India's Flawed Nuclear Doctrine
A long rant when I heard the news about NSG ratifying their clauses to ensure India is refused ENR technology access.
India has a stated policy of No Nuclear First Strike or no-first-use. It goes well with the image the country tries to project – peace loving, yet non-tolerant of external aggression. It claims to have an impeccable record of non-proliferation, acknowledged by most intelligence reports. Yet the international community prefers to leave India in the cold when it comes to nuclear technology due to concerns that nuclear reprocessing can be directed towards a growing weapons arsenal.
The flaws in India's nuclear policy and the hypocrisy of the NSG's stance couldn't be more blatantly obvious to the informed observer. However the former is defined by a conservative bureaucracy and attested by a weak administration that lacks the foresight to decipher the real world implications for India of this myopic policy – not helped by the fact that a large majority of the billion plus people in the country are uninformed and don't give a damn, when they have to worry about more important things like the 10% inflation that is eroding their income and savings, at worst. The latter is a posture vetted by group of rubberstamp states with rich uranium deposits caught up in geopolitical polarizations defined primarily by the volume of trade or investments they are involved in with the heavyweights – the US, EU and China. Indian policy makers will secretly agree on the vested interests in play here, but I doubt they interpret this to be more serious than being played just to dent our image.
So what are the flaws in India's nuclear doctrine? Are these flaws limited to civilian nuclear use or are there concerns with our military stance too? The answer is a very clichéd 'Two sides of the same coin'.
Status Quo
Let us first look at India's guiding principle of no-first-use. On the face of it, the policy wins back India a little of the good will it lost after the nuclear tests of 1998 and reduces Pakistanis paranoia regarding India's nuclear weapons. It has achieved neither. India is still not a recognized weapons state and Pakistan's nuclear and missile arsenal are growing at a pace more rapidly than ever before. Further, in a real world scenario of a Pakistani or Chinese nuclear attack, the current stated deterrence means India could be anywhere between screwing in a warhead onto a missile to mobilizing the yet to be inducted submarines for a counter attack while the surviving political leaders sign on the dotted lines of submission. This is not a harsh assessment considering there is little that the world knows about the state of readiness of India's nuclear arsenal - anywhere between weapons systems de-mated from delivery systems, to, ready to launch systems without launch codes per control protocols. Considering this, the above worst case scenario is not only plausible but also a really strong possibility especially if the aggressor was the much stronger China. India's policy makers are wrong in thinking deterrence is fulfilled through nuclear and missile tests alone. Deterrence has to be stated and displayed - through a policy that states launch readiness and through display of protected launch systems – missile silos and stealth based mobile ballistic launch systems like submarines. India's no-first-use policy without proven deterrence is fuelling nuclear arrogance from neighbors. China is blissfully arming Pakistan – now, a universally acknowledged failed state.
India does not have a concrete civilian nuclear policy; instead it has stated ambitions on the role that nuclear energy must play in its long term quest for energy self sufficiency. The nuclear research budget seems to be sanguinely balanced between commercially deployed uranium/plutonium based reactors and planned deployment of thorium & thorium/plutonium/uranium based reactors. The civilian nuclear base has been largely home grown, with strong footprints covering the entire fuel cycle including reprocessing. The abundance of thorium as a resource means that India is the leading investor in thorium reactor technology that many scientists claim as the holy grail of fission based nuclear power.
However, technological shortcoming and more tellingly, resource shortage, has resulted in nuclear power contributing little to the countries' massive yet insufficient power infrastructure.
India does not have large deposits of uranium, the resource that the entire world's nuclear technology is based on. Nuclear exclusion that the world shoved India to over the last 4 decades has also played a part. While most of the west shared technology advances, substantially reducing research time and resources, India had all to do by itself. Thus, today the country is still far behind the nuclear club in terms of scalability of reactor size and overall safety standards. More importantly, reprocessing technology, essential in making nuclear power commercially competitive to coal based power, is a science closely guarded by those that have mastered it, primarily citing proliferation concerns. Though India has wet its feet with regard to enrichment and reprocessing, the research budget again allows for only a certain pace of advancement and it will take many more years to catch up. The same applies to research on thorium based reactors – it will take a decade if not more before commercial realization, again depending on how much of the technology must be home grown.
