Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: US-India Deal

  • The US-India Deal: When Geopolitics Meets Principle

    The US-India Deal: When Geopolitics Meets Principle

    When geopolitics comes up against principle in the US Congress, it is generally principle that is forced to give way. In the case of the US-India nuclear deal, originally proposed by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005, the deal would involve transferring nuclear technology and material from the US to India. Geopolitically, it would strengthen the relationship between the two countries, but it would do so at the expense of the principle of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    India is not a party to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It never joined because its leaders believed that the Non-Proliferation Treaty promoted nuclear apartheid with its two classes of states: nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” By not signing the treaty, India, like Pakistan and Israel, held open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. In 1974, India tested its first nuclear device, what it called a “peaceful nuclear device.” In 1998, India conducted multiple tests of nuclear weapons, and was followed almost immediately by a series of Pakistani nuclear tests.

    The United States, unlike India, is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Like all other parties to the treaty, it promised in Article I of the treaty “not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.” India is a “non-nuclear-weapon State” by the treaty’s definition. By providing nuclear materials and technology to India, the US will be assisting India to develop a larger nuclear arsenal than it already has developed. Thus, the US will be in violation of its treaty obligations.

    India has agreed to allow its civilian nuclear reactors to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but not its military reactors. By supplying nuclear material and technology to India, it will allow India to use all of the uranium and plutonium from its military reactors, which are not subject to inspection, to be used for increasing the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal. This will, in turn, promote nuclear arms races with Pakistan and China.

    Earlier this month, the US applied pressure to the 45 member states of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to waive their rules and allow nuclear material and technology transfers to India. Many of the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group were as eager as the United States at the opportunity for their big corporations to cash in on selling nuclear reactors to India.

    With the Nuclear Suppliers Group having signed off on the deal, it left only the US Congress to reconsider the matter before giving the green light to the deal. The first step in getting the deal through Congress was gaining the approval of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In this Committee, Senator Russ Feingold introduced an amendment to the bill calling on the administration to reach an agreement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group that there will be no transfers of uranium enrichment or plutonium separation technologies to a country that is not party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Since India is not party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Feingold amendment would have prohibited transfers of these technologies for producing weapons-grade nuclear materials to India. It is an amendment that upholds the principle that transfers of nuclear technology should not assist in the development of nuclear weapons. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in its eagerness to see the US reap perceived geopolitical and financial advantages, threw principle to the wayside and voted 15 to 4 against the amendment. The four principled Senators voting for the amendment were Feingold, along with Barbara Boxer, Robert Casey and Jim Webb.

    Following the defeat of the amendment, the Committee, in its embarrassing rush to line up behind a Bush policy that substantially undermines the current nuclear non-proliferation regime, voted 19 to 2 in favor of the deal. The only two Senators on the Committee to stand on principle and vote against the deal were Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer.

    If the House Foreign Affairs Committee follows its colleagues in the Senate, it is almost assured that the Congress of the United States will vote in favor of this ill-conceived deal, and the prospects of preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons will have been dealt a near fatal blow. The US will have demonstrated that perceived short-term geopolitical gain, with an unhealthy dose of potential financial profit thrown in, is more than enough to defeat even the most important of security-related principles. The Bush administration will have succeeded in making the Congress complicit in blowing a hole the size of a nuclear explosion through the principle of safeguarding the country and the world against the spread of nuclear weapons.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor of the World Future Council.
  • India, Iran, and US Nuclear Hypocrisy

    India, Iran, and US Nuclear Hypocrisy

    The Bush administration has approached nuclear non-proliferation with Iran and India by two very different measures. Iran, a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has been threatened with sanctions, if not actual violence, for its pursuit of uranium enrichment, although there is no clear evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. India, on the other hand, has now been offered US nuclear technology, although India is not a party to the NPT, is known to have tested nuclear weapons and is thought to possess a nuclear weapons arsenal of 60 to 100 weapons.

     

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, is at the heart of worldwide nuclear non-proliferation efforts. The US was one of the original signers of the treaty, and was one of the major supporters of its indefinite extension in 1995. The principal goal of the treaty is to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation by assuring that nuclear weapons and the materials and technology to make them are not transferred by the nuclear weapons states to other states.

     

    The five nuclear weapons states parties to the treaty (US, Russia, UK, France and China) all made this pledge. They also pledged “good faith” negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The 183 non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty pledged not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and the materials and technology to make them.

     

    A problem arises with the treaty because it also promotes peaceful nuclear technology – which is inherently dual-purpose, capable of being used for peaceful or warlike purposes – as an “inalienable right” for all nations. Iran claims to be exercising this right, arguing that it is pursuing uranium enrichment for nuclear power generation and not for weapons purposes. The Bush administration disputes this claim, and insists Iran must stop enriching uranium altogether, a policy inconsistent with its proposed deal with India, a country that has already developed nuclear weapons.

     

    India never became a party to the NPT, and conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, which it claimed was for peaceful purposes. India did not test again until 1998, when it conducted a series of nuclear tests and announced to the world that it had become a nuclear weapons state. Pakistan followed India with nuclear tests of its own. While India and Pakistan were not restricted by the NPT because they had never joined the treaty, they were initially sanctioned by the US and other states for going nuclear. But now this has changed. Mr. Bush wants to provide nuclear technology to India in exchange for India allowing international safeguards at 14 of its 22 existing nuclear power reactors by the year 2014. This makes little sense, as it would leave eight of India’s reactors without safeguards, including those in its fast breeder program, which would generate nuclear materials that could be used in weapons programs.

     

    The Bush administration seeks to reward India for non-cooperation with the treaty and for developing a nuclear weapons arsenal, while Iran is threatened with punishment for being part of the treaty and seeking to exercise its rights under the treaty. The implications of the hypocritical US approach to proliferation are to leave countries questioning whether their participation in the NPT is worthwhile. This approach is likely to lead to a major breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the international regime that supports it.

     

    To prevent such a breakdown, a number of important steps should be taken, which will require US leadership. First, there should be a worldwide moratorium on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, subject to international inspections and verification. This means a moratorium by all countries, including the US and other nuclear weapons states.

     

    Second, all current stocks of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium in all countries should be placed under strict international controls.

     

    Third, there should be no “nuclear deal” with India until it agrees to give up its nuclear weapons program and dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Congress should turn Bush down flat on this poorly conceived and opportunistic deal.

     

    Fourth, the US should give up its plans to develop new nuclear weapons such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which signal to the rest of the world that the US intends to keep its nuclear arsenal indefinitely.

     

    Fifth, the Non-Proliferation Treaty should be replaced by two new treaties: a Treaty to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, which sets forth a workable plan for the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons under strict international controls; and an International Sustainable Energy Agency that develops and promotes sustainable energy sources (such as solar, wind, tidal and geothermal) that can replace both fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

    The alternative to this ambitious agenda, or one similar to it, is a world in nuclear chaos, in which extremist terrorist organizations may be the greatest beneficiaries. This is the direction in which current US nuclear policy, with its flagrant disregard for international law, is leading us. The double standards in US dealings with Iran and India are the latest evidence of this misguided policy.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a leader in the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.