Today, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group decided to approve a nuclear deal between the United States and India (which is not part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and which tested bombs between 1974 and 1998). The decision is one about which I feel ambivalent. One the one hand, it might promote the relatively responsible use of nuclear technologies in India. Despite how we could probably do better by spending our money in other ways, more nuclear power is a likely consequence of concerns about both energy security and climate change. On the other hand, the deal demonstrates that it is possible states can test bombs, remain outside the NPT, and still get access to internationally-provided nuclear fuels and technologies. The lesson to other states may be that the best long-term course of action is to ignore international efforts aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
Thinking about how many states are likely to have reactors and bombs by the end of the next century is pretty worrisome.
More comprehensive reporting on the decision:
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America’s nuclear deal with India
Time to decide
Aug 28th 2008
From The Economist print edition
There should be no exemption for India from the world’s nuclear rules
IN A dangerous and unstable world, isn’t cementing friendship with an up-and-coming power such as India worth breaking a few rules for? That is the reasoning behind the Bush administration’s championing of a controversial civilian nuclear deal with India, which George Bush and India’s Manmohan Singh struck in 2005. To take effect it now needs only an India-sized hole to be punched next week in the global rules on nuclear trade and then a final nod from America’s Congress.
The trade restrictions of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) are supposed to apply to countries that, like India, have built bombs rather than sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In return for exempting India from these restrictions, the Bush administration hopes India will be a bulwark against China. Doubters in Congress and opponents abroad have also been lectured on the supposed benefits of bringing India into the “non-proliferation mainstream”.
For India, an exemption from NSG restrictions on nuclear trade would be an answer to its nuclear prayers: but its military ones, not its civilian ones. India is short of usable uranium. If it could buy foreign fuel for its civilian reactors, it could devote more of the stuff it makes at home to bomb-building. That alone ought to give pause to any government that takes seriously its obligation under the NPT’s Article 1: not to help others in any way with weapons-building.
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The NSG was set up precisely to stop countries doing what India did to get a start in the bomb business: abusing technology and skills provided for civilian purposes. The group’s ban on trade with countries that break the non-proliferation rules has been the chief underpinning of the NPT regime. Waive the ban and the NSG will have little point. It should refuse to make an exception for India. And so should America’s Congress.
India’s nuclear deal with America
Quantum politics
Sep 11th 2008 | DELHI
From The Economist print edition
Celebrating a diplomatic triumph
AT THE atomic level, the laws of classical physics bend in intriguing ways. On September 6th, the world’s nuclear rules proved equally pliable. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 45-nation cartel that limits trade in nuclear materials and technology, passed a “waiver”, allowing it to do business with India (see article). Only five other countries (America, Britain, China, France and Russia) both enjoy the privileges of nuclear commerce and have nuclear weapons. And unlike India, those other five have all signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (although America and China have yet to ratify the latter).
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This diplomatic coup was all the more notable because India is the reason the cartel exists. It was formed to prevent a repeat of India’s 1974 nuclear test, which exploited the civilian nuclear help India received under America’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative. This was, the Times said, a “delicious irony”.
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India’s nuclear waiver
A legacy project
Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Mourning an exemption that may defeat the rules
FOR India’s embattled prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and America’s soon-to-depart president, George Bush, the waiver for India agreed on September 6th by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is meant to build a lasting legacy: their own. Critics fear its real testament will be lasting damage to the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Pakistan demands US nuclear deal
Pakistan has said that India’s civilian nuclear trade agreement with the US should open the way for a similar deal with Islamabad.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters that Washington should not discriminate between South Asia’s two nuclear armed nations.
Pakistan has long opposed efforts by the US administration to push through the deal with India.
Critics warned that approving it could lead to a regional nuclear arms race.
India: The Internal Struggle Over the Nuclear Deal
July 8, 2008
India’s communist parties announced plans July 8 to withdraw from the governing coalition over New Delhi’s controversial nuclear deal with the United States. The Congress-led government will likely survive the pullout, but time is running out for the deal to succeed.
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