There will be many in New Delhi who will be delighted with newspaper reports that the latest round of talks between foreign minister Jaswant Singh and US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott have made even less progress than was recorded in the last few rounds. They would do well to take a closer look at the joint statement issued by the two leaders. In the statement, the two delegations "expressed the hope that a visit of the US
President to India in the coming year would provide the occasion to significantly improve mutual understanding and cooperation". In the months ahead, talks would be "intensified" to "lay the foundation for a broadbased, forward-looking relationship between the US and India". This is virtually an announcement that President Clinton will visit India next year, for the hope it expresses relates not to the visit but to improving mutual cooperation. Such a joint statement could simply not have been drawn up if the talks had hit serious snags.
This does not mean there are no areas of disagreement between the two countries. Of the four issues on which the talks have centred, two still remain contentious-whether India should sign the CTBT; and what kind of nuclear arsenal (weapons and delivery systems) it should aim to establish. For most of the year after Pokhran-II, signing the CTBT was the main obstacle to an accord. The issue was not so much international as domestic for none of the Opposition parties could resist the temptation to destabilise Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayees shaky coalition by beating the drum of nationalism. But in the past six months, the CTBT has lost much of its sting. No one has been able to show how India, after having exploded five bombs of various sizes in May 98, would benefit from keeping the option of indulging in more nuclear tests open. Some months ago, Jaswant Singh indicated that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance had no objection to the CTBT in principle, but that such an important decision could only be taken after a consensus had emerged in the country on the issue. In a host of private statements on the subject, Opposition leaders ranging from I.K. Gujral to Manmohan Singh have made it clear that their objections had more to do with being kept in the dark on such an important issue than to the treaty itself.
Today, the bone of contention is Indias future nuclear ambitions. In New Delhi, it is a settled belief that the US began to stress this issue only in more recent rounds of talks when the two countries had come close to an agreement on the other issues, including the CTBT, because this is part of its somewhat browbeating style of doing business. But a moments reflection would show that there could be another explanation. In the aftermath of Pokhran-II when tempers had cooled, the US was predisposed to accept Vajpayees repeated assertions that India intended to arm itself with nuclear weapons only as a deterrent to a nuclear attack or blackmail. But even before the draft paper on nuclear doctrine, it was apparent to those who heard Indian speakers at the myriad of local and international seminars that the Indian intelligentsia had no clear idea of why it wanted nuclear weapons. It was, therefore, divided between those who wanted an arsenal capable of taking on all comers and one that was aimed mainly at deterring a sudden rush of blood to the head in one of our neighbouring countries.
The draft nuclear doctrine released three months ago was in many ways an unexceptionable document, for it repeatedly asserted that Indias objective was deterrence and only deterrence. But by not excluding the US-and NATO specifically-from the ambit of potential threats, by not specifying the level of retaliatory second-strike capability the country aimed at preserving and by affirming instead the desire to build a triad of delivery systems, it opened the way for alarmist assessments of Indias intentions. As a result, the question mark over Indias nuclear intentions remained. The positive tone of the London Communiqu suggests that Jaswant Singh was able to allay many of the US anxieties. But private diplomacy can never suffice on such an important issue. Thus, Vajpayee would do well to make a statement in Parliament on Indias nuclear policy that fills some of the gaps that have been left in the communiqu. The most important need at present is to distinguish between real threats and theoretical ones and to link actual deployment only to the former. The latter can be dealt with by developing technology but explicitly forswearing deployment.
Opinion-makers in the country also need to ask themselves whether even a theoretical nuclear deterrent is of much use against a nuclear power that enjoys an overwhelming conventional military superiority. For such a country can use its nuclear power to immobilise Indias, while it sits back and hammers India back into the stone age from 15,000 feet. As Vietnam showed so vividly, even nuclear powers can be defeated on the ground. But it requires excellent conventional capabilities to do so.
Nuclear power is, therefore, no substitute for a powerful military. Its most certainly not a weak nations guarantee of safety against a stronger one. So far as conventional military strength is concerned, this must necessarily rest on a strong economy and a steadily growing technological capability. India has the capacity to develop both and make an attack on it extremely expensive for the adventurous. But chasing nuclear might can only distract it from this, the real defence challenge that it faces.