So what does the NSG's stance have to do with India's nuclear policy? Well, everything. India not being a signatory of the NPT and CTBT is what the 45 member cartel uses to exclude it from all forms of nuclear commerce. The nuclear deal with the US was supposed to remove this myopic and high handed stance, however the recent ratification of NSG regulations that disallows the transfer of ENR technologies is another cheap stunt that sets India back several years in its quest for energy self sufficiency. The changes adopted essentially mean India can forever continue to pay the US's and France's of the world billions of dollars to set up and maintain any number of reactors, but will not allow for far more economical, indigenous power stations to be built unless we build these technologies ourselves. Unlike most other industries, IAEA safeguards ensure no scope for reverse engineering, unless you have the resolve of the Chinese. What chance that these recent ratifications by the NSG were pressed by Areva/Westinghouse/GE and the likes? Or was it a veto led by the two-facedness of countries with vested interests fighting for a bigger pie of global growth?
If the international community wants to continue to exclude a country that represents a sixth of humanity surrounded by hostile neighbors, yet with an impeccable record when it comes to external aggression in the 5000 years of its existence, perhaps the millennia old approach of Indian diplomacy needs a serious rethink. The Security Council and the nuclear club is not representative of the current geo-political landscape with India excluded. The same international community expects India to bear the burden when it comes to climate control and tax its farmers to adhere to WTO norms. Many western commentators often cite the burgeoning population of India and the strain it causes and is posed to cause on the dwindling resources of the planet. Laughable, considering it would be the opposite if India spent the last 800 years colonizing the planet and Europeans stayed at home minding their own business. What more, absolutely no help is forthcoming from these armchair observers in stating a case for technology transfer that will allow for meaningful support to complement the internal effort to manage this burden.
What must India do?
India's diplomatic outlook must change. For long India has walked around with folded hands and lenience to the autocratic rules set by the provided few. This approach has not served India well and the persistence of this approach will widen the economic divide between the provided few and the wanting many. This does not just apply to India as a state measured up against other states, but also internally amongst the people of India. The taxes, the subsidies, the levies are all hurting those who cannot afford it and spurting the few who run the business in the country.
The issue of acknowledged membership to the nuclear club must be handled with aggression without further delay. If a seat at the nuclear table is not allowed, then India must jostle its way in. Since the guiding principle of nuclear non-proliferation is the excuse that the NSG uses to keep India out, a stand must be taken that will essentially make that principle out-dated. It appears that the NSG needs to be convinced that ENR technology will not be used for weapons grade plutonium buildup. To achieve this conviction, an immovable deadline must be set for the nuclear club to reconcile and give India its rightful place, non-adherence to which would result in several standalone measures that the country would take to achieve both credible nuclear deterrence as well as a revised energy security policy that involves no consideration towards climate change. The first of the conditions of non-adherence to request should state the intent for a demonstrated high yield thermonuclear detonation superior to efforts of 1998, aimed at providing conviction to the NSG members that India does not need any further stockpile of weapons grade plutonium. This also effectively neutralizes any intention on part of hostile states threatening India with any sort of nuclear misadventure. This must be complemented by a demonstrated or stated first strike capability. Secondly, the intent to re-write the energy policy that focuses heavily on India's available and internationally acquired coal resources, awaiting commercial maturity of alternate energy sources that are based on home grown technologies including nuclear.
India survived with élan, the pitiful sanctions of 1974 and 1998. In 2011, with an economy that is far more integrated with the rest of the world both as a supplier and consumer, any more sanctions will only hurt those imposers. Previous sanctions did not have a trade embargo except for technologies that were deemed to be critical and nothing new needs to be expected. Further, these critical technologies are still out of reach which the debate is about after all, so nothing changes. The high levels of growth the country is seeing is largely driven through internal productivity, savings, and investments so any impact will be negligible to none. The country has massive human capital that is getting smarter and more productive with each passing year and has nothing to fear from the autocratic west anymore.
In conclusion
The big five at the Security Council got there and stay there through years of lies, deceit and threat. India does not need to lie or deceive as there is no case that is more clear cut than its right to share a space at the world stage. However, with the shabby treatment that has been and is being meted to the country the option of threat should be exercised. This threat is not meant to be an arrogant show of strength; India will continue to be a non-aggressor as it has been for millennia. This threat is a Gandhian one – one of non-cooperation with neo colonialism, one of non-cooperation with global autocracy and illegitimate geopolitical polarization.
I will end this outburst with another broken record citation by western analysts – poor countries like India are likely to face the brunt of climate change and rising sea levels. Consider this. With the best part of their economies based on major cities lining either sides of the Atlantic and Pacific what exactly are the pundits trying to say? That Mumbai and Calcutta are more vulnerable than a New York, London or Shanghai or Tokyo? India won its freedom through non-cooperation; it is time it wins its rightful place on the world stage through similar means. The world will come around. Rest Assured!
I would be interested in critical review of my thoughts, without belittling or displaying contempt.
lol
