Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear trade

  • Implications of the US-India Nuclear Deal and the Task for the International Peace Movement

    The US Congress has passed legislation enabling the 2005 US-India nuclear deal to go forward. This deal may accelerate the nuclear arms in South Asia.

    The US Congress explicitly rejected proposals that the deal be conditional on India halting its production of fissile materials (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) for nuclear weapons. This is despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council had unanimously demanded that India and Pakistan stop such production (Resolution 1172, 6 June, 1998).

    The U.S.-India deal will allow India access to the international uranium market. This will enable it to free up more of its domestic uranium for its nuclear weapons program. India could, for example, build a third weapon plutonium reactor and begin enriching uranium for weapons, as well as supply enriched uranium to fuel the nuclear submarine it has been trying to build for several decades. India could also convert one of its unsafeguarded nuclear power reactors to weapons-grade plutonium production, and generate an additional 200 kg/year of weapons-grade plutonium. This would allow India to produce an additional 40-50 weapons worth a year of weapon-grade plutonium — up from perhaps seven weapons worth a year today.

    As part of the nuclear deal, the United States also agreed to let Indian keep its nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and plutonium breeder reactor program outside safeguards. The plutonium breeder reactor that India expects to complete in 2010 would produce about 25-30 weapons worth a year of weapon-grade plutonium in its blankets. India expects to build another four such reactors in coming years.

    Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which is chaired by President Pervez Musharraf and has responsibility for its nuclear weapons policy and production, declared that “In view of the fact the [U.S.-India] agreement would enable India to produce a significant quantity of fissile material and nuclear weapons from unsafeguarded nuclear reactors, the NCA expressed firm resolve that our credible minimum deterrence requirements will be met.”

    Our task

    The international peace movement can still try to prevent this deal from triggering a major escalation in the South Asian nuclear arms race.

    For the deal to come into force, it has to be accepted unanimously by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The debate may be drawn out – the deal is supported by the United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia, while several members (including Austria, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand) are opposed, and other countries (among them Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, and Finland) are divided. China has proposed that instead of an India-specific exemption from NSG rules, a criteria based approach be adopted. This presumably would open the door for the NSG to eventually consider lifting restrictions on nuclear trade with Pakistan — whose nuclear weapon and nuclear power program China has supported.

    The countries who are members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group must be urged to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1172. They should promote an end to the production of fissile materials for weapons in South Asia as a condition for any international nuclear trade with India or Pakistan.

    A moratorium on such production could also be important in fostering negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty. The United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China have all suspended production of fissile materials for weapons. India and Pakistan (along with Israel and North Korea) are continuing their production however. A complete halt to all production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons is a necessary step for nuclear disarmament.

    For more information on the US-India nuclear deal:

    Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana, “Wrong Ends, Means, and Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal with India,” Arms Control Today, January/February 2006, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_01-02/JANFEB-IndiaFeature.asp

    Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman and M.V. Ramana, “Fissile Materials in South Asia and the Implications of the US-India Nuclear Deal,” http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/ipfmresearchreport01.pdf

    Zia Mian is a research scientist with the programme on science and global security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He is the co-editor of Out of the Nuclear Shadow: Pakistan’s Atomic Bomb & the Search for Security (Zed Books, 2001).

  • Gandhi, Bush, and the Bomb

    On February 24, at a press briefing, White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley announced that, when U.S. President George W. Bush travels to India, he will lay a wreath in honor of Mohandas Gandhi.

    For those familiar with the cynical gestures of government officials, it might come as no surprise that an American President would attempt to derive whatever public relations benefits he can by linking himself to one of the most revered figures in Indian and world history.

    But the level of hypocrisy is heightened when one recalls that Bush is currently one of the world’s leading warmakers and that Gandhi was one of the world’s leading advocates of nonviolence. Furthermore, the American President’s major purpose for traveling to India is to clinch a deal that will provide that nation with additional nuclear technology, thus enabling it to accelerate its development of nuclear weapons.

    Gandhi, it should be noted, was not only a keen supporter of substituting nonviolent resistance for war, but a sharp critic of the Bomb. In 1946, he remarked: “I regard the employment of the atom bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women, and children as the most diabolical use of science.” When he first learned of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gandhi recalled, he said to himself: “Unless now the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide.” In 1947, Gandhi argued that “he who invented the atom bomb has committed the gravest sin in the world of science,” concluding once more: “The only weapon that can save the world is non-violence.” The Bomb, he said, “will not be destroyed by counter-bombs.” Indeed, “hatred can be overcome only by love.”

    That is certainly an interesting backdrop against which to place President Bush’s plan to provide India with nuclear technology. India is one of only four countries that have refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—a treaty endorsed by 188 nations. Thumbing its nose at the world, India has conducted nuclear tests and has developed what experts believe to be 50 to 100 nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the NPT, the export of nuclear technology is banned to nations that don’t accept international inspections of their nuclear programs. In addition, U.S. law prohibits the transfer of nuclear technology to a country that rejects full international safeguards. U.S. law also bans such technology transfer to a non-NPT country that has conducted nuclear test explosions.

    Thus, if the President were to give any weight to Gandhi’s ideas, international treaty obligations, or U.S. law, he would not be working to provide India with the same nuclear-capable technology that he so vigorously condemns in Iran—a country, by the way, that has signed the NPT, has undergone inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests.

    There are other reasons to oppose this deal, as well. Although India’s relations with Pakistan are relatively stable at the moment, they might well be very adversely affected by any perception that the Indian government was racing ahead with a buildup of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, Pakistan might demand the same nuclear assistance as India. Indeed, if India can simply ignore the NPT and, then, receive nuclear technology from the United States, why should other countries observe its provisions? The Iranians, certainly, will make this point.

    At home, the Bush administration’s double standard has not gone unnoticed. In Congress, Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Fred Upton (R-MI) have introduced a bipartisan resolution—H.Con.Res. 318–expressing strong concern about the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal. Although this resolution affirms humanitarian and scientific support for India, it contends that full civil nuclear cooperation between the two nations poses serious dangers. For example, it points to the possibility that the supply of nuclear fuel to India could free up India’s existing fissile material production, thereby enabling it to be used to expand India’s nuclear weapons arsenal. The resolution also opposes transfer of nuclear technology to any country that is not a party to the NPT and has not accepted full safeguards.

    Whatever happens to this resolution, if the Bush administration were to implement its nuclear agreement with the Indian government, it would have to convince Congress to amend U.S. law. And arms control and disarmament groups are determined to prevent that from happening.

    Thus, the Bush administration might genuflect to Gandhi in its efforts to arrange a nuclear pact with India, but it is going to have to convince a lot of very skeptical observers before it implements this agreement.

    Dr. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press).

    Originally published by the History News Network.