Disarming Conflict

While ultimately unsuccessful, recent action at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) saw at least some brave attempts to preserve a core nuclear nonproliferation principle.[i]That effort is not yet over and US critics of the US-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal are rightly still trying to persuade Congress to withhold final approval.

At the same time, a significant number of states strongly committed to nonproliferation has, by the action at the NSG, shown themselves to be open to considering new approaches because the existing strategy toward India, Israel, and Pakistan – the three states with nuclear weapons that are outside the NPT – has not been notably successful. While civilian nuclear cooperation has long been prohibited for all three (now the NSG has exempted only India), they have nevertheless acquired nuclear weapons and continue to build up their arsenals. Simply continuing that policy was not going to induce any of them to give up those arsenals and seemed, in that light, to serve neither principle nor pragmatism.

Unfortunately, the new approach approved by the NSG makes no discernable nonproliferation gains, but, on the other hand, neither is the NSG action a total and unambiguous caving in to India. During the process of getting to this unfortunate NSG decision, India made and reiterated a significant range of political commitments that now warrant close and continuing attention. In statements in 2005, when the agreement was first announced,[ii]and in 2008 when the waiver decision was before the NSG,[iii]India made close to a dozen significant disarmament and non-proliferation commitments. In the statements, India:

1. agrees to separate civilian and military nuclear facilities and programs and to “place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards”;

2. promises to sign and adhere to an Additional Protocol with respect to civilian nuclear facilities;

3. promises to work with the United States and others for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty that is “universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable;”

4, agrees to a policy of “refraining from the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not have them and supporting international efforts to limit their spread;”

5. declares its interest in participating as a supplier nation in the establishment of international fuel banks;

6. declares that in maintains comprehensive export controls;

7. promises the harmonization of its export controls with the Missile Technology Control Regime and the Nuclear Suppliers Group;

8. remains committed to “a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing;”

9.   supports the elimination of nuclear weapons and the negotiation of a convention toward that end;

10.   agrees “to assume the same responsibilities …as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology (euphemism for nuclear weapon states);

11. affirms a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons.

These are political commitments, and India rejected all efforts to make the NSG waiver conditional on any of them, but paragraph 3 of the NSG waiver decision[iv]insists that the decision is “based on” India’s commitments and then makes explicit reference to those in items 1 through 8 above.

Daryl Kimball, Director of the Washington Arms Control Association, makes the compelling point that while the NSG decision falls short of what is required, “it is not the ‘clean’ and ‘unconditional’ waiver India was demanding.”[v]Given the clarifying statements of a number of the NSG members, there is reason to believe that NSG states will not in fact engage in full nuclear trade with India, excluding enrichment and reprocessing technologies. In addition, states have signaled, and US legislation requires it, that nuclear trade with India would stop in the event of an India test. Furthermore, the NSG decision commits the group to regularly considering issues related to the implementation of the decision, including India’s actions on the political commitments it has made.

There is no doubt that the nuclear nonproliferation regime has been seriously undermined by the NSG decision to exempt India from a central nonproliferation rule. Plan A was to prevent that decision, but it was made and the US Congress may yet ratify it to create a new reality. That would call for a Plan B – that is, a plan to ensure that the NSG and India now make good on the commitments announced, and to work to prevent the further erosion of nonproliferation regulations.

The looming test is the forthcoming 2010 Review Conference of the NPT. Without some concrete disarmament commitments to counteract the NSG’s de facto expansion of the “legitimate” nuclear weapons club to now include India, the NPT will be in genuine peril.