including all nuclear power reactors and R&D
facilities related to electricity generation;
Is playing an active and constructive role in helping
address acute nuclear proliferation challenges posed by states
of proliferation concern;
Has established, and is rigorously implementing, a national
export control system that meets the highest international
standards, including stringent rules and procedures banning
unauthorized contacts and cooperation by personnel with nuclear
expertise;
Has provided public assurances that it will not export
enrichment or reprocessing equipment or technologies;
Is working actively on its own and in cooperation with other
countries in stopping illicit nuclear transactions and
eliminating illicit nuclear commercial networks, including by
fully sharing the results of any investigations of illicit
nuclear activities; and
Is applying physical protection, control, and accountancy
measures meeting the highest international standards to any
nuclear weapons and to all sensitive nuclear materials and
installations, both military and civilian, on its territory.
Under modified U.S. law, in order to make a nonparty to the NPT
eligible to receive U.S. nuclear exports, the President would be
required to certify that the prospective recipient had met these
criteria. The criteria could also be adopted by the NSG as criteria for
deciding, by consensus, whether a particular nonparty to the NPT should
be eligible for nuclear transfers from NSG member states.
* To avoid creating an incentive for countries to withdraw from the
NPT, the modified rules should apply only to countries that were
outside the NPT as of a specified date, which would be chosen to
exclude North Korea and include only India, Pakistan, and Israel.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF
HON. ROBERT J. EINHORN
Senior Adviser, International Security Program, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, Washington, DC
BEFORE THE
House International Relations Committee
OCTOBER 26, 2005
----------
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify
before the committee on the nonproliferation implications of
the recent agreement between the United States and India on
civil nuclear cooperation.
The United States has an important national interest in
strengthening relations with India and making it a strategic
partner in the 21st century. But efforts to strengthen the
United States-Indian relationship should not be pursued in a
way that undermines a United States national interest of equal
and arguably greater importance--preventing the proliferation
of nuclear weapons. That is precisely what the Bush
administration has done in the nuclear deal reached this past
summer during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to
Washington.
In the Joint Statement released on July 18, India agreed to
take several steps to demonstrate its commitment to being a
responsible nuclear power and a supporter of nonproliferation
goals. In exchange, the United States administration agreed to
seek changes in United States law and multilateral commitments
to permit exports of nuclear equipment and technology to
India--a radical departure from longstanding legal obligations
and policies that precluded nuclear cooperation with states not
party to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Administration officials have claimed that the deal, by
aligning India more closely with the policies and practices of
the international nonproliferation regime, is a net gain for
nonproliferation. In his testimony before this committee on
September 8, Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph maintained
that ``India's implementation of its agreed commitments will,
on balance, enhance our global nonproliferation efforts, and we
believe the international nuclear nonproliferation regime will
emerge stronger as a result.'' Upon close scrutiny, however, it
appears that the nonproliferation benefits of the July 18 Joint
Statement are rather limited.
NONPROLIFERATION GAINS ARE MODEST
Several of the steps pledged by India are simply
reaffirmations of existing positions, including India's
commitments to continue its unilateral moratorium on nuclear
weapons testing, strengthen its national system of export
controls, and work toward the conclusion of a multilateral
fissile material cutoff treaty. In view of unsuccessful efforts
for over a decade to get negotiations underway on a fissile
material cut-off treaty and no near-term prospect of removing
obstacles to beginning negotiations, this last pledge is
unlikely in the foreseeable future to have any effect on
India's ongoing program to produce more fissile materials for
nuclear weapons.
Other Indian commitments in the Joint Statement break new
ground, but their actual nonproliferation gain is modest. For
example, the pledge to refrain from transferring enrichment and
reprocessing technologies to countries that do not already
possess them is welcome. But since India--to its credit--has
never transferred those technologies and has no plans to do so,
it will have little practical consequence. Moreover, adherence
to the guidelines of the Missile Technical Control Regime and
the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is also positive; but it is a
step New Delhi was already planning to take before the July 18
Joint Statement as part of a United States-Indian dialog on
technology transfer and export control called ``Next Steps in
the Strategic Partnership.''
