Beware The Other Extreme

IN a recent article in The Hindustan Times, Brahma Chellaney, one of the most perceptive commentators on international affairs, voiced a fear that has been growing in the Indian intelligentsia. If this is not addressed soon, it may well trigger a reaction within the country that makes it impossible for the government to take the current negotiations with the US any further, or to meet the pledge Mr Vajpayee gave to the United Nations that India would sign the CTBT next year when some remaining issues have been thrashed out. The fear is that with every commitment that India gives to the US on non-proliferation, the US negotiators are subtly raising their demands. In its eagerness to reassure the world that India is still the same responsible power it was before the nuclear tests, New Delhi is being manoeuvered into putting its nuclear capability back into the basement, where it was before May 11. That is the American concept of recessive deterrence—nuclear capability in theory but nuclear impotence in practice.

Chellaney gives several examples of such pressure tactics. No sooner had India agreed to join the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) negotiations in Geneva next year than America asked it to stop producing such materials straightway. No sooner had India agreed to pull its minimum deterrent back sufficiently to avoid the possibility of an accidental nuclear war with Pakistan than America asked that all warheads and missiles be stored separately. No sooner had India agreed (and this is only my surmise) that it would not mate warheads to the Agni, but continue its missile development programme, than the Americans asked that the testing of Agni-II and future missiles be indefinitely postponed.

Chellaney gives two other examples of American double-dealing that are less than fair to Washington: that the Americans have not given an inch on freeing access to technology, and are not even prepared to consider India's membership of the Security council. Both positions are understandable, for, as Madeleine Albright has pointed out, the US and other members of the nuclear club cannot both reward India for bursting its way into the N-club and still hope to save the global non-proliferation regime from falling apart.

The core of his criticisms cannot, however, be refuted. American foreign policy is in a mess when it comes to South Asia. In contrast to Strobe Talbott and his team of negotiators, there are others, including Madeleine Albright and National Security Council chief Sandy Berger, who are determined to force India to conform to their concept of a global nuclear order, and to portray a successful conclusion of the negotiations as a victory for the US. As Albright has said time and again, these officials simply do not believe that India has any legitimate security concerns and ascribe the decision to go nuclear to the purely domestic and irresponsible concern of the BJP.

They do not understand, or do not wish to understand, that were India to succumb to their pressures, it would find itself in far greater danger than it was before May 11. Thanks to China, Pakistan has a solid fuel rocket (the M-11) that can be mated to a warhead and fired within minutes, against the hours India needs to prepare the liquid-fuelled Prithvi.

Pakistan is also in imminent danger of turning into an Islamic military dictatorship. Its still feeble democratic establishment is increasingly unable to cope with both the collapse of the economy and the domestic repercussions of the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. The former has forced it to turn to that patron-in-chief of Wahabi fundamentalism, Saudi Arabia, for transfusions of dollars. The latter has immensely reinforced the ISI and the politico-religious establishment in the country. The spadework for a military coup is already far advanced. Patently trumped-up accusations of corruption have surfaced against Nawaz Sharif that depend for their credibility on the average Pakistani mistaking the by and large legitimate activities of  Sharif's companies abroad for personal actions which would have been illegitimate. Four previous military coups have been prefaced by similar, concerted attack on democratically elected prime ministers. This is hardly a situation in which India can afford to bow to America's wishes, just because that latter wants to contain the nuclear ambitions of North Korea.

The way to deal with American pressure is not, however, to stall the talks till Washington is willing to make some concessions. Given the immense difference in relative bargaining strengths, that is a contest that India can only lose. The right course for India is to sign the CTBT as soon as possible and gain for itself the leeway to tell the Americans that it will follow the dictates of its own security needs on all the other issues. India needs to remember that while it may be negotiating with the US, the US is not the only player in the game. There are other countries, both developed and developing, that do not agree with or are at best reluctant partners in the sanctions policy of the US. They will see India's signing the CTBT as a much needed reassurance that India is not setting out to become some kind of rogue state but subscribes to the basic aim of preventing nuclear proliferation. They will be further reassured when India joins in the FMCT talks next year. At that point India will be able to test the Agni-II or a solid fuel version of the Prithvi without unduly alarming the rest of the world.

India should also make it clear to the US that it will not believe that the US considers India's security concerns to be legitimate until it explicitly acknowledges the immense danger that Pakistan's drift towards fundamentalism and its links with the Taliban and Sunni terrorism pose to India, and the irresponsible and destabilising role that China has played by passing nuclear weapons and missile technology to it. Without this acknowledgement there can be no real progress in the Indo-US talks beyond India's signing of the CTBT.

In the US, the Albrights and Bergers will heed India's concerns only when they are convinced that their economic sanctions will not work. So far despite all of India's brave assurances to the contrary, they are not convinced that the sanctions will fail. The official assessment, which Karl Inderfurth presented in testimony before Congress two months ago, is that India's failure to fashion any kind of policy to counter the effect of sanctions, such as by reducing its fiscal deficit and strengthening confidence in the rupee, makes their eventual success inevitable. New Delhi has to prove this assessment wrong if it ever wants to talk to the Americans as an equal.