Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: U.S. Policy Challenges.

Key Points

* U.S. nonproliferation policy faces major challenges in South Asia, as India and Pakistan threaten to deploy deliverable nuclear arsenals.

* Incoherent U.S. nonproliferation policies and inappropriate influence strategies have encouraged India and Pakistan to advance their nuclear weapons capabilities.

* U.S. nonproliferation policies will influence Indian and Pakistani decisions to either further develop or curb nuclear weapons.

In May 1998, India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices. India has since declared its intention to deploy nuclear weapons, which would result in a retaliatory Pakistani deployment. Deliverable nuclear arsenals in South Asia would lower the threshold for nuclear use and could result in parallel Indian-Pakistani, Pakistani-Iranian and Sino-Indian nuclear arms races. Unbridled South Asian nuclear proliferation would also undermine the global nonproliferation regime, encouraging other states to follow suit.

Technological and financial constraints will prevent both India and Pakistan from deploying survivable nuclear weapons in the near future. Indian and Pakistani decisionmakers will also have to assess the potential diplomatic and economic costs, in particular the U.S. response to nuclear weapons deployment. Hence, the U.S. could persuade India and Pakistan to exercise nuclear restraint.

In the past, AMerica has failed to curb South Asian nuclear proliferation because of Washington's contradictory policies. Although &dared U.S. policy emphasized nonproliferation goals, other perceived political, commercial, and strategic interests often took precedence, sending mixed signals to India and Pakistan and encouraging them to advance their nuclear weapons programs. Moreover, the U.S. failed to influence Indian and Pakistani nuclear decisionmaking because of inappropriate influence strategies. Nonproliferation sanctions were insubstantial and rarely sustained; inducements were unconditionally extended. The past U.S. failure to pursue general disarmament also gave India and Pakistan a pretext to reject the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime as discriminatory and unjust.

The Clinton administration pursued a policy of diplomatic and economic engagement with India and Pakistan, hoping that inducement strategies would advance nuclear nonproliferation goals. But this policy of engagement was also meant to further other perceived U.S. political, strategic, and economic interests. Although some sanctions were retained to signal disapproval of both India's and Pakistan's nuclear developments, they were insubstantial and were too often eased unconditionally; undercutting their intention to influence Indian and Pakistani nuclear decisionmaking. And when its diplomatic aims conflicted with its nonproliferation goal, Washington downgraded its nonproliferation objective from totally eliminating to merely capping both India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons capabilities.

Motivated by both regional and domestic imperatives, in May 1998, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests. Hoping to match nuclear Chinas status and encouraged by an ambitious nuclear scientific estate, India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party opted for nuclear tests. Pakistan's anti-Indian military leadership pressured a reluctant prime minister to conduct retaliatory tests. However, India and Pakistan were also encouraged to test by the perception that external--in particular, U.S.--reproof would be bearable, since U.S. nonproliferation goals would remain secondary to other U.S. objectives in South Asia.

Concerned about the tests, the Clinton administration initially imposed punitive sanctions, hoping to pressure India and Pakistan to exercise nuclear restraint. Congressionally mandated sanctions prohibited dual-use exports, military sales and assistance, and commercial and governmental grants and credits. With (37 support, the U.S. also opposed new nonhumanitarian lending from the international financial institutions (IFIs). Sufficiently high diplomatic and economic costs and international offers of incentives, linked to nonproliferation progress, brought India and Pakistan to the bargaining table. Had the U.S. sustained this carrots-and-sticks strategy, India and Pakistan could have been persuaded to cap their nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Instead, the U.S. abandoned sticks for carrots.

Pressured by commercial interests and by the politically influential Indian-American community, in November 1998, Congress gave the president a one-year waiver to suspend most sanctions except restrictions on military assistance, dual-use exports, and military sales. In October 1999, the president was given permanent waiver authority to remove all sanctions under the Glenn amendment. Subsequently, most diplomatic and economic sanctions have been withdrawn, while financial and diplomatic inducements have been unconditionally extended. U.S. commercial and governmental credits and loans have resumed, and the U.S. has withdrawn its objections to IFI lending. For India and Pakistan, this policy shift signals that U.S. nonproliferation objectives are secondary to other U.S. political, economic, and strategic goals. Hence India and Pakistan have continued to develop their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Samina Ahmed <[e-mail]> is a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.