India's quest for double use technology
n 2008, when former Indian President Abdul Kalam
was asked by a student why a peace-loving person such as
himself tasked his country’s scientists and engineers to build
missiles, Kalam replied, “In the 3,000-year history of India,
barring 600 years, the country has been ruled by others. If you
need development, the country should witness peace, and peace
is ensured by strength. Missiles were developed to strengthen the
country.”1 The founding father of India’s missile defense program, a
lead architect of its nuclear and space programs, and the author of
India Vision 2020—a plan meant to usher India into a new technology
age—Kalam appears frequently in any examination of India’s
technology renaissance. An ardent proponent of the military and
scientific communities, he doesn’t hesitate to talk about dual-use
technology. In India Vision 2020, Kalam claimed, “Newly emerging
technologies such as robotics or artificial intelligence . . . would
have a crucial impact on future defense operations and also on
many industrial sectors.”2 There is no doubt that Kalam envisioned
long ago what other Indian experts are only beginning to see: Dualuse
emerging technologies—space-, missile-, and nanotechnology—
would one day become a main driver of military technology
for the leading spacefaring nations (e.g., India, the United States,
Russia, and China) and that such dual-use technologies would provide
the building blocks for larger, more destructive systems.
For its part, the international arms control community only recently
began to understand the unprecedented dilemma in the overlap between peaceful commercial technologies and tools of warfare
developed through multi-tiered international partnerships. Thus,
concerned citizens and policy makers now find themselves unable
to object to space technologies that could enable destructive acts of
war since objecting to such technologies would be, in many cases,
to disagree with the development of technologies that also could
benefit humankind. The situation is made worse by countries that
facilitate dual-use technology transfers for strategic and economic
benefits while ignoring a partner nation’s proclivity toward sharing
such technologies with questionable nations.
In fact, until about a decade ago, India had been considered by
the United States to be a major contributor to missile technology
proliferation and an unwavering opponent of nearly every
major arms control treaty. But after 9/11 this view changed quickly
in Washington. As “security” became a subjective term, India
promptly learned to take advantage of the U.S. search for Asian
allies. At the same time, the country’s scientists and military officials
stirred domestic and international fears of regional terrorism
and Chinese hostilities so they could turn initially peaceful technology
transfers between New Delhi and Washington into military
research and development efforts. As the U.S.-India relationship
grew stronger, New Delhi began to acquire even more advanced
knowledge and technology.
Superficially, the U.S.-India partnership resembles a well-intentioned
relationship. But a closer look demonstrates India’s contradictory—
and outright worrisome—pursuit of dual-use technology
over the last decade. It also reveals Washington’s willingness to
choose regional friends and enemies and India’s eagerness to gain
technology and military prowess from a perceived vulnerable ally.
There are obvious questions to be asked: As the U.S.-India partnership
developed, why was no one in Washington paying attention to
statements and interviews coming out of India’s military and scientific
communities? And why was there no concern for the repercussions
of India’s acquisition of dual-use technologies, which could
set off a regional arms race?
Planning begins. As early as 1988, India planned to develop
dual-use technology for peaceful uses. In a government working
paper entitled “New Technologies and the Qualitative Arms Race,”
India explicitly called for “scientific and technological achievement
[to] be used solely for peaceful purposes.” More specifically, the
paper stated, “Progress in science and technology and the changes
that it brings about are a part of the historical process and no attempt
to halt that process because of the unwelcome nature of some
of these changes is likely to succeed. However, dedicated deployment
of science and technology for military purposes, irrespective
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