The commitment that has drawn the most criticism within
India is the pledge to separate civilian and military nuclear
facilities and place civilian facilities voluntarily under IAEA
safeguards and the Additional Protocol. Indian critics claim
that, because of the colocation of civilian and military
activities at a number of Indian nuclear facilities,
implementation of the commitment could be expensive and time
consuming and could impose unwarranted constraints on military
programs. In response to these concerns, Indian officials have
stressed that India alone will decide which facilities are
subject to safeguards and have suggested that only a relatively
small number will be put on the civilian list. While
recognizing that the designation of civilian facilities (i.e.,
those eligible for safeguards) is an Indian prerogative, United
States officials have made clear that, to be credible, any list
should be complete.
However, regardless of how inclusive or selective the list
turns out to be, the nonproliferation value of India's
commitment to place certain nuclear facilities under IAEA
safeguards will be rather limited. The purpose of IAEA
safeguards for non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPT is to
verify that no nuclear materials are diverted to a nuclear
weapons progam. But as long as India continues to produce
fissile materials for nuclear weapons (at facilities not
included on the safeguards list), its willingness to apply
safeguards to facilities designated as civilian serves
primarily a symbolic function--to reduce the perceived
discrimination between countries that are obliged to accept
safeguards on all their facilities and those that are not.
Beyond this symbolic value, willingness to put civilian
facilities under safeguards also serves a more practical
function. If members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group change
their rules and permit nuclear cooperation with India, they
will presumably confine such cooperation to safeguarded
facilities in India. (NPT Article III(2) obliges them to engage
in nuclear cooperation only with safeguarded facilities in
nonweapon states. Since the Bush administration is not seeking
to give India nuclear weapon state status under the NPT, III(2)
will continue to apply to India.) The list of safeguarded
Indian facilities will therefore serve to define the scope of
permissible nuclear cooperation. For India, the trade-off will
be between broadening the list (to expand opportunities for
cooperation) and narrowing the list (to shield facilities from
international scrutiny). However it chooses, the fundamental
shortcoming of India's July 18 safeguards commitment remains--
it has no effect on India's ability to continue producing
fissile material for nuclear weapons at facilities not
designated as eligible for safeguards.
DOWNSIDES OF THE DEAL
Administration officials are right that the various pledges
contained in the Joint Statement move India closer, both in
rhetorical and practical terms, to the international
nonproliferation mainstream it has shunned for over 30 years.
Still, the nonproliferation gains of the United States-India
nuclear deal are meager compared to the major damage to
nonproliferation goals that would result if the deal goes
forward as it currently stands.
The United States-India deal would make it harder to
achieve key Bush administration nonproliferation initiatives.
The United States is now asking the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers
Group to permit nuclear cooperation only with countries that
adhere to the IAEA's Additional Protocol and to ban transfers
of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do
not already possess fuel-cycle facilities. But getting NSG
partners to tighten the rules in ways favored by the United
States will be an uphill battle if they are also being asked to
bend one of their cardinal rules (i.e., no nuclear trade with
nonparties to the NPT) because it no longer suits the United
States.
By seeking an exception to the rules to accommodate
America's new special friendship with India, the deal would
reinforce the impression internationally that the U.S. approach
to nonproliferation has become selective and self serving, not
consistent and principled. Rules the United States initiated
and championed would be perceived as less binding, more
optional. Russia and China would feel less inhibited about
engaging in nuclear cooperation that the United States might
find risky and objectionable with special friends of their
own--Iran and Pakistan, respectively.
