May 9, 2008
Ten years ago, the governments of India and Pakistan tested nuclear
devices, prompting a global uproar, a united front by the five
permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security Council, and stiff
sanctions directed at New Delhi and Islamabad. Although the timing of
the tests came as a surprise to the U.S. intelligence community, New
Delhi had foreshadowed its decision to test two years earlier by
withdrawing from the negotiating endgame for the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty (CTBT), a goal that was ardently championed from 1954
onward by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, and his
successors.
The Indian government explained its reversal on the CTBT's entry into
force clause, which required India and 43 other countries to join the
Treaty, which New Delhi claimed was an infringement on its strategic
autonomy. New Delhi also defended its position by arguing that the
CTBT did not call for a time-bound framework for nuclear disarmament,
even though this was not part of the negotiations. What truly rankled
New Delhi was that the walls of the global nonproliferation system
appeared to be closing in from all sides. The nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty had been indefinitely extended in 1995, with the promise of a
CTBT to follow=97a promise that the P-5 could condition but from which
they could not back away. India's nuclear enclave believed that
negotiations on a treaty ending the production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons would be next in line. Global ex****t controls also
seemed to be closing in on India's nuclear options, while the screw-
tighteners seemed to put blinders on when China helped Pakistan.
India's test of a nuclear device in 1974 was more of a physics
experiment than a workable bomb design, and India's nuclear enclave
was chafing at the bit. If ever there was a juncture to break free of
New Delhi's decades-long ambivalence regarding nuclear weapons, it
was, paradoxically, at a time of progress to prevent proliferation and
to end nuclear testing permanently. The timing of India's decision to
test depended on the election of a coalition government led by a party
with enough nerve to break out of this box. That government took
office in March 1998, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party's two most
senior politicians, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy
Prime Minister L.K. Advani. When India finally decided to test, it was
almost a foregone conclusion that Pakistan would also test. When New
Delhi obliged on May 11 and 13, no inducements or penalties the United
States and other capitals could identify were powerful enough to
prevent Pakistan from following suit. Just to make sure that Pakistan
would reject U.S. offers and to prevent India from being singled out
for international pressure, Advani issued a thinly veiled public
threat to the effect that now that New Delhi possessed the bomb, its
neighbor should watch its step in Kashmir. Pakistan tested its nuclear
devices on May 28.
Ten years later, India and Pakistan still have not accepted any
constraints on their strategic autonomy. Along with China, both states
are engaged in strategic modernization programs of considerable
breadth, building nuclear-tipped cruise missiles as well as ballistic
missiles to be carried by their land, sea, and air forces. India has
plans for a deterrent it deems worthy of a major power, which might
entail further tests to certify thermonuclear weapon designs. If India
tests again, Pakistan is likely to do so as well. The nuclear enclaves
in each county are highly respected at home and believe they have more
work to do. This spells trouble not only for the CTBT, but also for
initiating and successfully concluding fissile material cutoff
negotiations in Geneva.
While the CTBT remains in limbo, India and Pakistan have agreed to
several confidence-building and nuclear risk-reduction measures, such
as notifications regarding certain missile flight tests and military
exercises. After a period of domestic turbulence in Pakistan, these
discussions will resume, perhaps yielding more agreements that reduce
the possibility of unintended escalation. Each country is focused on
trade, economic development, and domestic cohesion, which suggest that
the divided territory of Kashmir, which Pakistani officials used to
describe as a "nuclear flashpoint," will remain calm. These
im****tant gains are unlikely to be supplemented by constructive
initiatives by India and Pakistan relating to nuclear negotiations.
A full version of this article was published in Arms Control Today and
is available at: http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_05/lookingback.asp
The Henry L. Stimson Center is a non-partisan, non-governmental
organization that works on hard problems of international security.
Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Stimson Center and a Diplomat
Scholar at the University of Virginia.
For more information on the Stimson Center's South Asia Program visit
http://www.stimson.org/southasia
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