Politics

Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Faulty Criticisms

The US Congress has approved the US-India Nuclear deal. With a vote of 359-60, the status quo certainly seems to have moved to favor the deal (news from the NYTimes, CNN, my previous post on negotiating strategies).

Still, that hasn’t stopped the naysayers from complaining about it, incessantly. The NYTimes editorial says the deal is a bad idea. Foreign Policy, another leading journal, has a web exclusive pointing out its problems (Think Again, U.S.-India Nuclear Deal).

There are two serious logical weaknesses in all these criticisms.

First, it rests on issues that are only tangential, while ignoring the central reality of the US-India deal - that it is less about actual Nuclear cooperation and more about the appearance of cooperation in an area of significant importance to India. They make much of the fact that the US gained little while giving up a lot. But that is only because they ignore the fact that if the US wants to strengthen its ties to India, India must gain more than it looses (assuming this is a zero-sum game).

Second, while both are respected journals, they conveniently skip essential details so as to lead the reader to presume the worst, pandering to existing or long-held paranoia, rather than arguing on the basis of fact and analysis.

The NYTimes, for instance, mentions the new Pakistani reactor to say:

This page has listed all the costs of turning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — which India has never joined — into Swiss cheese, including making it harder to restrain Iran and North Korea. But if that’s still too theoretical, consider this: an American think tank revealed this week that Pakistan, India’s neighbor and nuclear rival, has been building a new reactor that could produce enough plutonium for 40 to 50 weapons a year. The White House, which insists that the Indian deal won’t feed a new South Asian arms race, had to admit that it had known about the Pakistani reactor for “some time.”

What point is the author trying to make? So, the White House knew about the Pakistani reactor for “some time”. Does putting that phrase into quotes make it more ominous? Are we to deduce that the White House suppressed that information, to protect this deal? The report itself mentions the construction was started in 2000. So it is logical to assume the White House knew of it for ’some time’. So what?

The Foreign Policy article for its part has 5 criticisms - equally specious or misleading. I wrote a letter to the editor, offering the following point-by-point rebuttal.

Dear Sir or Madam,
I was disappointed after reading the well-written but somewhat flawed arguments of this article (Think Again: U.S.-India Nuclear Deal; July 24, 2006). The article brings forth five presumed ‘benefits’ of the deal. It is not clear who formulated these five points, so it is just as likely that they were created, or chosen, for the very purpose of being repudiated. However, even these five points are not defensible, and I would like to offer here, a point by point rebuttal.

The Deal will strengthen India’s Nuclear Weapons program
This has been one of the strongest and most consistent criticisms of the Nuclear pact. Most American analysts and lawmakers take it as fact that a) India’s fuel supply is limited, and b) by allowing India fuel for its peaceful nuclear program, India will be able to divert its domestic reserves for the weapons program. Unfortunately, neither argument holds any water. In support, I would draw your attention to the report Atoms for Peace by Ashley Tellis (Carnegie Endowment, 2006). The report is exhaustive and shows (using both American and Indian sources) that:

1. India is currently developing less weapons grade nuclear fuel than it can, and
2. India’s domestic reserves are indeed sufficient for its nuclear weapons program, and unaffected by this Nuclear pact.

India’s Weapons program is built on circumventing non-proliferation controls
The article makes much of the fact that India’s nuclear weapons program was based on dual-use technology shifted from a peaceful energy program. It also brings into question India’s past purchases that have circumvented other countries export controls. At the same time, it dismisses as irrelevant the fact that India has a good record on controlling exports.

First, this criticism is really irrelevant, because the pact actually recognizes the opposite. That India is a responsible nuclear weapons state, will not give up its weapons, but can be counted on to help - or at least maintain - the non-proliferation status quo. Second, it is striking that the authors place so much importance on non-proliferation and argue the pact will damage it, but ignore India’s good export-control record. One would imagine there would be at least some good from having India within the regime (if not within the NPT), rather than outside it?

