[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E755]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION AND SOUTH ASIA

                                 ______


                            HON. TIM JOHNSON

                            of south dakota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 9, 1996

  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. Speaker, I have long advocated the 
importance of the U.S. role in responsible trade in conventional arms 
and nuclear technologies, and I feel strongly that, as the world's 
remaining superpower, the United States can and should set an 
international example of positive political change through monitoring 
trade in nuclear technologies. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
I believe that stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons should be 
our highest priority in international relations. I am a strong 
supporter of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and its member 
nations. The NPT has helped prevent dramatic increase in nuclear 
weapon-capable states. I was encouraged by last year's indefinite 
extension of the NPT by consensus over 175 nations, and I actively 
encourage the recognition of nonproliferation at every level as the key 
to global security.
  Since its implementation in 1970, however, many nations that have 
remained outside of the NPT have concentrated on the buildup of their 
own nuclear capabilities. These threshold nuclear states view the NPT 
as discriminatory, because the treaty divides the world into the 
nuclear haves and have nots and, as they see it, unfairly places 
nonnuclear nations at a strategic disadvantage relative to the nuclear 
states. At the same time, several of these nations have stated that, 
without significant steps toward reducing stockpiles for all member 
nations, the NPT cannot be the foundation for an end to the arms race 
and complete nuclear disarmament.
  Nowhere is this attitude more alarming that in South Asia. Regional 
religious and political history, particularly with India and Pakistan, 
has encouraged heightened military unease in the region, and an 
association of nuclear capability with regional dominance. Pakistan, a 
nation of 130 million, has long feared being overwhelmed militarily by 
India, with its population of over 900 million. Historical alliances 
and relations with nuclear and nonnuclear nations elsewhere in the 
region have contributed to forcing these two countries in a race toward 
nuclear weapon capacity. I believe the nuclear arms race saps the 
strength of any developing country, and I have repeatedly expressed my 
concern about the nuclear direction in which these two nations have 
been headed. The future of our national, as well as global, security 
depends more than anything on our ability to restrain the proliferation 
of weapons of mass destruction and to enhance the breadth of 
opportunities for every citizen of the world.