Vajpayee's Wasted Rhetoric

AFTER testing nuclear weapons, now comes the hard part: explaining India's reasoning, reducing nuclear dangers, articulating doctrine, defining requirements, adopting a suitable force posture, establishing effective command, control, and intelligence arrangements, and repairing ties to the international community. This work will take decades of effort and expense. Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's speech before the UN General Assembly did not make much headway on these matters before an admittedly tough audience.

The reserved response of the General Assembly to the prime minister's effort should hardly come as a surprise. It was here, two years ago, that the Government of India argued against the propriety of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and was rebuffed by a vote of 158 to three (with Bhutan and Libya joining India in opposition). None of the arguments so vehemently expressed by Indian officials then figure now in New Delhi's approach to the CTBT. Having been told previously that India's opposition was a matter of high principle, the assembly was now advised by the prime minister that last season's morality play was really about keeping the nuclear option open, nothing more.

New York is a cynical town, and nothing in the prime minister's speech diminished that deep reservoir of cynicism, which extends to the Government of India's rationale for nuclear testing. Prime minister Vajpayee's slender explanation to the General Assembly—a solitary reference to India's "deteriorating security environment"—is unlikely to be persuasive to those who have charted IndoChinese relations over the past decade or the reversal of Indian and Pakistani fortunes with the end of the Cold War. Most of the international community remains unconvinced of the BJP's reasoning—not because New Delhi's long-range security concerns vis-a-vis China are groundless, but because it is widely understood that India could have assured itself of a serviceable nuclear deterrent without testing.

Crude but devastating "first generation" nuclear devices could have been fabricated by India's capable nuclear scientists without creating a geopolitical disturbance. (US scientists managed this feat over 50 years ago, using slide rules rather than computers. Regrettably, the basic design for a nuclear weapon is now quite replicable.) Instead, India carried out an ambitious test series, attesting to the latitude given to a closed nuclear establishment by political leaders—a phenomenon well known in the West.

To the outside world, this public display of joining the nuclear club was widely viewed not only as a means to confirm advanced nuclear weapon designs, but also to secure status, increase bargaining leverage (at home as well as abroad), and counter perceptions of softness. If nuclear testing is, indeed, a requirement for "equal security" (to use Jaswant Singh's phrase) in troubled regions where states cannot rely on the help of others against nuclear-armed neighbours, India's example could also be followed by Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan—whose security treaty with the United States must be considered a historical anomaly.

 India's decision to detonate nuclear weapons—and the deteriorating regional security environment that has resulted—comes at a time when the Middle East peace process is at a critical phase, North Korea's nuclear programme is thawing, Iraq is challenging the continuation of UN inspections, Iran is pursuing the nuclear option, and Russia is in crisis. Thus, the BJP's international legacy could well be its "contribution" to the unravelling of global efforts to stem and reverse proliferation. These regimes, particularly the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which have long been vilified within India, might now be viewed in a different light.

Those looking for new Indian initiatives to help reduce the nuclear dangers generated by testing were disappointed. Vajpayee moved minimally, but usefully, to respond to international calls for India's signature on the CTBT. India's promise not to delay the treaty's entry-into-force beyond September 1999 was not nearly as convoluted as Nawaz Sharif's formulation, but both led to the same juncture: a target date by which key states either ratify the CTBT or remain on the sidelines. Such a mechanism proved to be essential in convincing the Republican leadership in the United States Senate to address its responsibilities and ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.

 How soon the Government of India chooses to act on the prime minister's public commitment is a matter of considerable international interest. From a distance, it is hard to identify any substantive reason for New Delhi's non-signature on a treaty whose lineage is distinctly Indian. The longer Vajpayee waits, the more the issue arises in international fora and the more India's commitment to disarmament initiatives is called into question.

Vajpayee also reaffirmed India's newly favourable posture toward the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty at the UN. These negotiations in Geneva, which could be long and arduous, offer South Block an opportunity to turn the page after the debacle of the CTBT's negotiating endgame. Reference was also made to a renewed effort seeking the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons. A similar initiative in 1995-1996 coincided with India's opposition to the CTBT, and was thus widely perceived as a device to provide diplomatic cover for India's lonely stand. Whether a new initiative in this regard would be more credible depends on its particulars, which were not spelled out.

The most interesting news in New York—the joint statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers to resume bilateral talks and agreement on a mechanism for substantive dialogue—was not mentioned in the prime minister's speech before the General Assembly. Nuclear dangers in South Asia cannot be reduced by UN speeches or by declarations of good intent. India and Pakistan are not lacking in such affirmations. For example, this is, by my count, the third time since 1990 when joint pledges have been made to use the prime ministerial hotline. The last use of this hotline to stop the firing along the Line of Control succeeded for less than three months.

The key test for Indian leadership—as viewed from abroad—lies in adopting concrete steps that lend credence to public declarations. The resumption of talks between India and Pakistan offers a rare and welcome opportunity for South Block to lead in regional efforts to reduce nuclear dangers. There is much room for creativity in this realm, and pressing need.

(The writer is president of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington.)