The Pact will not help India become Energy Independent
Two arguments are made by the authors, both untenable:

1. Even with the pact, nuclear power will account for a small (12.5%) portion of India’s electricity production. The reader is expected to deduce that this is really a very small amount. However, the article again conveniently ignores that at present only 3% of our energy comes from nuclear sources. Admittedly, nobody will argue that nuclear energy will alone solve India’s energy woes. 12.5% may not be a lot, but it is more than it would be in the absence of a full-scale energy program, and hence a positive outcome globally in terms of reducing or limiting fossil fuel-based energy.
2. The article also prescribes a range of other means by which India could improve energy utilization, such as by increasing efficiency or investing in green technologies. It is unclear how the other technologies have an impact on this argument, unless the authors are suggesting an alternative pact that replaces nuclear technology with green technology transfer by the USA? And even if one is to assume that these alternatives are available to India and are cheaper than nuclear energy, I would hope that they will allow India the luxury of deciding which energy sources to choose, rather than deciding for India.

India will not Promote US Interests in the Region
Now finally, we start to approach what is, in essence, the true justification for this deal. I must agree that India will possibly, but not necessarily side with the USA. That is as it should be - India is a large, growing power that has been and will continue to be largely independent. Indo-US relations have always been tricky and India has generally been suspicious of US policies, given the American approach to India has always been related to the US policy for Pakistan.

This pact then is for America a beginning of an end of that approach - and of viewing India as an independent country, to be dealt with separately. The choice for America really is whether it wants to have any leverage with India, or none at all?

In that context, it would be useful to read the following two articles, that place this nuclear deal in the correct frame of reference. Rather than viewing this pact as a short-term gain for the US, it places the pact in the longer-term policy shift.

• America’s New Strategic Partner, by Ashton B. Carter (Foreign Affairs, July/Aug 2006)
• India as a New Global Partner, by Ashley Tellis (Carnegie Endowment, 2005)

The Deal will undermine Non-proliferation
The authors indicate here that the pact will undermine the NPT. Admittedly, it does undermine the principle of non-proliferation that the United States has espoused for so long. However, the damage in real terms is manageable, with few short-term effects. The article suggests, for instance, that it will complicate negotiations with North Korea and Iran. This, however, is a specious argument. Rogue states will continue to pursue a weapons program for strategic reasons. On the other hand, it is likely to be a factor for other states, most likely those that have considered nuclear weapons before, and those that are staunch supports of the NPT, but such damage can be managed. And it must be remembered that this pact will be only one of several factors at play when a country decides to pursue a nuclear weapons program. To say that it would, by itself, lead to more nuclear rogue states, is to ascribe it too much.

In concluding this argument, the authors suggest that this nuclear deal could somehow induce an arms race in the region. It is not entirely clear how, as we have already asserted that the nuclear weapons programs of both countries are unaffected by this pact.

Update:

For more (naive and misguided) criticism of the deal from the NYTimes see:

• India, Oil and Nuclear Weapons
• Mr. Bush’s Asian Road Trip

For an effective counter-point to these many criticisms, I came across the following in Foreign Policy: Misfiring at the India Nuclear Deal (February 2006). Written by Seema Gahlaut, it makes a convincing case for the deal, while trashing some of the more popular criticisms of it. The author, interestingly, is director of the South Asia Program at the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security.

Update2:

See Implications of the US-India Nuclear Deal (Harvard International Review) for a most compelling clarification of the false criticism that the deal undermines the NPT:

Those who lament the NPT’s lost legitimacy in the wake of the India deal may therefore miss the point. The Times editorial page, for instance, asserts that “the nonproliferation treaty’s carrot-and-stick approach … has dissuaded countries that are capable of building or buying nuclear arms from doing so…” But the treaty does not provide the carrot or wield the stick; powerful countries do…In this respect, the US-India agreement is perhaps an ideal case study for international relations realists. It demonstrates the often illusory force of institutions like the NPT, which codify rather than constrain the dominance of the most powerful states. The United States can sidestep the NPT framework when it wishes because the NPT has little force without US backing.

© 2006 The Discomfort Zone.