To our friends in the Western world, the nuclear question has traditionally been uni-dimensional. Symptom, not disease, is their problem.
Sometime we overzealously play up things that are no news at all. Recently our electronic media overplayed US media reports suggesting that the Obama administration was implicitly accepting Pakistan’s status as a “declared nuclear-weapon state” and was seeking to dispel theories that the US was secretly plotting to seize the country’s nuclear assets. The story was apparently based on a Washington Post report by its associate editor David Ignatius on Obama administration’s recent “steps to address Pakistani security concerns.”
What our media should know is that Pakistan’s status as a “declared nuclear-weapon state” is already a recognised fact the world-over. The US itself recognised this “status” immediately after our nuclear tests on May 28 and 30, 1998 after India had exploded its tests earlier on May 11 and 13 the same month. This recognition was manifest in the eight-round dialogue that the US had with both India and Pakistan on equal terms to seek their cooperation as “declared” nuclear-weapon states” on certain security benchmarks.
I remember US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott once formally assuring me that “from US perspective, Pakistan had succeeded in achieving the central objective it has long set for itself, acquiring a deterrent capability with respect to India.” The formal reaction of the international community to South Asian nuclear tests set out in the UN Security Council resolution of June 6, 1998 also implicitly accepted the two countries as “declared” nuclear-weapon states when it called for a roll back by them of their nuclear capabilities.
The fact that the US has entered into a “nuclear deal” with India is further confirmation of this reality. It is another matter that Pakistan, as ever before, remains the victim of “double standards” and has been deprived of the same treatment that is being accorded to India through a country-specific waiver for supply of nuclear fuel and technology. If Washington is genuinely seeking to address Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns, it must end its discriminatory approach in our region by negotiating a nuclear deal with Pakistan, as it did with India.
Last month, a US scholar wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, backing this demand. “More so than conventional weapons or large sums of cash, a conditions-based civilian nuclear deal may be able to diminish Pakistani fears of US intentions while allowing Washington to leverage these gains for greater Pakistani cooperation on nuclear proliferation and terrorism,” wrote C. Christine Fair, an assistant professor at Georgetown University.
To our friends in the Western world, the nuclear question has traditionally been uni-dimensional. Symptom, not disease, is their problem. Their undivided focus has been on non-proliferation only as a concept which they have ingeniously adapted to their own intent and purpose. Regrettably, the current multilateral system is being used only to legitimize the strategic and security set up suited only to the few which India’s former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has rightly described as “nuclear apartheid.”
Pakistan’s status as a “declared nuclear-weapon state” cannot be erased now simply by America’s country-specific and expediency-based discriminatory arrangement with India. Irrespective of who “inducted” the nuclear dimension into the volatile security environment of South Asia, they are a reality now. They constitute an essential element of our security in the form of credible minimum deterrent. They also constitute a credible nuclear deterrent for India.
Since then, we have pursued, as a ‘responsible’ nuclear weapon state, a policy of credible minimum deterrence (CMD). In the context of Composite Dialogue, we even finalized a number of nuclear and conventional CBMs with India. I had signed an MOU on February 21, 1999 with my Indian counterpart on nuclear risk reduction measures which has since been formalized into an agreement between the two governments.
We are opposed to a nuclear and conventional arms race in South Asia and in pursuit of this objective we continue to pursue the establishment of a Strategic Restraint Regime with India involving three interlocking elements, namely, conflict resolution, nuclear and missile restraint and conventional balance.
. On its part, India is now seeking to get out of the Composite Dialogue mechanism because it wants to “unequate” itself from Pakistan in its further nuclear deals with its Western friends.
In the interest of durable peace and stability in the region, the international community (especially the US) should now understand the gravity of damage they are doing to the cause of peace and stability in this region through their “country-specific” nuclear waivers. They should instead be promoting comprehensive and non-discriminatory approaches in South Asia and avoiding policies that create and widen nuclear disparities between Pakistan and India, and also disrupt their ongoing dialogue processes.
In the larger interest of this region’s stability, the US must revisit its special “strategic partnership” with India including a discriminatory and country-specific nuclear deal. Unless it is matched with a similar deal with Pakistan, the Indo-US nuclear nexus will not only have serious implications for the regional strategic balance but will also undermine the cause of global non-proliferation. If the turbulent political history of this region has any lessons, Washington’s future engagement in this region must be aimed at promoting strategic balance rather than disturbing it.
A stable nuclear security order is what we need in South Asia. In a larger perspective, the cause of non-proliferation will also not be served without addressing the underlying causes of conflict in this region. It is time the world focused its attention on conflict resolution by addressing longstanding issues in our region. The issues of nuclear and strategic stability in our region must also be predicated on the principle of indivisible security.
It is essential to eschew discriminatory regimes, whether in the area of non-proliferation, disarmament or nuclear security. Only criteria-based approaches on the basis of equality and non-discrimination would be sustainable. As an immediate step, the three non-NPT states with a declared or known status of “nuclear-weapon states” namely, India, Israel and Pakistan should be brought into the nuclear mainstream through requisite adjustments in the NPT.
