India's nuclear weapons credibility depends on its strategic and operational wherewithal, which suffers from a low-level of assurance, rather than more fissile material stocks with higher yields. The game-changer will be strong conventional capabilities
The ratification of the Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency by the Narendra Modi Government on June 22, is, perhaps, in today’s context when China has become militarily assertive, a positive step, provided the pros and cons of doing so are well understood, and the Government is prepared for some hard follow-on actions.
Spurred by the ratification announcement, Mr Rakesh Sood, an experienced diplomat on disarmament matters, has written that while “Additional Protocol was the low-hanging fruit, significantly, the decision indicates that nuclear diplomacy will remain a priority for the Modi Government.” I, instead, would argue that the ratification is a decisive step with far-reaching implications for India’s non-proliferation and geo-political status.
To understand what ratification of India-specific Additional Protocol means, the need is to step back to the signing of the 2008 India-US civil nuclear agreement. Writing in her memoir, No Higher Honour, the then US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, the force behind the bilateral nuclear agreement wrote that: “At least new construction of reactors would be under safeguard. India already had more than enough nuclear material for its military program. It needed help on the civilian side and we needed the strategic breakthrough with this emerging, democratic power.”
The 2008 India-US civil nuclear agreement, from the US’s perspective, was more about non-proliferation, rather than about helping India grow its civil nuclear energy sector, as the Manmohan Singh Government had the people of India believe. The 2008 agreement took a definitive commitment from India: That it will not do nuclear testing (de facto signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). However, according to the 2008 agreement, India would be free to decide on its future reactors to be for military or civil use. But, Ms Rice, in her memoir, appears certain that this choice would not be available to India. What was the reason for her confidenceIJ
Around the time that the US was nudging India to sign the 2008 agreement, then US President George W Bush, in the aftermath of the 2003 AQ Khan proliferation disclosures, was pressing the 48 developed nations’ Nuclear Suppliers Group to tighten its trade rules with the IAEA for Uranium enrichment and Plutonium reprocessing (ENR) technologies. The NSG, which was formed in 1978 as a consequence of India’s 1974 nuclear test, finally issued its revised stringent trade guidelines in July 2011. Thus, even while India (not having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) got the exceptional waiver from the NSG in 2008 which paved the way for the 2008 India-US agreement and the signing of the Additional Protocol between India and the IAEA in March 2009, things were struck as India was to ratify the Additional Protocol. But, the recent ratification of the Additional Protocol will do much less than India needs.
It will merely facilitate nuclear fuel trade while keeping commerce in ENR technologies still outside India’s reach because India is not a member of the NSG club. For that to happen, India must be accepted as a member country by the NSG cartel which takes decisions by consensus. This is not all. India also needs high and dual-use technologies for its indigenous defence industry, something that it has been negotiating with the US since 1984, to grow to, at least, a respectable standing. For this reason, India has asked for simultaneous membership of all four global non-proliferation clubs: NSG, Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group, and the Missile Technology Control Regime. It is certain that for these memberships, India will be asked to make stringent commitments beyond tightening its export control laws and the ratification of the Additional Protocol with the IAEA. India would, perhaps, be allowed ENR trade only if it agrees to not build even indigenous nuclear reactors for military use (something that the 2008 India-US agreement allows). Against this backdrop, Ms Rice’s assertiveness seems justified.
For India, reviewing its Civil liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, for its nuclear energy needs is actually the small step. Even without this, countries like France and Russia are amenable to selling nuclear reactors under safeguard to India.
The big step for India will be to accept that its fissile material stocks will remain limited; this when, Pakistan is aggressively enhancing its own, and there is question mark over India’s nuclear high yield (megaton and even 500kt) capability purportedly needed against China. The trade-off could be membership of the exclusive non-proliferation clubs and the accruing advantages of trade in ENR technologies (much beyond nuclear fuel trade) and high and dual-use technologies for indigenous defence and space programmes.
It could be argued that India, in a hostile neighbourhood, should not accept restrictions on its strategic or nuclear weapons programme. But, an understanding of warfighting with Pakistan and China, two adversaries with disputed borders with India, should dispel these fears. Against Pakistan, use of nuclear weapons by either side is unlikely; if used, it will follow and not precede a conventional war where both sides do not have the conventional capability to grab large chunks of territory.
In reality, if India develops a strong indigenous defence industry and its Armed Forces have the state-of-art technologies, the accruing conventional weapons deterrence will be far more effective against Pakistan than nuclear weapons deterrence.
China is a different ballgame; at worst, it will fight a border war with India in Tibet well away from the mainland. And, India, given its present psychologically-diminutive mindset when China has emerged as a global power, is not expected to enlarge the war. Even during the 1986-1987 Sumdurong Chu crisis when both sides built up forces over one year against one another, India was not restrained by Chinese overt nuclear capability.
There will be another strategic advantage with major geo-political fall-out if India were to get the membership of the non-proliferation clubs: Soaring of India’s relations with the US. The latter as the leader of the non-proliferation regimes, and one seeking to restrict China’s military ambitions, will be pleased to get India, as much as possible, into its embrace. According to Mr Shyam Saran, who was special envoy of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while India was being courted by the US and other European powers in 2005, it had a positive effect on Chinese posture towards India.
He writes that: “This took the shape of concluding the significant Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for seeking settlement of the (disputed) border issue; the depiction of Sikkim as part of Indian territory in Chinese maps and the declaration of a bilateral Strategic and Cooperative Partnership with India.”
Bottomline: India’s nuclear weapons credibility depends on its strategic and operational wherewithal which suffers from a low-level of assurance, rather than more fissile material stocks with higher yields. The game-changer will be strong conventional capabilities; it will deter Pakistan to restrict if not completely stop infiltration and export of terror. And, China will feel less confident of achieving its political objectives in a border war.
Thus, India will be able to balance China’s military assertiveness with a mix of geo-strategy and defence capabilities, provided it accepts limits in perpetuity on its existing military reactors.
(The writer is a former Indian Army officer and now Editor, FORCE, a newsmagazine on national security)