The nuclear deal in its present form has produced
resentment on the part of close United States friends like
Japan, Germany, and Brazil who were forced to choose between
nuclear weapons and civil nuclear cooperation. They chose the
latter, giving up the weapons option and joining the NPT to
realize the benefits of nuclear cooperation. Now that India has
been offered the opportunity to have its cake and eat it too,
many non-nuclear NPT parties feel let down. Not wishing to harm
relations with either India or the United States, they are
unlikely to make a public fuss over the sudden reversal of U.S.
policy (on which they were not consulted). But they will be
less inclined in the future to make additional sacrifices in
the name of nonproliferation.
The United States-India deal could also reduce the
perceived costs to states that might consider ``going nuclear''
in the future. In calculating whether to pursue nuclear
weapons, a major factor for most countries will be how the
United States is likely to react. Implementation of the deal
would inevitably send the signal, especially to countries with
good relations with Washington, that the United States will
tolerate and eventually accommodate to a decision to acquire
nuclear weapons.
In the near term, United States plans to engage in nuclear
cooperation with India will make it more difficult to address
proliferation challenges such as Iran. Of course, Iran's
interest in nuclear weapons long predated the India deal. But
the deal has strengthened the case Iran can make--and is
already making--internationally. Why, Iranian officials ask
publicly, should Iran give up its right as an NPT party to an
enrichment capability when India, a nonparty to the NPT, can
keep even its nuclear weapons and still benefit from nuclear
cooperation? It is an argument that resonates well with many
countries and weakens the pressures that can be brought to bear
on Tehran.
In general, the Bush administration's policy shift conveys
the message that the United States--the country the world has
always looked to as the leader in the global fight against
proliferation--is now de-emphasizing nonproliferation and
giving it a back seat to other foreign policy goals. Other
countries can be expected to follow suit in assigning
nonproliferation a lower priority relative to political and
commercial considerations in their international dealings, and
this would have negative, long-term consequences for the global
nonproliferation regime.
MAKING THE DEAL A NONPROLIFERATION GAIN
The damage can be minimized--and the deal transformed from
a net nonproliferation loss to a net nonproliferation gain--if
several improvements are made in the course of implementing the
July 18 Joint Statement, either by the Governments of India and
the United States themselves, by the U.S. Congress in adopting
new legislation, by the Nuclear Suppliers Group in modifying
its guidelines, or by a combination of these.
The most important improvement would be an Indian decision
to stop producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons. India
need not stop such production unilaterally, but as part of a
multilateral moratorium pending completion of an international
fissile material cutoff treaty. A multilateral production halt
would make a major contribution to fighting nuclear
proliferation and nuclear terrorism by capping stocks of bomb-
making materials worldwide and thereby making those stocks
easier to secure against theft or seizure--in India, Pakistan,
or elsewhere.
Without a moratorium on fissile material production, the
United States-India deal could actually facilitate the growth
of India's nuclear weapons capability. India's indigenous
uranium supplies are quite limited. Under current
nonproliferation rules--with India unable to buy natural
uranium on the world market--India must use those limited
supplies for both civil power generation and nuclear weapons,
and the trade-off will become increasingly painful. Under new
rules, India could satisfy the needs of the civil program
through imports, freeing up domestic uranium supplies for the
weapons program and permitting, if the Indian Government so
decided, a continuing and even major increase in bomb-making
material. A production moratorium would preclude such an
increase.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said in July that
India ``is willing to assume the same responsibilities and
practices--no more and no less--as other nuclear states.'' It
so happens that the five original nuclear weapon states (United
States, Russia, France, United Kingdom, China) have all stopped
producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons. Applying the
``no more, no less'' standard, it would be reasonable to ask
India to join the others. India claims that it does not have a
strategic requirement for parity with the other nuclear powers
(including China) and that it seeks only a ``credible minimum
deterrent capability.'' If that is the case, then perhaps it
can soon decide that it has sufficient plutonium for its
deterrence needs and can afford to forgo further production.