This will only strengthen President Obama’s initiative for an effective global strategy against nuclear terrorism that he now proposes to develop at a two-day nuclear security summit he will be hosting in Washington on April 12-13. The stated purpose of the summit is to discuss steps that can collectively be taken “to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and prevent acts of nuclear terrorism.
In a major policy speech at Prague last April, President Obama had said that nuclear terrorism was the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. Later in July at G-8’s last summit at L'Aquila, he announced his decision to hold the nuclear summit in Washington which is now scheduled to take place next month with 44 countries attending it. Obama expects a global strategy to emerge from this conference to be able “to secure vulnerable nuclear materials within four years, break up black markets, detect and intercept materials in transit, and use financial tools to disrupt illicit trade in nuclear materials.”
Indeed, nuclear dangers abound on many fronts. Some quick snapshots: all told, there are currently nuclear weapons materials in more than 40 countries, some “secured by nothing more than a chain link fence.” In the US itself, nuclear materials were reported missing from fifteen US licensed locations and there have been incidents such as the one where nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto an airplane and not reported missing for many hours. In Russia, weapons- and reactor-grade nuclear materials disappeared from the country’s atomic facilities.
In India, numerous cases were reported in recent years of stolen uranium and discovery of an active uranium smuggling racket in West Bengal. The IAEA also reported that the Indian police had seized three uranium rods and arrested eight persons on charges of illicit trafficking of nuclear material in November 2000. On its part, Pakistan has also its list of alleged lapses but has now tightened its security controls in line with IAEA safeguards to prevent any unauthorised transfers of nuclear material.
In the interest of durable peace and stability in the region, the international community (especially the US) should now understand the gravity of damage they are doing to the cause of peace and stability in this region through their “country-specific” nuclear waivers. They should instead be promoting comprehensive and non-discriminatory approaches in South Asia and avoiding policies that create and widen nuclear disparities between Pakistan and India, and also disrupt their ongoing dialogue processes.
In the larger interest of this region’s stability, the US must revisit its special “strategic partnership” with India including a discriminatory and country-specific nuclear deal. Unless it is matched with a similar deal with Pakistan, the Indo-US nuclear nexus will not only have serious implications for the regional strategic balance but will also undermine the cause of global non-proliferation. If the turbulent political history of this region has any lessons, Washington’s future engagement in this region must be aimed at promoting strategic balance rather than disturbing it.
A stable nuclear security order is what we need in South Asia. In a larger perspective, the cause of non-proliferation will also not be served without addressing the underlying causes of conflict in this region. It is time the world focused its attention on conflict resolution by addressing longstanding issues in our region. The issues of nuclear and strategic stability in our region must also be predicated on the principle of indivisible security.
It is essential to eschew discriminatory regimes, whether in the area of non-proliferation, disarmament or nuclear security. Only criteria-based approaches on the basis of equality and non-discrimination would be sustainable. As an immediate step, the three non-NPT states with a declared or known status of “nuclear-weapon states” namely, India, Israel and Pakistan should be brought into the nuclear mainstream through requisite adjustments in the NPT.
This will only strengthen President Obama’s initiative for an effective global strategy against nuclear terrorism that he now proposes to develop at a two-day nuclear security summit he will be hosting in Washington on April 12-13. The stated purpose of the summit is to discuss steps that can collectively be taken “to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and prevent acts of nuclear terrorism.
In a major policy speech at Prague last April, President Obama had said that nuclear terrorism was the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. Later in July at G-8’s last summit at L'Aquila, he announced his decision to hold the nuclear summit in Washington which is now scheduled to take place next month with 44 countries attending it. Obama expects a global strategy to emerge from this conference to be able “to secure vulnerable nuclear materials within four years, break up black markets, detect and intercept materials in transit, and use financial tools to disrupt illicit trade in nuclear materials.”
Indeed, nuclear dangers abound on many fronts. Some quick snapshots: all told, there are currently nuclear weapons materials in more than 40 countries, some “secured by nothing more than a chain link fence.” In the US itself, nuclear materials were reported missing from fifteen US licensed locations and there have been incidents such as the one where nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto an airplane and not reported missing for many hours. In Russia, weapons- and reactor-grade nuclear materials disappeared from the country’s atomic facilities.
In India, numerous cases were reported in recent years of stolen uranium and discovery of an active uranium smuggling racket in West Bengal. The IAEA also reported that the Indian police had seized three uranium rods and arrested eight persons on charges of illicit trafficking of nuclear material in November 2000. On its part, Pakistan has also its list of alleged lapses but has now tightened its security controls in line with IAEA safeguards to prevent any unauthorised transfers of nuclear material.
The security of nuclear materials including prevention of illicit trade and transfers is a global problem that needs a global cooperative response which hopefully the forthcoming Washington summit will bring together with the participation of all relevant stakeholders.
The list of those who now possess nuclear weapons includes more than the traditional “nuclear weapons states” comprising the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and France. We now have India, Pakistan and North Korea, which have conducted nuclear tests—as well as Israel, which is known to have nuclear weapons. There are others with more recent local, regional or even international nuclear ambitions that must also be taken on board in any global nuclear security mechanism.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
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