[Mb-civic] TIMELY AND GREAT: A nuclear partnership with India - Selig S. Harrison - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  A nuclear partnership with India

By Selig S. Harrison  |  March 2, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

ONE OF THE few bright spots on a murky US global horizon is India. After 
decades of tensions with New Delhi, the Bush administration is moving 
steadily to establish a new strategic partnership to strengthen India as 
a counterweight to China in the Asian balance of power.

The cornerstone of the administration's India initiative is an agreement 
concluded July 18 by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister 
Manmohan Singh providing for civilian nuclear cooperation. Negotiations 
on the implementation of this agreement are the focus of the president's 
visit to India today.

India urgently needs a massive expansion of its civilian nuclear power 
program to cope with an escalating energy shortage that threatens its 
economic and political stability. But congressional critics, who have 
never forgiven India for refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty, attack the accord as a reward for bad behavior. The July 
agreement cannot be implemented without proposed changes in 1978 US law 
that are clearly justified.

The treaty does not bar the United States and other signatory nations 
from providing civilian nuclear technology under safeguards to 
nonsignatories such as India. But Congress went far beyond the treaty by 
barring nonsignatories from any civilian nuclear cooperation with the 
United States. This has had ridiculous consequences.

Washington can sell civilian nuclear reactors to China, which signed the 
treaty but has violated Article One by giving nuclear weapons technology 
to Pakistan and Iran. At the same time, the United States has barred 
such sales to India, which did not sign the treaty but has never 
transferred nuclear technology to others. The exclusion of India from 
civilian nuclear cooperation is a relic of earlier decades when the 
United States was trying to stop New Delhi from acquiring nuclear 
weapons. Now that it has joined the nuclear club, the 1978 law should be 
modified.

The agreement would require India to place all reactors under 
international safeguards if they get financing, fuel, or components from 
the United States or members of the US-led Nuclear Suppliers Group. 
Prime Minister Singh has faithfully fulfilled his commitment in the 
accord that India would ''identify and separate civilian and nuclear 
facilities in a phased manner." After bitter internal battles with 
nuclear nationalists in India, he has presented Washington with a 
credible timetable designating which of India's nuclear facilities are 
restricted to nuclear power generation, which ones will be shifted over 
to civilian purposes at specified stages, and which ones will be left 
for military use.

Sixty-five percent of India's nuclear power capacity is on the civilian 
list, much more than the nuclear hawks in New Delhi wanted. The 
administration has been pressing for a longer civilian list, hoping to 
appease its critics, who would like to put a cap on India's nuclear 
weapons potential. But the agreement gives New Delhi the right to decide 
on the civilian-military mix, and whether a compromise can be negotiated 
is uncertain.

Critics point out that the agreement gives India the freedom to build 
new military reactors and exempts key research and development 
facilities with a military potential from safeguards. They object to the 
very concept of a civilian-military separation plan that implicitly 
acknowledges the military component of the Indian nuclear program. But 
this acknowledgement was long overdue. Asia is clearly more stable now 
that India has its ''credible minimum deterrent" than it would be with 
China enjoying a nuclear monopoly. In any case, the United States, with 
its 7,000 operational nuclear weapons, is in no position to criticize 
India for a deterrent force now believed to consist of 150 to 200 warheads.

Critics also argue that the accord invites other countries to demand 
equal treatment. Treaty signatories like Brazil and Argentina that are 
in compliance with Article One, like India, should indeed be given 
comparable access to civilian nuclear technology. Iran, North Korea, and 
Pakistan, with questionable compliance records, should not.

In a recent conversation in New Delhi, Prime Minister Singh emphasized 
his belief that India's future prosperity depends on pursuing a close 
economic and technological partnership with the United States. Such a 
partnership is a natural. The United States and India have no 
geopolitical conflicts of interest and share democratic values, market 
economics, and widespread linguistic compatibility in English.

With India's growth rate now soaring past 7 percent, the United States 
clearly stands to benefit from expanding trade and investment 
opportunities in everything from computer technology to military 
aircraft, not to mention the potential benefit from cooperation in 
fighting Islamic terrorism and maritime cooperation with the Indian navy 
from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca. The July accord serves 
both nonproliferation objectives and wider US geopolitical interests and 
deserves unqualified congressional support.

Selig S. Harrison, author of ''India: The Most Dangerous Decades," is 
director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/02/a_nuclear_partnership_with_india/
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