Another way to strengthen the July 18 agreement would be
for India to assume a more active and constructive role in
helping the United States address today's most acute
proliferation challenges, especially the challenge posed by
Iran. Given its desire to make Iran a long-term source of
energy supplies, India has been reluctant to press Iran on its
nuclear program. During a September visit to Tehran, Indian
Foreign Minister Natwar Singh made public remarks supportive of
Iran's position on the nuclear issue and critical of the
approach taken by the United States. The remarks produced a
sharp backlash by Members of Congress across the political
spectrum, including several strong supporters of India, who
made clear that India's failure to side with the United States
on the Iran nuclear issue would jeopardize congressional
support for the legislative changes needed to implement the
United States-India nuclear deal.
In response to these congressional warnings and tough
messages conveyed in person by President Bush and Secretary
Rice to their Indian counterparts, the Indians on September 24
joined the United States and Europeans in voting ``yes'' on an
International Atomic Energy Agency Board resolution finding
Iran in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations but
deferring the matter of when and how the Iran question would be
referred to the United Nations Security Council. This was a
positive step but not yet an indication that India is prepared
to use its influence in a sustained and determined way to get
Iran to abandon its plans for an enrichment facility capable of
producing both fuel for civil nuclear reactors and fissile
material for nuclear bombs. Indeed, since the IAEA vote, the
Indians have sought to mollify the Iranians, stating that they
had acted in Iran's interest by persuading the Europeans to
back down from seeking an immediate referral to the UNSC. The
key test in the months ahead will be whether India makes a real
effort to persuade Iran to forgo an enrichment capability and
whether it eventually supports referral to the Council, which
is required by the IAEA Statute after a Board finding of
noncompliance.
The risks of the nuclear deal could also be reduced by
preserving some distinction between NPT parties and nonparties
in terms of the nuclear exports they would be permitted to
receive. A long-standing element of the nonproliferation regime
has been the ``NPT preference policy''--giving NPT parties
benefits in the civil nuclear energy area not available to
those outside the NPT. The Joint Statement undermines that
policy by calling for ``full'' nuclear cooperation with India.
A way of maintaining some preferential treatment for NPT
parties would be to modify U.S. law and the NSG guidelines to
permit nuclear-related exports to nonparties except equipment,
materials, or technologies related to sensitive fuel-cycle
facilities, including enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy water
production. Such a distinction would permit India to acquire
natural uranium, enriched fuel, nuclear reactors, and a wide
range of other nuclear items, but would retain the ban on
transfers of those items that are most closely related to a
nuclear weapons program.
In addition to precluding any cooperation with India in the
area of sensitive fuel-cycle capabilities (even under IAEA
safeguards), the United States should permit cooperation in
less sensitive nuclear areas only under safeguards. As noted
earlier, India will remain a non-nuclear weapons state (NNWS)
as defined by the NPT, and Article III(2) allows nuclear
exports to NNWSs only under IAEA safeguards. Moreover,
consistent with existing U.S. law, such exports should only be
permitted to facilities that are under safeguards in perpetuity
(under facility-specific, or INFCIRC/Rev.2, safeguards
agreements with the IAEA)--not to facilities under voluntary
safeguards arrangements that allow countries to withdraw
materials or facilities from safeguards for national security
reasons. The choice would be up to India. If it wished to
benefit from nuclear cooperation at a particular facility, it
would have to put in place a facility specific safeguards
agreement at that facility.
Nonproliferation risks could also be reduced by
implementing the nuclear deal in a country-neutral manner--not
as a special exception to the rules for India alone. Although
the administration has been slow to indicate how specifically
it would seek to adjust United States law and NSG guidelines,
it has suggested that one option would be to leave the general
rules in place but waive their application in the special case
of India because of its qualifications as ``a responsible state
with advanced nuclear technology.'' A problem with that option
is that it would accentuate concerns that the United States is
acting selectively on the basis of foreign policy
considerations rather than on the basis of objective factors
related to nonproliferation performance. Moreover, in the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, where changing the guidelines requires
a consensus, some countries--notably China--might well resist a
country-specific approach and press for permitting nuclear
cooperation with other nonparties to the NPT with whom they are
friendly (e.g., Pakistan).
