Problems with Current U.S. Policy.

Key Problems

* Current trends indicate that U.S. nonproliferation objectives in South Asia will remain secondary to other perceived political, strategic, and commercial goals.

* Should the Bush administration continue to pursue incoherent nonproliferation policies and inappropriate influence strategies toward South Asia, India and Pakistan will likely deploy deliverable nuclear arsenals.

* Operational nuclear weapons in South Asia would destabilize a volatile region and undermine the international nonproliferation regime, subverting vital U.S. regional and global interests.

As India and Pakistan advance their nuclear capabilities, the Bush administration is formulating its nonproliferation policy toward South Asia. Ignoring the pressing need for more effective policy directions and influence strategies to contain South Asian nuclear proliferation, the White House seems bent on repeating recent mistakes. Perceived U.S. strategic interests have taken precedence over U.S. nonproliferation goals. The demands of engagement, particularly toward India, could result in the replacement of remaining sanctions by unconditional incentives to promote economic and political rather than nonproliferation objectives.

The Clinton administration waived most post-test sanctions in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade India and Pakistan to curb their nuclear and ballistic missile programs. To promote U.S. political and commercial interests, India was also extended substantial diplomatic and economic benefits without any reciprocal nonproliferation conditions both during Clinton's visit to India in March 2000 and during Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee's return visit in September 2000. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration--rejecting Indian and Pakistani demands for the unconditional removal of investment restrictions and all remaining sanctions, including sanctions on direct military sales or financing--warned India and Pakistan that full normalization of relations depended on nonproliferation progress.

Although the Bush administration is urging India and Pakistan to exercise nuclear restraint, it is likely that Washington will place nonproliferation issues on the back burner, given its perceptions of India's strategic worth. Whereas U.S. relations with its erstwhile cold war ally Pakistan are strained due to Pakistani support both for anti-Indian militants in Kashmir and for the Taliban in Afghanistan, India is regarded as a potentially valuable ally because of its political, strategic, and economic worth in the region and beyond. In Secretary of State Colin Powell's words: "India has the potential to keep the peace in the vast Indian Ocean area and its periphery."

India is also willing to support U.S. regional and global strategies, hoping to translate the resultant leverage into U.S. diplomatic and military inducements. Following meetings between Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Secretary of State Powell in Washington, and during U.S. special envoy Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's visit to India in May 2001, India endorsed President Bush's National Missile Defense proposal. Armitage also conveyed President Bush's intention "of working closely" with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee "to promote common interests in Asia and beyond." By projecting itself as a future strategic partner, India hopes that the U.S. will tacitly accept Indian nuclear weapons deployment and replace all remaining military, technological, and fiscal sanctions with inducements.

Opposition to sanctions against India is mounting both in the Bush administration and in the U.S. Congress. Officials such as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca stress that sanctions are harming U.S. policies of engagement with India and Pakistan. The nuclear sanctions of 1998 have "outlived their usefulness," states Rocca. However, nonproliferation advocates in the State Department oppose an unconditional removal of nonproliferation sanctions. Warning that unrestrained nuclear proliferation in South Asia would encourage copycat behavior and undermine the NPT regime, they are urging the administration to make inducements to India and Pakistan conditional on progress toward a nuclear cap.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed concern about South Asia's nuclear developments, cautioning: "We really have to make sure that this nuclear genie doesn't get any further out of the bottle." However, should advocates of a new strategic alliance with India prevail, nonproliferation will remain a secondary goal of U.S. South Asia policy. All remaining sanctions could conceivably be lifted unconditionally and even replaced by perverse inducements such as destabilizing arms transfers, the sale and transfer of dual-use high technology that can be used for weapons and delivery systems, and cooperation in civilian nuclear energy.

If the U.S. ignores nuclear proliferation objectives and provides inducements such as civilian nuclear energy to India, India's nuclear weapons program will benefit. U.S.-led multilateral nonproliferation regimes could unravel if the U.S. provides dual-use technology to India. Russia and China could then openly assist the nuclear and ballistic missile programs of their respective South Asian allies, India and Pakistan. Other potential regional proliferators, such as Iran, would also benefit from the resultant weakening of nonproliferation norms.

Should future U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation entail a tacit U.S. acceptance of operational nuclear weapons in India, a retaliatory Pakistani deployment is inevitable. Deliverable nuclear arsenals in South Asia would impair vital U.S. regional and global interests. The nonproliferation regime would weaken as other states are encouraged to follow the South Asian example. If the U.S. pursues a policy of containing China through a nuclear-armed India, heightened Sino-Indian tensions could result in a Sino-Indian nuclear arms race. Above all, the presence of operational nuclear arsenals in India and Pakistan would increase the threat of an accidental, unauthorized, or even intentional nuclear exchange, damaging all U.S. interests in the region: political, strategic, and commercial.

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