|
|
|
Although the deceptively labeled "comprehensive" test ban
treaty has been opened for signature, the stark reality
is that India holds the trump card on its entry into
force. The treaty is unlikely to take effect because
India has vowed never to accept it. India secured the
trump card because the nuclear powers, particularly
China, did not want a test ban that excluded their No. 1
target. New Delhi's "not now, not later" pledge, rooted
in an overpowering national consensus, means the treaty
will remain in limbo indefinitely. And although crafted
mainly as a technical 'fix" to proliferation, the pact is
likely to help crack India's decades-old nuclear re-
straint and recoil on its main sponsors.
This is the first treaty in modern history with a majori-
ty of states qualifying their endorsement of it.
Although 158 of the UN's 185 members supported it in the
General Assembly, state after state expressed serious
reservations about the treaty, pointing to its inherent
defects and the way the text emerged, not from the nego-
tiating process, but like a rabbit pulled out of a hat.
The bulk of the countries that took the floor saw the
treaty as flawed and said their support did not mean they
were accepting its deficiencies; rather they intended to
exploit the test ban to step up pressure on the nuclear
powers to embark on concrete disarmament steps.
The great powers, as during the NPT's permanent extension
last year, lined up the weakest and most obscure states
to puff up the list of nations backing the treaty's back-
door adoption. But some of these resolution co-sponsors
were not even present during the vote. Many reservations
placed on record by the major non-aligned states echoed
India's concerns. Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Bangladesh, Iran, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, among
others, voiced dismay that the treaty had been so de-
signed as not to arrest qualitative improvements in
existing arsenals. A host of interveners, including
Indonesia Columbia, Egypt, Thailand, South Africa and
Algeria were disappointed that the treaty was not part of
a total disarmament plan. Several states, including
Mexico and Indonesia, criticised the entry-into-force
formula with Ghana saying it 'virtually guaranteed the
indefinite hibernation" of the pact.
Nonproliferation charade
A few states like Iraq were not allowed to vote because
their UN payments were in serious arrears. But the
country which owes more than half of the UN's current
$2.8 billion debt and thereby has impaired its function-
ing, the United States, spearheaded the steamroller
action in the General Assembly. The latest US missile
attacks on Iraq have been defended solely by history's
most egregious colonialist, Britain, yet Washington
accuses India of becoming isolated-not for committing
aggression jut for rejecting an unequal treaty that would
constrain its capacity to build defences against weapons
of mass destruction. in the past, too, India has taken
principled positions without the fear of ploughing a
lonely furrow-such as on aggressor China's entry into the
UN and battling apartheid in South Africa-and been vindi-
cated by history.
Even on the test ban, India's stand will eventually be
vindicated. A new arms race involving extremely-low-yield
"nukes" seems inevitable since the treaty does not block
underground hydronuclear tests and the building of above
experimental facilities with advanced laser and computa-
tional abilities. As if to facilitate underground testing
at slightly supercritical or subcritical levels, the
treaty does not require the closure of existing test
sites or ban test-related preparation such as excavation
and drilling. Having got what it wanted. Washington will
begin conducting a planned series of underground tests at
Nevada at supposedly subcritical levels, although it
might wait for the presidential election to be over.
These tests will conclusively expose the treaty loopholes
and confirm Egypt's UN statement that what has been
adopted is another "partial test ban treaty".
A country of India's size can help spur change and need
not always swim with the prevailing global tide. Never
before in history was a regime erected to legalise the
great-power possession of a specific class of weapons and
seek to punish other states coveting them. Today, 'n-
uclear nonproliferation" is a widely chanted global-peace
mantra. The latest treaty, capping the NPT extension
success, could, however, imperil the very regime it is
supposed to serve. The treaty is likely to push India-
the only country in modern history to demonstrate its
capability to build a particular type of weapon system
and then withhold weaponisation for an inordinate period-
over the nuclear threshold. After the recent World Court
slap to legality claims about nuclear weapons threat or
use, the cause of disarmament needs a dramatic geostrate-
gic event to bust the giant nonproliferation charade. An
India forced to go nuclear would do just that.
The veil of ambiguity
The great powers, however, have already drawn up a stra-
tegy to secure India's compliance with the test ban
without its signature. Nonproliferation zealots are
already arriving in India to preach the virtues of com-
pliance the dangers of a can of worms opened by noncom-
pliance. But the way the treaty is structured, it will
ensure neither India's compliance nor signature. For more
than a quarter century, India has implicitly conformed to
the NPT without being a signatory. It might also have
complied with the test ban without signing it had the
treaty not been designed to forcibly pull its head to the
noose.
Without this treaty, India would have continued to do
what it has merrily done for three decades: Brood, medi-
tate, ponder, reflect and weigh whether it should go
nuclear, even as its defence preparedness comes under
severe strain and its external environment worsens.
Indian policy-makers, left to themselves, may never come
to a decision. However, by unleashing a hovering sanc-
tions threat and rearing new external pressure, the test
ban will compel India to reach out for the nuclear op-
tion's security benefits rather than continue to merely
bear its burden. It will force the nation to address the
option's technical and policy imperatives before further
neglect sets in irreversible erosion. Policy-makers are
likely to conclude that if the country is to be hanged,
it better be for doing something rather than for self-
restraint and self-denial.
If India does not exercise its nuclear option in this
century, it may never do so, since no option can be kept
open indefinitely in a credible and meaningful fashion.
The costs of indecision are beginning to mount sharply.
The treaty is not only reminding India of its closing
opportunity but prodding it to go nuclear. The treaty
thus may be a blessing in disguise for its fiercest
critic, India, ensuring that its nuclear option no longer
remains on the back burner of policy-making. The most
likely scenario is that when the treaty conference is
held in three or more years to consider "measures con-
sistent with international law" to accelerate the ratifi-
cation process, India would already have lifted the veil
of ambiguity from its nuclear-defence posture.
 |
||
|
||
|
||
