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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

WHY INDIA'S BOMB IS JUSTIFIED

A response to Pakistan and a big-power arc of weapons

By J.N. DIXIT, Foreign Secretary of India 1991-1994.
He has been ambassador to Pakistan
and led breakthrough talks with China in 1988.


FRANCIS BACON WROTE IN 1625: "A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause." This is sufficient answer in itself to those questioning India's five nuclear tests on May 11 and 13 and declaring itself a nuclear weapons state. It is an irony of geopolitics and strategic developments that these events took place in India, which has been a convinced and articulate advocate of eliminating weapons of mass destruction and votary of complete disarmament. Yet in becoming an overt nuclear weapons state, India is creating a new platform to argue the cause of disarmament.

From 1947 to 1996, India was an active architect of the partial Test Ban Treaty. And over five decades, it argued consistently to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. But the nuclear powers continued to modernize their arsenals, focusing on arms control rather than disarmament. They compounded the process negatively by introducing international regimes which distinguish between recognized nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear states, with provisions aimed at limiting the technological potential of the latter. This was reflected in the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

India refused a suggestion from the U.S. in 1963 that it produce an atom bomb as a counter to China, which was expected to become a nuclear power. It was only after Pakistan commenced its clandestine nuclear weapons program in 1972 that India took the unavoidable counter-measure of conducting the bomb test at Pokhran, in 1974. Pakistan's rationale was that after being defeated by India in 1971, the country should have that capability to prevent it ever again losing a conventional conflict with its neighbor.

After the 1974 test, India acted with the utmost self-restraint - till this month. India has never exported nuclear weapons technology. Its nuclear program has been under civilian control and is subject to scrutiny by Parliament. Despite this, India was the focus of restrictive, discriminatory pressures from nuclear powers aimed at limiting its technological potential and thereby undermining its security. There has been a growing consensus in India that the country should transcend this pressure and take initiatives to meet its own interests.

The discussions leading up to the CTBT were perceived in India as final proof that the nuclear powers wanted to relegate India and other technologically advanced developing countries to a second-class status. This was a sharp and precise perception because India had assurances from the U.S. and other advanced countries that the CTBT would not be discriminatory: it would not distinguish between states with nuclear weapons and those without. But as it evolved, the treaty's terms clearly indicated that those assurances had not been carried through.

This was the background to the latest tests. There were more immediate reasons. Pakistan has not only acquired nuclear weapon and missile capability, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has threatened their use against India. Pakistan has acquired M-11 missiles from China and Rodong II missiles from North Korea which could deliver nuclear warheads to India. And it has set up a plant at Fatehganj, 50 km from Islamabad, to produce various categories of missiles. In April Pakistan test-fired the Ghauri missile, and it has announced that it will test-fire the longer-range Ghaznavi and Babri missiles that would make most of India a target.

In an arc stretching from the Gulf down to Diego Garcia and across to the South China Sea, the U.S. and China have a military nuclear presence - land-based, airborne and seaborne. This apart, China is pursuing a defense modernization program with military and technology imports worth nearly $20 billion over the last five years. China's nuclear and missile capability are a factor in India's security evaluations. And, however they seek to justify it, China and Pakistan's technological defense cooperation affects India's threat perceptions. It is not a question of whether China has aggressive intentions toward India. This may not be so. But the evolving weapons environment required an adequate response.

India also felt that if it did not conduct the tests now, it would not be able to break out of the straitjacket of the CTBT stipulations which will come into force within a year. In sum, India's bomb is justified, first, for the country's national security requirements in the regional context; second, as a continuing basis for technological self-reliance for defense; third, to structure a strategic balance in India's neighborhood given superpower deployments; and fourth, to avoid being subjected to restrictive and punitive international regimes by being categorized as a non-nuclear weapons state.

Furthermore, India's objective is to change the discriminatory terms governing negotiations on non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. This is why India may not be inclined to sign the CTBT as is, much less the NPT. Finally, and most important, India's nuclear weaponization is motivated more by political and strategic purposes than operational military intentions. India will only opt for the latter under compelling and unavoidable circumstances.


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