To avoid the pitfalls of making a country-specific
exception without opening the door to nuclear cooperation in
cases where it is clearly not yet merited, the administration
should propose modifications of U.S. law and the NSG guidelines
that would permit nuclear cooperation (except in sensitive
parts of the fuel cycle or in unsafeguarded facilities) with
any state not party to the NPT that meets certain criteria of
responsible nuclear behavior. To avoid creating an incentive
for countries to withdraw from the NPT, the modified rules
should apply only to countries that were outside the NPT as of
a specified date, which should be chosen to exclude North Korea
and include only India, Pakistan, and Israel. For such non-NPT
states to be eligible to receive U.S. nuclear exports under a
revised U.S. law, the President should be required to certify
that the state:
Has provided public assurances that it will not test
nuclear weapons;
Has provided public assurances that it will not
produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons and is
fulfilling that assurance;
Has placed under IAEA safeguards its civil nuclear
facilities, including all nuclear power reactors and
R&D facilities related to electricity generation;
Is playing an active and constructive role in
helping address acute nuclear proliferation challenges
posed by states of proliferation concern;
Has established, and is rigorously implementing, a
national export control system that meets the highest
international standards, including stringent rules and
procedures banning unauthorized contacts and
cooperation by personnel with nuclear expertise;
Has provided public assurances that it will not
export enrichment or reprocessing equipment or
technologies and is fulfilling that assurance;
Is working actively on its own and in cooperation
with other countries in stopping illicit nuclear
transactions and eliminating illicit nuclear commercial
networks, including by fully sharing the results of any
investigations of illicit nuclear activities; and
Is applying physical protection, control, and
accountancy measures meeting the highest international
standards to any nuclear weapons and to all sensitive
nuclear materials and installations, both military and
civilian, on its territory.
These criteria could be written into U.S. law. They could
also be adopted by the NSG as criteria for deciding, by
consensus, whether a particular nonparty to the NPT should be
eligible for nuclear transfers from NSG member states. While
such an approach would be country-neutral, it would enable both
the U.S. Government and NSG members to distinguish among the
nonparties to the NPT in terms of whether--and how soon--they
would be eligible for nuclear cooperation.
Staunch supporters of the NPT can be expected to argue that
these criteria do not go far enough--and that only NPT
adherence should make a country eligible for nuclear
cooperation. But it is unrealistic to expect India or the other
nonparties ever to join the NPT, and continuing to insist on
adherence as a condition for nuclear cooperation could forfeit
the contribution to nonproliferation that steps short of NPT
adherence could make.
Those who strongly favor the July 18 Joint Statement can be
expected to argue that the criteria are too demanding and could
result in India's walking away from the nuclear deal. But even
the most demanding criterion--ending fissile material
production--is a step India, in principle, supports and says it
is willing to take when its minimum deterrence needs are
satisfied. If India is prepared now to stop production, it
could readily meet the remaining criteria. If not, the door
would be open for India to walk through at a time of its own
choosing.
The approach suggested here would clearly be less
attractive to the Indians than the less demanding one that Bush
administration was prepared to settle for on July 18. But it
would be a major change from the status quo that has prevailed
for decades, in which the door to nuclear cooperation for India
and the other nonparties has been locked as a matter of law and
policy.
In its ardent desire to transform United States-Indian
relations, the Bush administration has given too little weight
to the damaging implications of its actions for the
nonproliferation regime. The remedy should not be to reject the
deal struck in July but to require that it be pursued in a way
that enables the United States to advance its strategic goals
with India as well as its nonproliferation interests--not serve
one at the expense of the other.