Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 4, 2001
US President George W Bush's publicly
announced plan to push ahead with defences against nuclear missiles reflects
his administration's unilateralism to assertively advance national interests
and add muscularity to policy. From repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol to
the readiness to abrogate the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
the Bush team is signalling America's intent to utilise its global pre-
eminence to full advantage.
Bush's presentation of an ambitious
National Missile Defence plan involving a triad of land, sea and air defences
should not come as a surprise. Just the way Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee's government conducted nuclear tests in keeping with his coalition's
pre-election nuclearisation pledge, Bush has agreed to do what he had committed
to do during the presidential campaign. But just as India's tests came
as a shock to many, Bush's NMD plan has jolted and dismayed a number of
world capitals.
India's positive reaction to Bush's
missile defence plan and his call for a broad strategic rethinking of the
role of nuclear deterrence does not appear impulsive and hasty, contrary
to what critics say. Rather, it seems like a product of a larger understanding
or deal with the Bush team.
This is evident not only from Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage's visit to New Delhi next week, but
also from the more significant trip to India towards the end of this month
by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry H Shelton.
Moreover, the Bush administration appears set to lift some important sanctions
against India, including in the military and space fields, raising the
possibility of New Delhi buying American weapon systems.
India's subtle endorsement of NMD
-- one of the few nations to openly back the plan -- has certainly opened
new opportunities for co-operation with the United States, even as it has
embarrassed India's traditional friend, Russia, and riled foe China. The
timing of the Indian statement on NMD was unfortunate, as it came on the
eve of the Russian foreign minister's important visit to New Delhi.
Russia will always remain a natural
ally of India. But while India has to revive its sagging relationship with
Moscow, those ties cannot come in the way of building an Indo-US strategic
partnership -- a partnership critical both for Indian security and Asian
stability.
India's positive response to the
NMD plan has clearly been driven by a careful consideration of India's
options and long-term interests. India has to make the best of a bad situation.
Its largest neighbour, China, will use NMD to further build up its already
expanding nuclear and missile arsenals. With or without NMD, India's security
will be adversely affected by the growing Chinese armouries and Beijing's
continued nuclear and missile transfers to Pakistan. But with NMD, India
will be squeezed further as China will have a justification to further
accelerate its build-up and flout international norms and conventions.
So what can India do in such circumstances?
Should India abandon its plans to build a nuclear deterrent force at very
modest levels and begin building up its capabilities? Or should it look
at other options?
Few can mistake Bush's single-minded
dedication to build an NMD as a shield against intercontinental ballistic
missiles as well as to construct a theatre missile defence system in East
Asia for limited-area protection against shorter-range missiles. Potentially,
America could arm itself with the capacity to both unleash a first strike
and protect itself from retaliation, upsetting the balance of nuclear terror.
Bush's plans will change the concept
and practice of deterrence -- a traditionally offence-based posture that
aims to retain a balance between mutual vulnerabilities. So far, deterrence
has been pivoted on the premise that 'if you hit me, I'll hit you back
in a manner that you'll regret.' NMD threatens to change that to: 'I can
hit you, but you can't hit me back, so you better behave.'
In terms of focus, NMD symbolises
a shift from offence to defence. Without offence being given up, deterrence
is to be constructed on the principles of defence to calculatingly tilt
the balance between mutual vulnerabilities in favour of one side.
Unfortunately for India, it is has
to face these emerging changes even before it has put in place a fully
operational deterrent force. The biggest expansion of missile capabilities
anywhere in the world is being done by China, which is building a new generation
of solid- fuelled, multiple-warhead missiles, such as Dongfeng 31 and Dongfeng
41. These are precisely the kind of destabilising systems that the START
2 treaty seeks to eliminate. As US House International Relations Committee
Chairman Benjamin Gilman has pointed out, China has deployed a large number
of short-range missiles and 25 intermediate-range missiles with nuclear
warheads in Tibet against India.
NMD and TMD carry serious implications
more for China than for Russia. Unlike China, Russia's huge strategic nuclear
force cannot be undercut. China has only two dozen US-reachable ICBMs,
with the rest of its 500-odd nuclear weapons comprising shorter-range systems
of consequence only to its neighbours like Japan, India and ASEAN states.
Any plan that can possibly contain
China's growing power and arrogance should aid Indian interests. To see
the Chinese rattled by US missile defences cannot but be a agreeable sight
for India. The problem, however, is that China is likely to respond by
going on a frenzied nuclear and missile build-up.
India's existing deterrent capabilities
will be gravely undermined as China builds up its nuclear and missile armouries.
The Sino-Indian asymmetry will increase to the extent that New Delhi will
be compelled to initiate an ICBM program. Moreover, once China begins to
build more sophisticated missiles armed with decoys and other penetration
aids to neutralise TMD and NMD, it will have greater commercial motivations
to recover some of the costs by selling Pakistan its older technologies.
India may have to arm its own missiles
with decoys and other countermeasures. But it is inevitable that it will
be attracted to missile defences and to potential collaboration with the
United States.
NMD's potential benefits could help
strengthen and expand US-led security arrangements. If NMD is seen to work,
the United States could extend a "missile umbrella" to its allies the way
it presently holds out a nuclear umbrella.
India, as a potential strategic
partner of the United States, could avail of such benefits in a manner
to reduce its burden of deterring burgeoning Chinese missile might. When
nations as dispersed as Japan, Taiwan and Israel have expressed interest
in defences against a potential missile attack, India has all the reason
to seek co-operation in that field with the United States. In a world marked
by rapid change, it is conceivable to think of a future India with its
own nuclear force but under a US strategic missile-defence umbrella.
On balance, India thus is right
to take a supportive view of Bush's missile defence plan. US missile defences
will not threaten India's security but could yield potential benefits.
The action-reaction cycle triggered by missile defences is likely to drive
India closer to the United States.
