The Politics of Ideas - Warming to India

May 17, 2006

By Wesley Clark and Will Marshall | Blueprint Magazine

At first glance, President Bush's proposed agreement with India on civil nuclear cooperation is a no-win proposition for the U.S. Senate. Rejecting the deal could chill relations between the world's biggest democracies; approving it might shred America's credibility as a leader of global efforts to restrain nuclear proliferation.

Senators can escape this dilemma, however, by offering the White House a deal of their own: support for the India agreement conditioned on concrete commitments by the Bush administration to breathe new life into the international nonproliferation system.

Under the deal struck last summer, the United States would lift its ban on supplying expertise and fuel to India's civilian nuclear power sector. India agreed to place 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors under safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The deal is intended to remove the chief irritant in U.S.-India relations: America's longtime policy of banning sales of civilian nuclear technology and fuel to any country -- most prominently India -- that has refused to sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

U.S. leaders should not miss the opportunity to forge a true strategic partnership with India. As a stable, multiethnic democracy with a brisk economic growth rate, a vibrant technology sector, an English-speaking middle class, and a potential domestic market four times larger than America's, India is fast emerging as a 21st century power of the first rank.

Arms control advocates, however, warn that closer U.S.- India ties should not come at the price of undermining the nonproliferation framework. Yet U.S. efforts to punish India for spurning the NPT have manifestly failed. More important, it's clear that the NPT cannot survive in its present terms and needs fundamental revision.

Since the treaty's inception, four new states have elbowed their way into the exclusive nuclear club, and such scofflaw regimes as North Korea and Iran are pounding on the door. Without bold action now to strengthen and modernize the NPT framework, we could be looking at as many as 20 nuclear-armed states within the next decade or two.

So instead of persisting in vain attempts to punish India -- which, unlike rival Pakistan, has an exemplary nonproliferation record -- the United States should enlist New Delhi's help in designing a fairer and more effective global nonproliferation system.

The Senate, for example, should insist on boosting spending on the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs aimed at securing Russia's loose nuclear materials. It should also press the Bush administration to push for overdue NPT reforms, including stronger inspections, tighter control of nuclear know-how, and a closer watch on the activities of nuclear-trained scientists and engineers worldwide.

The key reform is to close the NPT loophole that allows states to develop civilian nuclear energy programs if they agree not to build nuclear weapons. The problem comes when countries demand, as Iran has done, a "right" under NPT to develop its own nuclear fuel supply rather than acquiring what it needs from the nuclear powers. As Ashton Carter and Stephen LaMontagne point out, "Enrichment and reprocessing facilities allow states to cross into a proliferation 'red zone,' putting them dangerously close to a nuclear weapons capability."

Carter and LaMontagne offer a simple solution: Internationalize the nuclear fuels cycle. Building on Russia's offer to provide nuclear fuel for Iran, the United States should organize an international suppliers' consortium to provide a reliable source of fuel for nuclear energy plants (and a repository for spent fuel) to countries that forswear nuclear weapons and submit to robust inspections. India, as a former leader of the nonaligned nations, could show its commitment to nonproliferation by helping to build support for such an approach among the developing nations.

The Senate also should insist that the United States hold up its end of the nuclear bargain. Under the NPT, the nuclear "haves" are obliged to move toward disarmament. Yet the Bush administration has gone in the opposite direction. It has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, failed to engage the other nuclear powers in talks aimed at mutual cuts in nuclear arsenals, and even launched new programs for developing nuclear "small" bombs and "bunker-buster" weapons.

Finally, the United States should offer similar terms to Pakistan if it returns to the NPT, puts its nuclear programs under international safeguards, and offers a full accounting for the worldwide nuclear bazaar operated by A.Q. Khan.

If accompanied by imaginative U.S. efforts to update and strengthen the global nonproliferation system, the proposed deal with India could become a cornerstone of a comprehensive post-Cold War strategy -- but only if elected leaders at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have the insight and courage to seize this opportunity.

Wesley Clark is NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Will Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.